May 2007

May Newsletter

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Hello again from ejazzlines!

May has arrived, and is charging by as we prepare the way for summer. We look forward to festival season again, and our wonderful school customers can rest assured that we are also busy preparing a great new array of chart selections for the summer re-stock season which is almost upon us.

Our Toshiba CD liquidation sale continues now with the addition of old, out of print Blue Note and Somethin' Else titles, although thanks to a great many of you, the supply is dwindling rapidly. However, we still have quite a few rare and wonderful titles available and stocked. We are not sure when the next batch of these will be available, so we thank you again very much and encourage you to take a look at what remains.

May's DVDs feature some great choices, led off by the long-awaited DVD release of Bill Dobbins' Evolution of Solo Jazz Piano. We also have DVDs featuring Larry Coryell, Miroslav Vitous, and Victor Wooten (Super Bass Solo Technique), and great multi-DVD sets of Fingerstyle Guitar: New Dimensions and Explorations and the Modern Drummer Festival 2006. We still have copies in stock of the very popular new DVD Trumpet Secrets Revealed (although we are sworn to secrecy as to the content!)

Our May book selection leads off with a few items sure to be appreciated by the many pianists out there: the brand new Diana Krall folio From This Moment On; Not Just Another Scale Book, which is a fresh approach to scales; and Salsa Piano, the newest edition in Hal Leonard's excellent Keyboard Style Series. We also recommend Alfred's new Total Jazz Bassist and the newest of the legal Real Books put out by Hal Leonard, The Real Book Vol 3, Bass Clef edition. These outstanding new legal Real Books have been very popular, and are finally putting the words 'legal' and 'Real Book' in the same sentence once and for all!

We are now offering Mosaic sets to libraries and institutional customers in the U.S. and abroad! For those of you not already familiar with the label, since its founding in 1983, Mosaic Records has established a worldwide reputation among knowledgeable jazz fans as the best reissue label in the business. Mosaic's limited edition boxed sets are collections of significant jazz recordings packaged in a way that shows great respect for the music, the musicians, and the music lover. Their releases are the standard by which all other reissues are judged. If you are currently set-up with us as a library or institutional customer, you will be able view and purchase sets from our website by visiting this page: MOSAIC RECORDS. We will be sending a more comprehensive announcement with complete details in the coming weeks.

In our globally monolithic effort to present all that is new and interesting, as of this newsletter we have added 79 new CDs for the month of May 2007 and 168 for the month of April 2007; 58 new DVDs for May 2007 and 44 for April 2007; 74 new music books for May 2007 and 92 for April 2007; 83 new big band and combo arrangements for the month of May 2007 and 51 for the month of April 2007.

If you haven't visited our our Imports and Rarities section lately, please check it out. We are now stocking more and more obscure, rare, and hard-to-find titles from Japan and Europe, including many titles that you may not be able to find elsewhere.

In our DVD section, we now carry nearly 1,400 jazz DVDs!

As always, please keep in mind that many of our new releases are available in limited quantities. We do our best to predict demand and fill orders as quickly as possible, but we do run out of new releases. Even if we run out of stock, everything featured in this newsletter should be available to ship within 3 weeks.

We thank you all again very sincerely for your continued support, and we look forward with all of you to the onset of summer and the cool beverages and hot jazz that come with it!

