Jazz Baroque Quintet – Princess Mary Ellen
Jazz Baroque Quintet – Le Tambourin
Jazz Baroque Quintet – Les Petit Moulins A Vent
Though I’ve been a collector for close to 30 years now, I’ve never really delved too far into the world of Library records. I’ve featured a few choice ones here, but it’s a very small section of my overall collection and probably 90% of it I’ve bought post 2020. It’s always daunting to venture outside of your comfort zone into new territories, but I think the main thing that stopped me from really digging deep into these types of records is that I often find that the albums themselves rarely warrant the prices, especially when so many of the songs are brief, sometimes only a minute long. Additionally, the incidental nature tied to the purpose of these records, with music designed to be in commercials or in station breaks, etc., means that there isn’t generally a whole lot of listenability to the full album. None of those shortcomings are the case with this lovely record, generally listed under French flutist Raymond Guiot’s discography.
In fact, since this record has become part of my collection, picked up from one of Cool Chris of Groove Merchant’s Rappcats sales last year, it’s become one of the albums that’s spent the most quality time on my turntables. Start to finish it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience, as Guiot and his jazzy crew (featuring Bernard Lubat, who will have an album of his own featured here shortly) make the most of compositions from the Baroque era. And, in true library record fashion, there’s even a track that’s just begging to be sampled by folks, the ultra-groovy “Princess Mary Ellen.”
After a bit of digital digging, I discovered there was also an earlier album, from 1968, first released on the UK Library outfit Audio and then also on Tele Music, called “Scarlatti Sounds,” with the same group plus a similar sound, that arrived to my casita this week and it’s also quite lovely. It’s highly possible I’ll spend many a weekend afternoon dropping the needle on both of the albums, and if you track them down, I bet you will as well.
Happy Hunting,
Michael