Joe Diorio, Ira Sullivan - The Breeze And I (1993)

This CD has a set of duets by guitarist Joe Diorio and Ira Sullivan, who is heard on flute, alto flute, soprano, and alto sax. The music is mostly standards (other than Diorio's "Lovely Afternoon" and Wayne Shorter's "Dance Cadaverous") and taken exclusively as lyrical ballads. Sullivan never really cuts loose and does not play any trumpet on this project, and the lack of mood variation gives a definite sameness to each performance, so the project -- which is full of heartfelt interpretations of such numbers as "The Breeze and I," "I Wish You Love" and "The Summer Knows" -- is best listened to either a few numbers at a time or as superior background music. ~ by Scott Yanow, AMG. 

RAM Records, RMCD 4508, 1994
Recorded 9th June, 1993 at Bill Wray's Skyline Studio, Mechanisburg, Pennsylvania 

Musicians:
Joseph Diorio - Guitar
Ira Sullivan - Alto Sax, Soprano Sax,, Flute, Flute [Alto], Percussion 

Tracks:
01. Breeze And I {Ernesto Lecuona, Al Stillman} (8:53)
02. I Wish You Love {Charles Trénet} (5:58)
03. Day By Day {Stephen Schwartz} (6:22)
04. Beautiful Love {D. Gillespie, W. King, E. Van Alstyne, V. Young} (5:38)
05. Look To The Sky {Antônio Carlos Jobim} (4:45)
06. I'll See You Again {Noël Coward} (4:24)
07. Summer Knows {Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Michel Legrand} (7:00)
08. Without You {Osvaldo Farrés, Ray Gilbert} (4:58)
09. Dance Cadaverous {Wayne Shorter} (5:22)
10. Lovely Afternoon {Joe Diorio} (4:54) 

Total Time: 58:13 

Credits:
Producer, Recording, Mixing Supervisor, Liner Notes - Raimondo Meli Lupi
Assistant Mixing Engineer - Jeff Way
Mixing Engineer - Jim Anderson
Mastering Engineer - Gennaro Carone
Art Direction - Giorgio Anedda [Audiovideo, Milano]
Cover Concept, Graphic Design - Alberto Berengo Gardin
Photography - Ruggero Balzan

Eddie Harris - Exodus To Jazz (vinyl rip)

Someone suggested an Eddie Harris series in recent comments so I thought I'd toss this one out for a starter. Harris was a really unusual horn voice at this point in his career - a tone with the airyness of Getz and Desmond but drenched in Chicago Blues.

 I was somewhere around 10 years old when first I heard this one. It was a favorite of my step-father's so it was played often enough that I noticed it even as a kid. I also seem to recall the music showing up on T.V. soundtracks by the mid to late 60's, but I could be wrong there.

Years passed and I forgot the album entirely until a badly re-mastered Collectables two-fer CD reminded me just how good it was. At some point early in the digital ballgame I made a mini-disc rip of a scratchy LP that I think I had borrowed. The mini disc wav files were eventually stored on a CD when I gave up on the medium, and were promptly forgotten. I was going thru a CD wallet with some unmarked discs and tossing most of them out, but these files had been partially tagged on the disc (albeit incorrectly) and I decided to see what I could do with the files.

Isotope RX cleaned up the clicks and pops and resolved the slight clipping issues. A lovely rip emerged after some additional beginning and ending editing on the bit of groove noise there. I'd guess that I had a HiFi Mono version rather than the stereo covers shown here: these I obtained from discogs - it looks like mono in both Audacity and Isotope, and it sounds like High Fidelity Mono to my ears when played. It sounds quite good, but there is no apparent 'sound-stage'. In 1961 the mono version likely sounded better than the stereo anyway.