Information/Write-up
Canadian-only Kanata Records pressing of this easy listening, crooner, jazz, bossa nova, and vocal LP from one-time Downbeat editor, lyricist, writer, and singer Lees (who has worked with the Who's Who of jazz: Bill Evans, Lalo Schifrin, Tony Bennett, Antonio Carlos Jobim). This material was recorded for the CBC (in 1970 before being given a commercial issue on the Kanata label) with help from Rick Wilkins (Mutual Understanding) and composer Milan Kymlicka (CTL). The cream of Toronto's jazz studio scene also appear (Jerry Toth, Guido Basso, Eugene Amaro, Rob McConnell, and Ed Bickert). This is a mellow end-to-end spin and a personal favourite. Light a candle, pour some wine, and relax with Lees and company. One of the finest hands down! Housed in a beautiful gatefold jacket with informative liner notes.
After working 1948-55 as a reporter for the Hamilton Spectator, the Toronto Telegram, and the Montreal Star, Lees was music and drama critic 1955-9 for the Louisville (Kentucky) Times and editor 1959-62 of the jazz magazine Down Beat (Chicago). Working on a freelance basis, he also wrote for Stereo Review (New York) and High Fidelity (Great Barrington, Massachusetts), Maclean's, the Toronto Star, the Toronto Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and other publications. He contributed liner notes to close to 100 recordings of artists including Stan Getz, John Coltrane, and Quincy Jones. In 1967 he published a novel, And Sleep Until Noon. He received the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award in 1978 for a series of articles published in High Fidelity about US music, and won the award on two subsequent occasions. In 1981 he established his own monthly Jazzletter (Ojai, California), which became an influential source of informed opinion, by Lees and others, within the industry.
read more: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0002023
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