Tony Dagradi - Lunar Eclipse (24/48 vinyl rip)

Tony Dagradi - Lunar Eclipse
 Gramavision 1981

1) Les Deux Couleurs
2) Heart to Heart
3) Duplicity
4) Lunar Eclipse
5) Whirl

Never let it be said I don't support my New Orleans home boys. I posted this on an mp3 years ago from other sources but this one here is FLAC  from my own crispy clean vinyl.

This is de-facto the first Astral Project album. Here is the band as it then performed in New Orleans (1981), minus vocalist Bobby McFerrin. The Beast, David Torkanowsky, is on piano. Dave is of Russian and Cuban descent and both his parents were professional musicians, his dad a classically trained and regularly employed one (a conductor I believe). He also grew up hanging at the French household in the Treme (Bob and George's dad Poppa Albert led the original Tuxedo Brass Band). The result of this is that Dave can play any damn thing in the world pretty much as well as anyone in the world. I get a real kick out of listening to this 31 year old picture of Jim Singleton and Johnny Vidacovich (a bass and drum pair we will send up against any in the world) and see how just how freaking good they were even 30 years ago. These are two guys who have always been really good but have never stopped getting better. I've had many nights where they sent us all home at the end walking on a cloud and talking about it for days. Steve Masakowski is still a couple years away from joining the band but here they have a really nice Cuban percussionist in Mark Sanders. Mark has since left town and lives and works in New York City. Oh yeah, Tony? Well you should KNOW he's a bad-ass from his time in the Carla Bley Band.

Melvin Sparks, James Singleton and Johnny Vidacovich Live at The Howling Wolf, N.O.

 I don't recall where or when I got this but I listened to it the other night and I was impressed at how well these three meshed on this date. They really did a fine job of capturing the almost magical communication Johnny and Jim have and the remarkable way in which they can make almost any third guy sound like he has been part of the band for years. Melvin was the visitor here but the opener, Freddie Hubbard's First Light, sounds like they have been playing it together for years. A really nice set and a chance to hear Melvin not long before his death.