Big Jay McNeely, Central Avenue Confidential - 48m 21s

Tracks & Durations

1. Mighty Fine	5:36
2. Big Jay Shuffle	2:38
3. I Want to Live	6:05
4. Stranger on the Shore	4:39
5. You Are My Life	7:21
6. Caravan	5:24
7. Central Avenue Confidential	3:15
8. Soft	3:20
9. Jelly	4:47
10. Emiko	5:08

Note: The information about this album is acquired from the publicly available resources and we are not responsible for their accuracy.

Review

Still slinky and swinging, Big Jay McNeely has retained the juice of his days as the saxophone demon of LA's Central Avenue scene--the West Coast's Harlem. Back then, he blew his way into history with a stomping style that made him one of the premier R&B honkers of the 1950s. Now, he's tempered his fiery approach with a taste for jazz-pop, composing the easy-listening melodies of "You Are My Life" and the like. That doesn't keep McNeely from the hard stuff; on an exuberant "Caravan," he delivers buoyant soprano and tenor sax solos that sprint around his young quartet, and there's a perky reprise of his signature, "Big Jay Shuffle." But the emotional peaks come when NcNeely settles on the grooves of smoldering cocktail jazz. As he applies his breathy tone to midnight gems like "I Want to Live" and the title track, his notes lift into the air as slow and easy as smoke, full of sweet bends and flats that seem to outline the ghosts of this music's wonderful past. --Ted Drozdowski

Please note: we do not provide any Big Jay McNeely music downloads, have no any mp3 music including music samples and music ringtones, and can not assist you where to buy music CDs and used CDs. You can search for it on music sites all over the Internet or visit one of our advertisers. We appreciate any ideas and comments about this experimental music database.