Jorge Ben - África Brasil (1976)

This 1976 album is undoubtedly one of the greatest classics of Brazilian popular music, with Jorge Ben mixing funky samba, Afro-Brazilian beats, and crunching guitars to create one of the most fascinating sounds ever recorded in Brazil.

The album kicks off with the raw, energetic "Ponta de Lança Africano," and from there on it never slows down, but continues to pile up one fiery, funky gem after the other. The samba soul and samba funk scenes of the '70s in Brazil produced many great artists and many great recordings, fully comparable with the best soul and funk music recorded in the U.S. during the same period. Jorge Ben was the most prominent figure of this scene and "África Brasil" is probably the most famous of his '70s recordings. For any person who is interested in the music of Jorge Ben, or indeed Brazilian funk in general, there is no better sample of it than "África Brasil".

Tracklist:

A1	Ponta De Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)	3:58
A2	Hermes Trismegisto Escreveu	3:04
A3	O Filósofo	3:30
A4	Meus Filhos, Meu Tesouro	3:53
A5	O Plebeu	3:18
A6	Taj Mahal	3:10
B1	Xica Da Silva	4:00
B2	A História De Jorge	3:53
B3	Camisa 10 Da Gávea	4:18
B4	Cavaleiro Do Cavalo Imaculado	4:43
B5	África Brasil (Zumbi)	3:48

Jorge Ben - África Brasil (1976)
(320 kbps, cover art included)             

Nina Simone - Broadway Blues Ballads (1964)

There's a lot more Broadway and a lot more ballads than blues on this, which ranks as one of her weaker mid-'60s albums. Almost half the record features Broadway tunes on the order of Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein; most of the rest was composed by Bennie Benjamin, author of her first-rate "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," which the Animals covered for a hit shortly afterwards (and which leads off this record).

The other Benjamin tunes are modified uptown soul with string arrangements and backup vocals in the vein of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," but aren't in the same league, although "How Can I?" is an engaging cha cha. Besides "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," the album is most notable for the great "See-Line Woman," a percolating call-and-response number that ranks as one of her best tracks. The CD reissue includes the strange bonus cut "The Monster," an odd attempt at a soul novelty tune.

1. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" (Bennie Benjamin, Gloria Caldwell, Sol Marcus) - 2:48
2. "Night Song" (Lee Adams, Charles Strouse) - 3:06
3. "The Laziest Gal in Town" (Cole Porter) - 2:19
4. "Something Wonderful" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers) - 2:46
5. "Don't Take All Night" (Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus) - 2:54
6. "Nobody" (Alex Rogers, Bert Williams) - 4:18
7. "I Am Blessed" (Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus) - 2:57
8. "Of This I'm Sure" (Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus) - 2:37
9. "See-Line Woman" ([traditional] American folk, George Bass, Nina Simone) - 2:38
10. "Our Love (Will See Us Through)" (Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus) - 3:01
11. "How Can I?" (Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus) - 2:05
12. "The Last Rose of Summer" (Thomas Moore, Richard Alfred Milliken, Nina Simone) - 3:08
13.  "A Monster" is added as a bonus track. (Bennie Benjamin, Sol Marcus) - 2:47

Nina Simone - Broadway Blues Ballads (1964)
(320 kbps, cover art included)

Georges Brassens - Don Juan - Vol. 12 (1976)

One of French pop's most poetic songwriters, Georges Brassens was also a highly acclaimed and much-beloved performer in his own right. Not only a brilliant manipulator of language and a feted poet in his own right, Brassens was also renowned for his subversive streak, satirizing religion, class, social conformity, and moral hypocrisy with a wicked glee. Yet beneath that surface was a compassionate concern for his fellow man, particularly the disadvantaged and desperate.

His personal politics were forged during the Nazi occupation, and while his views on freedom bordered on anarchism, his songs expressed those convictions more subtly than those of his contemporary, Léo Ferré.

Though he was a skilled songwriter, Brassens had little formal musical training, and he generally kept things uncomplicated - simple melodies and spare accompaniment from a bass and second guitar.

Along with Jacques Brel, he became one of the most unique voices on the French cabaret circuit, and exerted a tremendous influence on many other singers and songwriters of the postwar era. His poetry and lyrics are still studied as part of France's standard educational curriculum.       

"Don Juan" was officially his final album.

Tracklist:

1	Trompe La Mort
2	Les Ricochets
3	Tempête Dans Un Bénitier
4	Le Boulevard Du Temps Qui Passe
5	Le Modeste
6	Don Juan
7	Les Casseuses
8	Cupidon S'En Fout
9	Montélimar
10	Histoire De Faussaire
11	La Messe Au Pendu
12	Lèche-Cocu
13	Les Patriotes
14	Mélanie
	Bonus :
15	Les Copains D'Abord
16	La Visite
17	Élégie À Un Rat De Cave

Georges Brassens - Don Juan - Vol. 12 (1976)

(ca. 192 kbps, cover art included)

VA - Klangdenkmal für die Opfer des Holocaust - A Monument in Sound for the Victims of the Holocaust (2004)

Today we remember the anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November1938, also known as "Novemberpogrome", "Reichskristallnacht", "Reichspogromnacht" or "Pogromnacht" in German.

Twenty six variations on a subject that one finds difficult to put into words. The incomprehensibility and the magnitude of the Holocaust can perhaps be described in facts, dates and figures - but the suffering of the victims, the regret about what happened, the consequence is especially difficult to "grasp" in terms of one´s owen life. Perhaps this is the reason for music as music is "the ability to communicate where speech has ended" (R. M. Rilke) and gives us the possivility of combining emotions and reason without a verbal setting, to allow grief and hope to flow into each other and in this manner to remember the victims in a very special way.

The "Monument in Sound for the Vicitms of the Holocaust" has been "built" by 27 composers who belong to the "Deutsche Komponistenverband" (German Association of Composers). The project was initiated in 1999 following a unanimous resolution passed by the associations´s state branch in Berlin. Composers from a variety of generations and artistic origins are involved and the starting point was the theme of a song by Coco Schumann. He was persecuted as the son of a Jewish mother and deported to the concentration camps Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Dachau - he survived these camps and still performs on stage to this very day.

The theme of his compositon was arranged for a string quartet setting and sent to all the project´s participants in alphabetical order, one after another. Each artist then had the possibility, whilst taking the opening theme into consideration, to take up from his predecessor in terms of compostion or to carry on independatly ins or her own way. As such, after two years work, an astonishingly homogeneous musical piece of contemporary history came into being, contrary to all doubts, created by artist from a variety of musical fields - from jazz, avant garde and serious music. A musical work in which past and present flow into a spiritual entirety, as the sum of the involved composers´ personal and subjecitve experiences, each being treated in their own individual artistic manner.


VA - Klangdenkmal für die Opfer des Holocaust (2004)
(256 kbps, cover art included)