Rob and Doug at ejazzlines

FEATURED NEW CDs:
LEONARD FEATHER PRESENTS THE MITCHELLS AND THE JONESES Leonard Feather was the producer of the two unusual and highly regarded Metro Jazz LPs compiled on this CD. Recorded in New York in 1958, 'The Mitchells' features brothers Whitey (bass) and Red (bass & piano) along with trumpeter Blue Mitchell, pianist André Previn, trombonist Frank Rehak, and baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams. The second date showcases the famous Jones family: Thad, Hank, and Elvin, along with bassist Eddie Jones.	TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI: LULLABIES FOR YOU Recorded in 1965, this solo set features pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi inventively interpreting a collection of lullabies and children's songs.
SIR ROLAND HANNA AND GEORGE MRAZ: ROMANESQUE Here is a rare treat: an absolutely beautiful recording from late piano-master Roland Hanna with featured bass accompaniest George Mraz. The duo interprets a fine collection of classical standards.	DENA DEROSE/DECEMBER 2ND QUARTET: A NIGHT IN CLAREMONT Recently released on the Japanese Vega label, pianist/vocalist Dena DeRose shines here in this quartet recording featuring Dave Ellis, Ray Drummond and Akira Tana.
TOSHIKO AKIYOSHI: AT TOP OF THE GATE Here again is some wonderful piano playing from Toshiko. This 1968 9-song date features trumpeter Kenny Dorham and reed-man Lew Tabackin along with Ron Carter and Mickey Roker.	BOOKER ERVIN: FREEDOM BOOK Booker is one of our favorites - and this record is fantastic - even more so now that it has been remastered. This classic should find a home in every serious jazz collection.
RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK: KIRK'S WORKS This is one of Kirk's most soulful post-bop sets - now remastered. Teamed up with organist Jack McDuff (who is up to the challenge), Kirk is showacased on several instruments - and often at the same time - including the stritch. The result is a unique textural experience featuring overtones and other-worldly sounds. This is a masterpiece.	JONAH JONES: J.J. SPECIAL This Jones compilation features 3 dates originally issued on Swing, Vogue, and Bethlehem. The swinging trumpeter shares the solo spot with the powerful sound of Alix Combelles on tenor sax, and the soprano sax of Sidney Bechet. Also featured are trombonists Vic Dickenson and Urbie Green, along with clarinetist Edmond Hall.
ALL MAY 2007 CDs ALL APRIL 2007 CDs
FEATURED NEW DVDs:
EVOLUTION OF SOLO JAZZ PIANO The Evolution of Solo Jazz Piano is a study of solo piano styles developed by 24 of the most influential solo pianists from 1900 to the present. In order to clearly illustrate the specific contributions of the various pianists, Bill Dobbins composed a theme based on the well known standard All Of Me. By applying the stylistic approaches of the different pianists to the same theme, one becomes aware of the subtle yet evocative elements of each individual style. Common elements between Waller, Ellington, Tatum, Monk and Rowles, Tatum, Hines and Wilson, Smith and Ellington, Corea and Beirach etc., should make it clear that musical individuality is largely the result of the subconscious emphasis of some musical elements over others, rather than the self-conscious cultivation of originality for its own sake. The hope is that this DVD may serve as a stimulus toward the further study of the solo jazz piano tradition in particular and for creative music in general.	MIROSLAV VITOUS: LIVE IN VIENNA This concert was filmed in early 2005 at Vienna's famous jazz club Porgy & Bess, and features Miroslav Vitous on bass accompanied by the legendary Fritz Pauer on piano and John Hollenbeck on drums. Interwoven with the footage are insightful artist interviews.
LARRY CORYELL: A RETROSCPECTIVE This show was recorded at The Avalon in Hollywood, in 2005. It's a 2-disc retrospective on a career's worth of songs that are every bit as electrifying now as when they were first recorded. Coryell is a monster on guitar throughout the show, and Bernard Purdie (a legend in his own right) is on drums. Through several interviews and segments of rehearsal footage we can see how the music is created, or that until this release, Coryell has always been the best kept secret.	RAY CHARLES: AT THE OLYMPIA The concert film Ray Charles: Live at the Olympia documents a memorable concert from the legendary performer. Due to a number of mishaps, the vast majority of Charles' backing musicians were unable to get to the venue for the show, so with simply a drummer, a bassist, and a guitarist, Charles took the stage radically reworking some of his most well-known pieces.
ALL MAY 2007 DVDs ALL APRIL 2007 DVDs
FEATURED NEW BOOKS:
NEW WAYS OF BRAZILIAN DRUMMING New Ways of Brazilian Drumming presents a contemporary vision regarding Brazilian rhythms for drumset, including history and percussion scores of those rhythms, from the traditional patterns to the new concept of Brazilian Claves. The 96 track CD showcases all rhythms and several exercises, besides a samba and a maracatu play-along, providing everything a musician of any country needs in order to develop an authentic Brazilian musical language.	SALSA PIANO Learn how to play authentic salsa! From traditional Cuban music to the more modern Puerto Rican and New York styles, you'll learn the all-important rhythmic patterns of salsa and how to apply them to the piano. The book provides historical, geographical and cultural background info, and the 50+ track CD includes piano examples and a full salsa band percussion section.
DEATH OF A BEBOP WIFE: THE AL HAIG STORY This is the compelling life story of pianist Al Haig, one of the Jazz greats in the vanguard of the Bebop revolution. Over 15 years in the making, this is the uncomfortable and often horrifying story of a Jazz life as researched and told by a wife who survived an experience that left many devastated, and, in one case, dead. In a narrative as unique as the subject itself, Grange (Haig) Rutan boldly tells all in a cathartic account of Al Haig's life that is as unflinching as it is objective, leaving the reader able to experience from an omnipresent vantage point the humor, triumphs, tragedies, and the many sides and contradictions of Al Haig.	REAL BOOK, VOL 3: BASS CLEF EDITION This book doesn't really need an introduction - it is simply one of the most important bandstand tools out there. Here is volume 3, now available in bass clef.
ALL MAY 2007 BOOKS ALL APRIL 2007 BOOKS