My new CDs

The places that I visit these days are cold and windy - not much fun to travel on the Mediterranean these days - if the rest of Europe is covered with snow, coast towns of Italy, France and Spain are just icy & freezing. Only Barcelona seems to keep sunny,smiling face and is always the most beautiful and exciting port that we visit. It also happens to be the place with excellent CD shop that somehow resist closing down - there are few in downtown area, despite of trend of CD shops to close down and disappear as people buy music on line or simply download somewhere. I am old fashioned,so I like to buy CDs with liner notes,photos and informations who played where and when,its important to me. 

So - here are some of my new purchases.

Little Richard's first two LPs from 1957 and 1958 are now released on one CD and I love them dearly. I probably wouldn't care for them several years ago, but in the meantime I've heard many of his contemporaries and can understand what exactly he was doing and how it continued to influence other artists. He combined several exciting ingredients into his own musical style and its really good. Strange his moment in the sun seemed to have been relatively short and he never again got this white-hot inspiration like in 1950s.

Bobby "Blue" Bland's early recordings are now available as "The Duke Sides 1952-1960" (sub-titled "Little Boy Blue") and its excellent introduction of his classic work, how and why he became legend in the first place. I already have some of his work from 1960s and beyond but this is the first time that I hear this material. He wails backed by excellent guitar playing,horns and big orchestra - in my opinion this is in the same league as B.B.King's classic work, first rate and I really love it despite the fact that most of songs are lyrically downbeat (but curiously they are very upbeat musically). You click your finger to Bobby's heartbreak stories!

Same thing for Bessie Smith Complete Recordings Box set. I loved Bessie for many years now (listened her more than decade - or had it been two?) and enjoyed two compilations of her work - "The Collection" was released long time ago as part of "Columbia Jazz Masterpieces" and  two-CD "Essential Bessie Smith" not long after that. Of course she worked in 1920s so she had never released LP albums, her singles were sporadically re-discovered by every new generation and compiled just like music by Billie Holiday - who in fact, often mentioned Bessie as her main inspiration (I think it was Billie that turned me on to Bessie in first place). Back to CD Box - as I browsed in Barcelona's CD shop nothing particularly interested me until I saw this Box - Heaven sent for classic blues connoisseur like me - well,I did not have money to buy it immediately but waited next week and than walked back for my Christmas present for myself. It wasn't even particularly expensive - in fact it was very affordable, considering this is box after all with COMPLETE RECORDINGS - I enjoy it very much in spite of the fact that she sings the Blues and lyrics are mostly downbeat - this music suits me so much that I feel it in my bones and suspect I used to live in 1920s. 

Latest purchase was Mina (what else to buy in Italy) and second of her multi-lingual trilogy. Recently I wrote about her spanish-language compilation and yesterday I bought english one. Not convinced this is the best way to introduce her to my english speaking friends, because her particular magic somehow gets lost in translation - whatever is passionate and dramatic in italian, sounds somehow empty banal here and though the voice & music are exactly same as in original recordings, I suspect its better to stick to italian originals. 

Essay on Bessie Smith coming soon.