Saturday, June 12, 2021

Unearthed Harold Land | "Westward Bound!" | Available June 12 via Reel to Real

Hard-Hitting Previously Unreleased
Live Performances by Bop Tenor Master
Harold Land Due from Reel to Real Recordings
 
Westward Bound! Features High-Voltage
1962-65 Dates Captured at Seattle’s Penthouse with
Trumpeter Carmell Jones, Pianist Hampton Hawes,
and Drummer Philly Joe Jones

Available June 12 in Celebration of ‘Record Store Day’
as a 33-1/3 RPM Two-LP Set on 180-gram Vinyl;
Available via on CD on June 18 and Digitally on August 6

Deluxe Package Features New Interviews with
Tenor Giants Sonny Rollins and Joe Lovano and Essays by
Jazz Authority Michael Cuscuna and Pianist Eric Reed
Continuing its mission to unearth important, previously unreleased jazz performances, Reel to Reel Recordings returns in June with Westward Bound!, a crucial collection of forceful quartet and quintet performances by the masterful tenor saxophonist Harold Land.

Crisply recorded at the Seattle jazz club the Penthouse in 1962-65 by engineer Jim Wilke and originally aired as part of a weekly broadcast from the venue on KING-FM, the new collection will be issued on June 12 in celebration of ‘Record Store Day’ as a 33-1/3 rpm two-LP set on 180-gram vinyl mastered by Kevin Gray of Coherent Audio and pressed by Standard Vinyl in Toronto. The album will then be available on CD on June 18 and digitally on August 6.

Reel to Reel – a partnership between Vancouver-based jazz impresario and saxophonist Cory Weeds and Resonance Records co-president and award-winning “Jazz Detective” Zev Feldman – was launched in 2018 with a pair of releases that included its initial title drawn from the Penthouse’s audio trove, Cannonball Adderley’s Swingin’ in Seattle. The label has since issued Ow!, featuring 1962 Penthouse dates by tenor men Johnny Griffin and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis; previous Resonance titles from the Penthouse archives have included sets by West Montgomery (Smokin’ in Seattle) and the Three Sounds featuring Gene Harris (Groovin’ Hard).

In his notes to the new album, Feldman writes, ‘I feel that these recordings of Harold Land are special and need to be heard. Land was one of the purveyors of West Coast jazz whom I feel is an under-recognized genius who doesn’t get discussed enough….Land was on top of his game during this important part of his career in the mid-1960s.” Comparing the new release to In Baltimore, Reel to Reel’s 2020 live collection by George Coleman, Weeds adds, “Westward Bound! finds us celebrating another unsung hero of the tenor saxophone.”

Born in Houston and raised in San Diego, Harold Land established himself as a jazz star with four EmArcy albums in the tenor chair of trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummer Max Roach’s celebrated ‘50s quintet. Based in Los Angeles from the mid-‘50s on, he worked fruitfully as a leader, recorded regularly with big band leader-arranger Gerald Wilson, and played behind such giants as Dinah Washington, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk, Les McCann, and Hampton Hawes. In later years he forged fruitful alliances with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, and the Timeless All Stars.
Sonny Rollins – who replaced Land in the Brown-Roach combo – says in a new interview with Feldman, “Harold Land was one of the premier saxophonists of the time. He was one of the best….He was a great player, one of my favorites.” Contemporary tenor titan Joe Lovano tells Feldman, “Harold had his own sweet way of playing and his own flowing language….He was equal to Coltrane and Sonny.”

The earliest of the Penthouse dates heard on Westward Bound! pairs Land with a similarly underestimated player, the gifted Kansas City trumpeter Carmell Jones; the two musicians worked together regularly on sessions for Pacific Jazz Records. In his overview essay, jazz historian and producer Michael Cuscuna notes, “He and Land made a like-minded team; each would play every note with purpose and articulation.” The band on the Dec. 12, 1962 performance also included Wes Montgomery’s brothers Buddy (piano) and Monk (bass) and drummer Jimmy Lovelace.

During Penthouse gigs on Sept. 10 and 17, 1964, Land was joined by another prominent artist he had worked with before: pianist Hampton Hawes, who had led the storied 1958 quartet date For Real!, which also featured the saxophonist. In an essay about the keyboardists heard with Land on the new album, pianist Eric Reed says, “Although it is not widely acknowledged (or even known), Hamp was largely responsible for blending the language of the Blues, Jazz, and Gospel music in such a way as to influence many that came after him.”

Westward Bound! climaxes with an Aug. 5, 1965, date featuring Monk Montgomery, pianist John Houston, and another jazz legend, the explosive drummer Philly Joe Jones. The rhythm turbine of Miles Davis’ magnificent ‘50s quintet, Jones relocated in the ‘60s to L.A., where he played regularly with Land. Cuscuna writes, “This is a high-octane quartet, thanks in large part to Philly Joe’s ability to swing hard and keep a tight rein on the music with the loosest feel.”

