Скачать или смотреть Leon Thomas - Lonnie Liston Smith - Oliver Nelson

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Our latest batch of Flying Dutchman reissues comprises three very different albums. Leon Thomas' "Blues And The Soulful Truth" is rightly considered a masterpiece of early 70s jazz vocal. Bob Thiele, Flying Dutchman's owner, had seen the success of Esther Phillips' "From A Whisper To A Scream", which featured the arranging skills of Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis, the former leader of James Brown's band. He figured a similar mix of jazz, blues and soul, could do the same for Thomas, and brought Ellis on board. 'Love Each Other' and 'L-O-V-E' find Thomas in Donny Hathaway territory, performing danceable and exciting soul, while covers of 'Boom-Boom-Boom' and 'C.C. Rider' show him to be a natural blues singer. However, it is with the jazzier numbers that the employment of Ellis really pays off. 'Shape Your Mind To Die', featuring a distinctive Eastern soprano sax motif from Ellis, is one of the finest moment in Thomas' entire catalogue, while 'China Doll' is a beautiful jazz ballad and 'Gypsy Queen' adds vocals to a number made famous by Santana.

Lonnie Liston Smith regards "Cosmic Funk", his second album as a leader, as a transitional release: "Before recording this album, I was still playing with Miles Davis. You can hear some Miles influence. On the following album, "Expansions", I really discovered the Lonnie Liston Smith "cosmic" sound." By this point, Lonnie was a respected sideman, having also played with Art Blakey, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Pharoah Sanders and Gato Barbieri. 'Sais (Egypt)', the track which sounds most like his work with Sanders, is an extended number written by James Mtume who had played percussion in Miles Davis' group. Lonnie's brother Donald sings on four of the album's tracks, including the title number, which is similar to the sound Davis achieved on "On The Corner". "Cosmic Funk" was more of a straight jazz album than might have been expected at the time -- particularly for one with "Funk" in its title. Lonnie would never really go down that route, although his next release would include one of the most successful of all jazz funk dancers.

Arranger and alto saxophonist Oliver Nelson's "Swiss Suite" is recognised as his last major jazz work. His death four years later robbed jazz of one of its finest composers, while success writing for film and TV had kept him away from jazz in the intervening years. Nelson had risen to prominence with "Blues And The Abstract Truth", one of the first crossover jazz albums of the 1960s, before becoming an in-demand arranger and the composer of themes for Ironside, Six Million Dollar Man and others. He joined Flying Dutchman Records in 1969 and two years later appeared as the opening act at a night celebrating the label at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. This album captures that performance. The aptly named title track, a showcase for lead saxophonists Gato Barbieri, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson and Nelson himself, was composed specifically for the event, which also featured reprisals of three of his favourite older pieces, including the celebrated 'Stolen Moments'. This reissue marks the album's first appearance on CD.
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