Lambert, Hendricks & Ross - Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, RI, 7-2-1960

I've been meaning to post this concert for a long time, because I really like (Dave) Lambert, (Jon) Hendricks and (Annie) Ross. I'm finally getting around to it. There aren't a lot of great quality concert bootlegs dating all the way back to 1960, but this is one.

This trio were pioneers of a jazz sub-genre called "vocalese." Here's Wikipedia's definition of what that means:

Vocalese uses recognizable lyrics that are sung to pre-existing instrumental solos, as opposed to scat singing, which uses nonsense words such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos. In the "first wave" of vocalese creation, that sometimes took the form of a tribute to the original instrumentalist. The word "vocalese" is a play on the musical term "vocalise"; the suffix "-ese" is meant to indicate a sort of language. The term was attributed to Jon Hendricks by the jazz critic Leonard Feather to describe the first Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross album, "Sing a Song of Basie." 

A very pivotal song was "Twisted." It was written by Annie Ross in 1952, with her lyrics added to an existing jazz instrumental. It helped led to the trio being formed. It later got covered by many other musical acts, including Joni Mitchell. Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross all wrote songs, often new lyrics to existing instrumentals, and all three sang lead vocals. They released their first album in 1957. They put out several others. Probably their best known one is "The Hottest New Group in Jazz," which came out in 1959 and is great. Many of the songs from that album were performed in this concert. 

However, the trio didn't stay together much longer than that. Ross had personal problems, including a growing heroin addiction. She was replaced in 1962. But the other female singers they replaced with her didn't bring the same magic. The trio format ended in 1964. Then Lambert died in a car accident in 1966, ending any hopes of reunions. The other two lived much longer. Hendricks died in 2017 and Ross died in 2020.

Here's their Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambert,_Hendricks_%26_Ross 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Jumpin' at the Woodside (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
02 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
03 Doodlin' (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
04 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
05 Happy Anatomy (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
06 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
07 Airegin (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
08 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
09 Fiesta in Blue (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
10 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
11 Swingin' 'til the Girls Come Home (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
12 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
13 Rusty Dusty Blues (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
14 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
15 Gimme Dat Wine (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
16 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
17 Cottontail (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
18 talk (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
19 Cloudburst (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)
20 Everyday I Have the Blues (Lambert, Hendricks & Ross)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Ke2fTnpg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LFc9Xe4Tpx9tTsK/file

I don't know any details about the photo except it's probably from 1960. From right to left: Dave Lambert, Annie Ross, and Jon Hendricks.

Leo Sayer - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, London, Britain, 2-5-1974

Recently, I had a person named Paul who contacted me and told me they had a BBC concert I'd missed. It's from the BBC TV show "In Concert," which had a lot of episodes in the early 1970s especially. I've been trying to collect recordings of all the episodes of that show, so I'm posting this straight away. It stars singer-songwriter Leo Sayer.

Note that I previously posted a BBC concert from Sayer, dating to 1988. Now that I have another one, I've just renamed that one to "BBC Sessions, Volume 2." Here's a link to that one if you want to get the updated cover art and so forth:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/leo-sayer-bbc-in-concert-bristol.html

At the time of this concert, Sayer was just starting to become a star. His debut album "Silverbird," was released in late 1973, and made it all the way to Number Two in the British charts. It went unnoticed in the U.S., but this is a BBC show, so that doesn't matter for this concert. It went up the charts mainly due to the song "The Show Must Go On," which also went all the way to Number Two in Britain.

Also in 1973, Roger Daltrey, the lead singer of the Who, released his debut solo album, "Daltrey." The reason I mention that is because all of the songs on it were written by Sayer and his songwriting partner David Courtney, including a hit, "Giving It All Away." He performed two of the songs from that album in this concert, "Giving It All Away" and "One Man Band." (He would later do versions on his own albums, but not yet.) 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. Thanks again to Paul for sharing the music. If anyone else has episodes of this show that I haven't posted yet, please let me know. You can see a list of the episodes here:

https://thetvdb.com/series/in-concert/allseasons/official

This album is 30 minutes long.

01 Tomorrow (Leo Sayer)
02 talk (Leo Sayer)
03 One Man Band (Leo Sayer)
04 Giving It All Away (Leo Sayer)
05 talk (Leo Sayer)
06 Goodnight Old Friend (Leo Sayer)
07 talk (Leo Sayer)
08 The Dancer (Leo Sayer)
09 talk (Leo Sayer)
10 The Show Must Go On (Leo Sayer)
11 The Innocent Bystander (Leo Sayer)
12 Slow Motion (Leo Sayer)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PA94FCqu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oJxCGVz6jkHHqUM/file

The cover image shows Sayer in a Pierrot clown outfit on a Dutch TV show in Hilversum, Netherlands, at some point in 1974.

Paul McCartney - Solo Ballads (1969-2026) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here we are, with the last album in guest poster Mike Solof's eight album series of the best rockers and ballads from the solo careers of the four ex-Beatles. As I mentioned in the write up to the last album in this series, for Paul McCartney's solo rockers, McCartney has had a long and prolific career, so there's just more of his songs. That led to a solo rocker album just for him, and now this solo ballad album just for him.

As usual with this series, the songs generally come from the well-known studio albums. That's the case here. However, there's a surprise in that one song, "Best Love," is a Paul lead vocal on a song that appeared on an album by comedian Steve Martin (who also happens to be a surprisingly good banjo player, so it's a serious song). 

Also, four of the songs are special edits made by Mike, the ones with "[Mike's Mix 2026]" in their names. That's because some of these songs were a little rocking to truly qualify as ballads. So Mike edited them to make them sound more gentle and mellow. 

Although this series is over, Mike wanted to carry on making rocker and ballad best ofs for other musical acts. Hopefully you will see one result from that posted here soon. 

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 I'm Carrying (Paul McCartney)
02 Once upon a Long Ago [Mike's Mix 2026] (Paul McCartney)
03 Waterfalls (Paul McCartney)
04 With a Little Luck [Mike's Mix 2026] (Paul McCartney)
05 Here Today (Paul McCartney)
06 Best Love (Steve Martin & Paul McCartney)
07 This One [Mike's Mix 2026] (Paul McCartney)
08 Maybe I'm Amazed [Mike's Mix 2026] (Paul McCartney)
09 My Love (Paul McCartney)
10 My Valentine (Paul McCartney)
11 Distractions (Paul McCartney)
12 This Never Happened Before (Paul McCartney)
13 Wanderlust (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZeydfoYV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bVl1btduqniMOik/file

The cover image of Paul and Linda McCartney is from around 1970.