In his own introductory note to the album, Charlie Puzzo, Jr., son of the Seattle club’s owner and operator, says, “I hope the release of this album will allow you to experience the magic of Harold Land’s performances at the Penthouse and also to feel the excitement of actually being in the audience. As a collector myself, I know how important it is that the packaging and esign live up to the source material, and I believe this album does just that.”

Harold Land · Westward Bound!
Reel to Real · Release Date: June 12, 2021

Anne Paceo - Circles Live (June 12, 2021 Jusqu'à La Nuit)

1. Sunshine 05:55
2. Tzigane 09:01
3. Birth and rebirth 05:34
4. Toundra 05:11
5. A tempestade 08:22

Christophe Panzani : sax
Leila Martial : vocals
Tony Paeleman : keys
Anne Paceo : drums, vocals

All the tunes are composed by Anne Paceo
The lyrics on "Birth & Rebirth" are written by Leila Martial

This Saturday We Are Opening The Vaults! / Newvelle Records

Starting this Saturday we are opening the vaults on our entire discography.

While supplies last


Beginning on Record Store Day

Saturday June 12th

Our Complete Discography will be 
available for individual purchase 

Individual albums are available
for $65 + FREE SHIPPING at newvelle-records.com

Stock is limited


"Newvelle Exemplifies the art of the LP"
— James Hale, Downbeat Magazine

Brian Kastan - Conversation Colors (June 2021)

Conversation Colors is an improvised double album that was recorded live at Continuum Fine Art & Photography on March 24th 2021. This recording is the 1st time all of us played together as a group. The music ranges from extreme color space to hard hitting grooves and anything in between...

1. Spectrum 16:48
2. Lost Conversation 03:02
3. The Meeting 10:42
4. Conversation Colors 16:36
5. Colors of My Alpha Waves 20:09
6. I'd Rather Look at the Clouds 07:22
7. I Will Meet You There 08:02

Brian Kastan - Guitar
Juini Booth - Upright Bass
Leo Genovese - Keys
George Spanos - Drums

Recorded by Brian Kastan at Continuum Fine Art & Photography
Mixed and Mastered by Kamilo Kratc
Album cover by Brian Kastan

Andrew Woodhead - Pendulums (June 2021)

This bold new suite of original music for Bellringers, Improvisers and Electronics features some of the UK's most exciting musicians alongside the award-winning Bellringers of St Paul's Church Birmingham, and live electro-acoustic pieces of remixed field recordings from churches, bells and related found sounds along the way.

Pendulums was commissioned by Ideas of Noise with additional funding from Help Musicians UK and Arts Council England. The recordings for the album were made at the premiere on 8th February 2020 with additional recordings on 27th October 2020 at St Paul’s Church Birmingham.

‘The music on this record is inspired by the sounds, patterns and processes of bellringing. Some of it involves musicians pretending to be bells, other parts involve bellringers pretending to be metronomes, sometimes everyone plays together.

Campanology is an interesting art form in that it embraces many contradictions; it is simultaneously extrovert and introvert, ritual and recreational, music and not-music.

I love the collectivism that I felt from rehearsing with the bellringers at St Paul’s, and the meditative feeling that descends in the ringing chamber when a course is being rung. I hope to capture some of those thoughts in the music, and that you enjoy listening to it.’

Andrew Woodhead

1. Ring Up/Plain Hunt I 07:47
2. Sideways 03:22
3. Changes 09:52
4. Plain Hunt IV 06:18
5. Plain Hunt II 06:23
6. Partials II 04:08
7. Formation 04:28
8. Tolls/Waves 11:45
9. Diagrams 06:27
10. Partials I 04:00
11. Plain Hunt III/Ring Down 03:28

Trumpets:
Sam Wooster
Charlotte Keeffe

Alto Saxophones:
Sam Andreae
Lee Griffiths

Baritone Saxophones:
Helen Pappioannou
Alicia Gardener-Trejo

Live Electronics and Compositions:
Andrew Woodhead

Bellringers:
Tony Daw
Jonathan Thorne
Matthew King
Alex Frye
Graham Kelly
Ros Martin
Angie Wakefield
Richard Grimmett

Recorded 8th February and 27th October 2020 at St Paul’s Church, Birmingham
Mixing and Mastering by Luke Morrish-Thomas
Photographs by Guri Bosh
Design by Tom Chapman

All compositions by Andrew Woodhead
Electronic samples from field recordings by Andrew Woodhead.
Ring Up, Changes, Formation and Ring Down contain melodic and conceptual elements from traditional bell-ringing methods.