MERIT HEMMINGSON - Rollskog (Mer Svensk Folkmusik På Beat) (Columbia, 1972)

Music freak from the day I was born. Started with accordeon at four and the piano at seven.

After school my plan was to attend Oscar Petersons jazz school in Toronto in the beginning of the sixties, but instead I went to New York to get a band together. I was digging jazz in the famous jazz club Birdland almost every night and even sat in with Miles Davis band at Village Vanguard. Got piano lessons from both Joe Zawinul and Lalo Shifrin. Formed a band in the US with four black female jazz musicians, altosax, trumpet, bass and drums and myself on the piano. We were touring in Sweden for six months, "Merit H. and her Girl Stars".

Left the jazz scene and found my real big "Love" the Hammond B3 organ and started the group Meritones, with which I made my first album in 1967.

In the beginning of the seventies Swedish folk music entered my life which resulted in three gold discs ”Huvva”, ”Trollskog” and "Bergtagen". At this time I also recorded a double album together with the great poet Beppe Wolgers. With two fiddlers and a rhythm section I toured all over Sweden with this quite new concept and had great success. 

Later on exploring other musical fields also with synthesizers, playing with different artists, writing and co-writing songs. But in the last few years I´ve been attracted back to the roots and to the organ playing. A compilation album from the seventies ”Merit – Queen of Swedish Hammond Folk Groove” was released in 2005 and the album ”Touch” in 2006. Merit Hemmingson

JACK BONUS - Jack Bonus (Grunt, 1972)

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A pesar de que la portada y el nombre del artista no incitan a su escucha, he de decir que el único disco de Jack Bonus editado por el sello Grunt, áquel invento de la Jefferson Airplane para dar salida a sus cosas y a la de los coleguitas, tiene su punto. La mejor es sin duda "The Hobo Song" pero el resto no desmerecen. No hay mucha información sobre él, casi todo lo que se sabe del misterioso personaje está aquí: christianschou

THE JOHNY LOUIS TRIO - The In Crowd (Crown Records, 196?)

Hard soulful grooves from an obscure little combo – that of west coast pianist Johnny Louis, working here on a set that's clearly designed to challenge the 60s fame of the Ramsey Louis Trio! The record's got a very similar approach – highly rhythmic, very soulful piano lines that are heavy on the left hand – which fits perfectly with the album's jumping grooves – handled by a bassist and drummer who are definitely not as fluid as Eldee Young and Redd Holt – but who more than make up for that fact with a lot of drive and enthusiasm!  Dusty Groove.

LIVING JAZZ - Memphis Underground (RCA, 1970)

"Memphis Underground"

Living Jazz eran un invento del trompetista y arreglista Phil Bodner, también conocido por estar al frente de otro combo de similares características, The Brass Ring (Los Anillos de Bonce). La bonita portada y el título inducen a pensar que nos vamos a encontrar toques de lisergia o algo parecido pero la realidad es otra, sólo un agradable disco de easy listening con bonitos detalles del teclista, un poco de fuzz ligerito y una aceptable selección del repertorio. La mejor es sin duda la  adaptación del tema de Herbie Mann que se puede escuchar en el reproductor.

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Since its early formative years in New Orleans, jazz has been imbued with an astounding variety of outside influences, absorbing and utilizing features of other musical styles in order to enrich and broaden its own development. Yet, it has always managed to retain its own unique identity, its essence unsubmerged by appearances. Whatever else jazz may seem to be, it is always jazz, always the music of now. 

Rock and bossa nova are two of the more recent contributors to the growth and development of that protean organism we call jazz. Here is particularly fertile ground for the jazzman: the rhythmic, electric excitement of rock and the gentle, lyrical understatement of bossa nova. In the right hands this combination of ingredients promises some very groovy music indeed. 

Which brings us to the present album. Phil Bodner, along with a superbly gifted group of instrumentalists, has come up with an outstanding example of jazz it la mode. The recipe calls for a brimming bagful of choice, Grade A, now hits liberally seasoned with the sounds of rock, a dash of bossa nova and served with a great heaping of jazz soul. 

Included in this collection of tunes are such tasty morsels as Lennon-McCartney's Eleanor Rigby, Otis Redding's (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay, Herbie Mann's Memphis Underground and Nilsson's I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City. Phil Bodner's arrangements are as upto-the-minute as the material itself, and Living Jazz plays them with its customary sound and spirit. 

All in all, MEMPHIS UNDERGROUND stands as living proof of the fact that although the face of jazz may change the groove goes on and on. (Notas contraportada)

WALTER WANDERLEY Batucada (Verve, 1967)

"Batucada" es un burbujeante brebaje de aromas cariocas, que fluctúa bulliciosa y delicadamente, entre la bossanova y el easy listening más “chic”, alrededor del luminoso hammnond B3 de Walter Wanderley. Un disco grabado para Verve en Nueva York, en 1967, bajo la producción del reputado Creed Taylor, productor entre otros del maravilloso Getz/Gilberto, y donde Walter Wanderley se acompaña para la ocasión de uno de nuestros intérpretes y compositores brasileños favoritos, Marcos Valle, que en este disco colabora tocando la guitarra y cediendo a Walter Wanderley un buen puñado de atemporales e irresistibles clásicos de la bossa.

Ese hammond, un tanto liviano, de Walter Wanderley, protagoniza de una forma chispeante y festiva, todos y cada uno de los temas del disco, versiones algo edulcoradas y subidas de tono, de clásicos de maestros de la bossa como Jobim, Viniciuos de Moraes, Roberto Menescal, Joao Donato o el mencionado Marcos Valle, que aún así conservan esa nostálgica y melodiosa fragilidad de la bossa en sus temas más delicados, y la energía y sensualidad del mejor jazz-samba, en sus momentos más festivos. Podría ser la perfecta banda sonora de ese despreocupado e inocente guateque a orillas del mar, que se alzaría alborozado con el embaucador e irresistible ritmo, de esos fantásticos temas de Valle, titulados "Batucada" y "Os Grilos", al igual que con ese algo más nostálgico, aunque chispeante, "O barquinho", de Roberto Menescal y Ronaldo Bôscoli, donde el hammond de Wanderley parece sonar incluso mucho más groove que en otras ocasiones. Un guateque que resplandecería con las elegantes melodías, y el sensual vaivén de las espumosas y delicadas "Minha Saudade" (João Donato), "Wave"(Jobim) y Ela é carioca (Gilbert - Tom Jobim - Vinicius de Moraes), los tres temas vocales del disco, que podrían ser las sintonías ideales para comenzar a arriesgar en las distancias cortas.
Extracto dun artigo de Mr Pleasant


One of our favorite Walter Wanderley albums ever -- and a record that moves past the more familiar bossa trio style used on his hits for Verve, into groovier new territory with added players who include Dom Um Romao on drums and Marcos Valle on guitar! And not only is the lineup expanded, but the styles are too -- as Wanderley moves away from the straighter bossa and samba jazz of his roots, into the world of more unusual, more complicated rhythms that were showing up in the Brazilian scene at the end of the 60s. Marcos Valle's contribution is felt strongly here -- as the album includes a fantastic instrumental take on his classic "Crickets Sing For Anamaria" (aka "Os Grilos") -- plus other Valle compositions that include "Ainda Mais Lindo", "Batucada", and "E Preciso Cantar".
Dusty Groove

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