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We have sound samples of a couple of tracks from some of these albums available for you to listen to in either Windows Media or Real Audio format.
Simply select the link beside the tracks for your preferred player.
Both Windows Media Player and Real Audio Player
are downloadable for free if you don't already have them.
N.B. The quality of these samples has been reduced to allow faster streaming.
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ARTISTS: KING PLEASURE &
THE BISCUIT BOYS
Title: Hey, Puerto Rico!
Cat. Number: BEARCD 46
Personnel:
KING PLEASURE, Vocals & Baritone Saxophone; BOYSIE BATTRUM Alto & Tenor Sax; BULLMOOSE K SHIRLEY, Guitar; MIGHTY MATT FOUNDLING, Piano; SHARK VAN SCHTOOP, Double Bass; DANGEROUS DAVE WILKES, Drums.
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Track Listing:
1. Puerto Rico (Skirving) Windows Media
Real Audio
2. Bring It On Baby (Skirving)
3. Back To Birmingham (Skirving)
4. The Wrong Door (Young)
5. Hush Now (Skirving)
6. Barracuda (Crotty/Stone/Willey)
7. Don’t Leave Me Baby (Dixon)
8. Blues From The Booze (Skirving)
9. Big Girl (Giuffre)
10. Trapped In The Web Of Love (Burns) Windows Media
Real Audio
11. All Or Nothing (Skirving)
12. Blow Her Hot (Skirving)
13. Just One Drink (Skirving)
14. Walkin’ With Mr Lee (Allen).
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Another from King Pleasure,
hot on the heels of "Smack Dab..."
(BEARCD 42 - scroll down for details)
Following previous album Smack Dab In The Middle (their biggest yet), once again the unique mix of 1940s Kansas City Jazz and Blues is presented with the most exciting performance extant. Show-stealing performances of Jazz, Blues and even rock festivals are regular happenings. There are no barriers in the King Pleasure date book
"...behind the fun and rollicking good times lies an outfit skilled enough to get four horns to come on with the bite and precision of The Count Basie Band."
The Guardian
"easily the best Rhythm & Blues Band on the planet!"
Blues & Rhythm magazine
"The hardest act to follow since the parting of the Red Sea"
Paul Jones, BBC Radio 2
"The aristocrats of Rhythm & Blues"
Now Dig This
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ARTISTS: DOCTOR TEETH BIG BAND
Title: Rhythm Is Our Business
Cat. Number: BEARCD 45
Personnel:
THE DOCTOR, Vocals; SIMON "THE DUKE OF" KEMP, Piano & Harmonica; SHEEPY PARVA, Guitar & Backing Vocals; THE JIVE LOBSTER, Double Bass & Vocals; MORTON PINKNEY, Drums; MIKE "DOUBLE MEAT" ADDLINGTON, Trumpet; JAY "CHOO CHOO CHA" MOODY, Tenor Sax; SIMON "LET THE GOOD TIMES" ROBILLIARD, Trombone
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Track Listing:
1. Rhythm Is Our Business (Kemp)
2. The Show Show (Kemp/Steinhaus) Windows Media
Real Audio
3. Rock This Joint (Kemp)
4. Spread A Little Love And Get High (Kemp)
5. Ruby In The Red Dress (Kemp)
6. One Woman Man (Steinhaus/Moody) Windows Media
Real Audio
7. Bump And Grind (Kemp)
8. Hey Brother Can You Spare Some Jive? (Kemp/Steinhaus)
9. Cold Cold Ground (Kemp)
10. Mr Big Is Back In Tow (Kemp)
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The band was formed over seven years ago to reinvent the great sound of jazz/blues and swing and serve it up for the new millennium. If you hear bands play music from the 40s and 50s these days it often sounds like it should be in a museum! But not with these guys!
This band plays with an energy and enthusiasm that is infectious. So, chuck out those tired jive compilations and turn off the X factor. For some hard hitting-driving-soulful-boogielitious music, Insist on
THEDRTEETHBIGBAND!
Doctor has feel good medicine
put a smile on your face with the The Dr Teeth Big Band. The Birmingham based boys, led by Chicagoan Steve Steinhaus, hit the feel good button with their prescription of swing and jive, with a few saucy lyrics thrown in for good measure. The tracks are all originals, mostly penned by keyboard wizard Simon ‘The Duke’ of Kemp and are guaranteed to get any joint jumpin’. Look out for them at Brum’s jazz festival.
