#1211 Frank Sinatra & Count Basie – It Might As Well Be Swing

Sinatra’s singing always sounds so effortless. None more so than on the sweeping swooning Fly Me to The Moon, the delicious opening appetiser on this album. As with many appetisers, they’re often the best part of the meal, and whereas that isn’t a remotely fair comment on this fantastic collaboration between Frank Sinatra and Count …

#47 Joan Armatrading – The Very Best Of

I first came across Joan Armatrading in 1992 from her song City Girl on a compilation owned by my Aunt (who I was living with at the time). I can’t remember the comp but was utterly struck by the song and it took me at least a decade to track it down again on her …

#440 Duke Ellington – In A Magenta Haze

Another of my grandfather’s records with his obscure cataloguing system: a small sticker in the bottom right hand corner bearing the code: M56A. This record is a 1965 compilation release by the UK arm of the record label Pickwick, known mainly for their cheap sound-alike releases and knock-up compilations. Perhaps for that reason the album …

#1228 Martial Solal – Martial Solal Trio at Newport ’63

This reissued CD has a facsimile of the front and back of the original 1963 vinyl release, featuring the insult dressed up as a compliment from Dizzy Gillespie: “It is remarkable to discover that an artist so far removed from the roots of Jazz as Algeria and France can adapt himself so magnificently, and can …

#34 Fiona Apple – When the Pawn…

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring There's nobody to batter when your mind is your might So when you go solo you hold your own hand And …

#353 Cults Percussion Ensemble

I’ve been to Cults, they’ve got a nice garden centre there. There’s a lot of nice garden centres south of Aberdeen in the Deeside area. I should know, I used to work in one, in Banchory (about 14 miles from Cults on the A93). This CD is a lovingly remastered and reissued release by Mr …

#360 Miles Davis – Kind of Blue

This is THE jazz album. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing for Allmusic.com so accurately puts it, it’s the “Citizen Kane of jazz”. But exactly what is it about it that makes it so special? There’s the sheer craftmanship of the musicians Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, James Cobb and Wynton …