Album Reviews

While hard-bop tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin’s best known work was with Charles Mingus and his later Prestige albums are regarded as the hub of his solo recordings, this 1961 Candid set offers plenty of muscular grit, superb Nola Penthouse sound and the stellar backing trio of George Tucker on bass, Al Harewood on drums and one “Felix Krull” on piano, most likely a Nat Hentoff-assigned name given to Horace Parlan who was contracted to Blue Note at the time. In fact, Tucker and Harewood were part of Parlan’s quartet, as was Ervin for a spell.

Jimi Hendrix’s second studio effort upped the outrageousness of his debut (British or American), beginning with what many would say was a sacrilegious, though eye-catching, cover and continuing with the opening bit of “nonsense about space ships and even space people.”

Back in 1956 at the dawning of the hi-fi era, the easy listening piano duo of Ferrante and Teicher, (whose career spans six decades) released an album called Soundproof! on Westminster records (WP-6014).

Good luck finding a copy. They're pretty much sold out and the price of used copies is only likely to rise for this iconic grunge-rock album with the "sell-out" cover.

Look: if you don’t like The Sweet, Humble Pie, Deep Purple, Neil and Crazy Horse, T-Rex and of course Led Zep and boogie rock generally, Jack White’s brand of retro-crunchrock isn’t going to be to your liking, but if that kind of stuff appeals to you and considerations of modernity don’t apply to your musical meanderings, this record will hit the spot. And how long has it been since that spot’s been hit?

Tony Bennett recorded a live album with Count Basie and his orchestra in Philadelphia that was issued in 1959 by Columbia Records (In Person! Tony Bennett, Count Basie and His Orchestra CS 8104 “6 eye”). In 1961 Peggy Lee released a live album on Capitol recorded at Basin Street East in New York City.

Chronically undervalued and unappreciated in America, The Pretty Things, like The Kinks, The Rolling Stones and so many other British Invasion bands began life as a blues based rock outfit, churning out short, raunchy, Bo Diddley-influenced numbers as this American debut demonstrates, and later veering off into uncharted musical waters. In the case of The Pretty Things, even their name is Bo Diddley derived. Unlike some Brit bands, these guys were anything but pretty in the beginning. They got prettier as time passed.