Birmingham Mail 1/7/06
The Midland Jazzers live on the boundary between jump-jive and rock and roll, taking things one step further that the likes of King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys. Fronted by larger-than-life Dr Teeth - 6ft tall and bald - they tear with relish through the likes of Rock this Joint, Hey Brother, Can You Spare Some Jive? and the big city title track. But they’re no one trick ponies. Furious finale Mr Big Is back In Town, serves up rack-a-boogie and the dark Cold Cold Ground could grace even a Fun Lovin’ Criminals set list. Best of all, proceedings are gloriously sexist, with both Bump And Grind and One Woman Man giving the PC brigade a heart attack. JD
Sunday Mercury 2/7/06
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ARTISTS: ALAN BARNES ALL STARS
Title: Marbella Jazz Suite
Cat. Number: BEARCD 44
Personnel:
ALAN BARNES, Also sax, clarinet, flute; BRUCE ADAMS, Trumpet; SIMON GARDNER, Trumpet, Flugel; ALEX GARNETT, Tenor Sax; MARK NIGHTINGALE, Trombone; JOHN DONALDSON, Piano; MATT MILES, Double Bass; RALPH SALMINS, Drums.
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Track Listing:
1 Serenade To An Anchovy, Windows Media Real Player
2 Dama De Noche,
3 La Faraona,
4 Joe Church Blues,
5 Orange Square Dance,
6 Alameda Shuffle,
7 California Fish Fry,
8 What’d You Say Last Night To Freddie Green. Windows Media Real Player
All titles composed and arranged by Alan Barnes.
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Recorded Live at the Marbella International Jazz Festival at the Palacio De Feerias y Congresos on May 13th 2004.
This is a rare medium-sized or 'one of everything' band. Big enough to make a fat, juicy sound, yet with the flexibility of a small ensemble, it is a format ideally suited to a group of around eight players, all soloists in their own right. This example isn't quite one-of-everything, since there are two trumpeters, but in all other respects it's a classic combination. Alan Barnes is an expert in this genre and these eight pieces, composed for last year's Marbella Jazz Festival, are packed with warm voicings and smoothly interlocking lines, cunningly devised to show off the solo playing to advantage. Dave Gelly (Guardian)
"If most artists subjected to big-spend marketing campaigns possessed half the ability of multi-saxist Alan Barnes, then the ratio of style over content would produce records that warranted more than a cursory audition." -JAZZ ON CD
The jazz festivals of Marbella in Spain and Birmingham in England have a hermandad, a brotherhood. So nothing was more natural than for Big Bear Records to commission Alan Barnes to write and arragnge a new piece of music, based on Marbella, and donated to the city in perpetuity. As invariably happens, carried away with enthusiam for the project, we decided to form A VERITABLE DREAM BAND. Amazingly, all the first choice musicians were available - or made themselves so. Not surprisingly, it all sounded so good that it just had to be recorded.
Roaring ensembles, driving rhythm section and inspired soloing were the order of the day. With everyone, very obviously, having a great time, the All Stars sounded like a band who had been together forever. Jim Simpson
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ARTISTS: KING PLEASURE
& THE BISCUIT BOYS
Title: Smack Dab In The Middle
Cat. Number: BEARCD 42
Personnel:
KING PLEASURE, Vocals, Tenor Sax; BIG MALLY BAXTER, Trumpet; P POPPS MARTIN, Alto, Baritone Sax; JULIAN WEBSTER-GREAVES, Tenor; IVORY DAN McCORMACK, Piano, Hammond; BULLMOOSE K SHIRLEY, Guitar; SLAP HAPPY, Double Bass; BAM BAM BERESFORD, Drums.
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Track Listing:
1 Girl With The Gold Dress On (Skirving/McCormick),
2 Smack Dab In The Middle (Calhoun),
3 Happy As A Fella Can Be (Skirving/McCormack),
4 Can’t Get Enough Of Your Stuff (Skirving/McCormack),
5 Red Headed Woman (Skirving),
6 Who Drank My Beer (Austin),
7 Great Great Pleasure (Tennyson/Jordan),
8 Ain’t It Lonesome (Hopkins),
9 Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ But Trash (Calhoun),
10 Fat Sam From Birmingham (Williams/Astor),
11 It Don’t Happen No More (Obbie),
12 Soft Pillow (Taylor),
13 Mush Mouth (Johnson),
14 Forgive A Fool (Skirving),
15 Be Good Or Be Gone (Willis/Okeh),
16 I’ll Be satisfied (Gordy/Carlo/Gordy),
17 Tight Skirts (Clemons),
18 Big Wheel (Skirving/Nicholls),
19 I’m The Boss At My House (Hale).
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King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys -
They'll Swing You Into Bad Health!
King Pleasure & The Biscuit Boys present a breathtaking mix of 1940s Kansas City Jazz and Blues in a truly exhilarating, swinging, non-stop performance.
Looking like they just stepped straight out of a 1940’s black
and white B movie, this inimitable six-piece delivers a shot of pure and authentic Jazz and Blues from a bygone era, when Swing was King.
The main man, King Pleasure, is unique. He sings, he romps, he roars, he relentlessly drives the band forward and clearly has such a ball as he does it. Bands are rarely blessed with such a huge personality, and the bonus comes with his sensational tenor sax playing.
These guys have thousands of shows and numerous albums under their crown and have enjoyed huge critical acclaim from both the press and their many fans worldwide.
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