Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker Special Quartet - Live at Tollhaus, Karlsruhe, Germany (2000)

Recorded live on July 3, 2000 at Tollhaus, Karlsruhe, Germany.

Tracklist:

01-Slings and Arrows

02-Half Past Late

03-Timeline

04-Into The Dream
05-Extradition

06-Summertime

07-As I Am

08-What Do You Want
09-Everyday (I Thank You)
10-Faith Healer
11-Song For Bilbao
Personnel:
Michael Brecker: Tenor
Pat Metheny: Guitar
Larry Goldings: Organ
Bill Stewart: Drums
Hotfile / Uploading @ 320K

John Scofield: EnRoute (2004)

With the live EnRoute, recorded at New York's Blue Note, guitarist John Scofield returns from the jam-band wars in challenging high style, leading a trio for the first time on record in more than 20 years. With his strong blues and funk sensibility, Scofield has always been the jazz guitarist most likely to succeed among rock listeners, and fans from both camps will be drawn to this purer improvisational enterprise. Teamed here with longtime drumming associate Bill Stewart and veteran bassist Steve Swallow (who was featured on those early-'80s trio albums), he's still jamming, but there's a sharpness of focus and a locked-in intensity among the musicians that you rarely encounter in jam-band settings--including his own. Emptying out his bag of much-imitated tricks--the sighing pedal tones, slab-like chords, shimmering lyrical lines, and controlled screams--Scofield romps through the bop classic, "Wee," and delivers a diaphanous reading of "Alfie." The album also features a pair of remakes: "Name That Tune," Swallow's bounding remake of Duke Ellington's "Perdido," and the leader's strutting "Over Big Top," based on "Bigtop" from his 1995 album, Groove Elation. From whatever perspective you choose, it's Scofield's best album since Time on My Hands, his 1990 quartet date with saxist Joe Lovano. --Lloyd Sachs

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EnRoute (RS) / EnRoute (HF) @ 320K

John Scofield: This Meets That (2007)

Following celebrated runs on the Enja, Arista, Gramavision, Blue Note and Verve labels, Scofield is proud to release his first project for Emarcy, This Meets That. The album finds Scofield once again in the company of what he calls his "A-Team"--bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Stewart--the trio that released En Route in 2004. Added to that, the four-part horn section of Roger Rosenberg on baritone sax and bass clarinet, Jim Pugh on trombone, Lawrence Feldman on tenor sax and flutes and John Swana on trumpet and flugelhorn. A special treat, one tune also features special guest Bill Frisell on tremolo guitar-- a cover of "House of the Rising Sun."

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This meets that (RS) / This meets that (HF) @ 320K

Tommy Smith Sextet: Evolution (2005) mp3 @ 320K

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Tommy Smith is a big-toned tenor saxophonist who has played both straight-ahead jazz and fusion. It was in Edinburgh that Smith became seriously interested in jazz as a teenager, and he was only 15 when he was accepted to the renowned Berklee College of Music. In 1984, the saxman moved to Boston to attend Berklee, and, in 1986, an 18-year-old Smith was hired as a sideman by Gary Burton at the recommendation of Chick Corea. Smith signed with Blue Note in 1989, recording 1990's Burton-produced fusion/post-bop date Peeping Tom and 1991's straight-ahead Standards. After finishing up at Berklee, Smith returned to Scotland, where he signed with the Glasgow-based Linn label and recorded several albums in the mid- to late '90s: Misty Morning & No Time, Reminiscence, Beasts of Scotland, Azure, and the Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn tribute The Sound of Love. Blue Smith, his first release of the new century, followed in the spring of 2000.

"Evolution" is his last efforf recorded in 2005 with a bunch of great musicians: Joe Lovano, John Scofield, John Taylor, John Patitucci and Bill Stewart. Enjoy! (135MB)