Album Reviews

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Off With the Man Buns and Kick Out the Jams With Run Out Groove's MC5 Compilation!
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 18, 2017  |  6 comments
The new reissue record label Run Out Groove recently launched with a limited to 2668 copy edition of a gloriously noisy, high energy MC5 compilation sourced from the group's Elektra and Atlantic catalogues. The Detroit-based group (The Motor City Five), which made music that was an invigorating amalgam of garage rock, punk rock and blues with a hint of progressive jazz thrown in, released but three full length albums during its less than a decade long run.

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Does Chasing the Dragon's "España" "Jump the Shark"?
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 18, 2017  |  0 comments
España is Chasing the Dragon's latest and most ambitious Direct-to-Disc record. It's difficult enough to record Direct-to-Disc a string ensemble, or a big band or a big band with vocalist, all of which the label has done successfully managed.

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John Patitucci’s Dark Samba (Now Includes 96/24 Audio)
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 09, 2017  |  8 comments
In the early 1960s Brazilian music washed up on American shores riding on an effervescent, sunlit wave of girls from Ipanema and up-tempo tunes like “Desafinado”, popularized by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd on the breakthrough album Jazz Samba.

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"Forest Flower" in Full Flower on Speakers Corner AAA Reissue
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 26, 2017  |  2 comments
Charles Lloyd's young group, together but a year, played this set September 8th 1966 at the Monterey Jazz Festival, opening with the title tune—actually the two-in-one "Forest Flower-Sunrise" and "Forest Flower-Sunset", both lilting, hypnotic and mesmerizing "hippie-like" tunes that presaged in its mood the next year's "Summer of Love" Monterey Pop Festival.

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"Sunday at the Village Vanguard" Mobile Fidelity Ultradisc Sells Out
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 26, 2017  |  18 comments
Bassist Scott LaFaro's death in a Geneva, New York car accident ten days after the Sunday, June 25th, 1961 recording of this Village Vanguard set did more than add a tragic luster to the story. It upended what might have been a very different track order here and on Waltz For Debby, the second record sourced using tracks recorded that day by engineer David Jones on a modified Ampex 350 using Scotch 111 tape.

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"The Sound of Jazz" Finally Reissued on AAA 200g Vinyl
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 19, 2017  |  13 comments
With its compilation-like title, black and white cover art and wide ranging artists roster, The Sound of Jazz, originally issued in 1958, is often confused with one of Columbia Records' early stereo sampler albums.

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Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane Complete 1957 Riverside Recordings (Mastering Info Update)
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 14, 2017  |  9 comments
In his annotation for Riverside’s 1966 reissue of the 1961 Jazzland original single LP release Monk & Coltrane (RS 390) critic Ira Gitler (who is credited for inventing the expression “sheets of sound” to describe the note cluster technique Coltrane devised during his short time playing with Monk) writes “Coltrane’s talent, set in such a fertile environment, bloomed like a hibiscus.”

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Giles Martin’s “Pass the Salt and Pepper” Remix on CD
Album Reviews, Beatles
Michael Fremer  |  May 09, 2017  |  34 comments
It all started as a misheard request for a condiment, Paul McCartney recollects in one of the introductions to the box's sumptuously produced book. During a flight back from America, the band's roadie Mal Evans asked Paul to "pass the salt and pepper", which he misheard as "Sergeant Pepper".

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"Star Trek The Motion Picture" Soundtrack Is Sonic Blockbuster!
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  May 04, 2017  |  14 comments
Jerry Goldsmith's remarkable 84 minute, 54 second score for Star Trek The Motion Picture here in its entirety on vinyl for the first time is a musical and sonic spectacular that's far more exciting than was the movie itself. This is one film score you can definitely enjoy without having seen the movie.

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One of Bill Evans' Final Live Concerts Gets Double 45 ORG Treatment
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  May 03, 2017  |  7 comments
While a great deal of attention rightly gets paid to Bill Evans' legendary Village Vanguard recordings early in his career, this superb set recorded in Paris, France shortly before his passing is equally worthy both musically and sonically.

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The Flying Burrito Bros' "The Gilded Palace of Sin" Finally Reissued Correctly
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  May 03, 2017  |  12 comments
Characterizing The Gilded Palace of Sin as a “country-rock” album or “the first country-rock album” or as it’s incorrectly called by some Sweetheart of The Rodeo Part 2 sells short an album that transcends genre or for that matter “dash-genres”.

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Sam Records Releases Thelonious Monk's "Les liaisons dangereuses 1960" For RSD 2017
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 18, 2017  |  19 comments
Music composed for films is by definition precisely timed and intended to mirror or at least complement the on screen action. Of course that’s not always how its accomplished, especially when the hired musicians are not trained film composers.

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"Larry Young In Paris" From Resonance Records A Must Have
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 06, 2017  |  7 comments
Over the past decade or so vinyl-loving jazz enthusiasts have been treated to a series of previously unreleased but significant recordings discovered under beds, in closets and in the vaults of European radio stations. Some were never before heard. Others were bootlegged from radio broadcasts

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Nick Culp's "The Culprit's Blues" Goes Back to The Future
AAA Vinyl, Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 14, 2017  |  7 comments
You’ve probably seen or at least heard about Damien Chazelle’s musical “La La Land”, about a musician (Ryan Gosling) whose less than fully expressed mission was to “save jazz”. He brings his turntable and retro-record collection to Los Angeles where he lives in a crummy apartment and makes ends meet by playing in a piano bar.

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Judith Owen's "Somebody's Child" Will Move You
Album Reviews
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 09, 2017  |  5 comments
It doesn't slight to this well-produced, thoroughly engaging record to write that singer/songwriter/pianist/raconteur Judith Owen is best experienced live in concert.

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