Album Reviews

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Album Reviews
Flower By The Dry River
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 26, 2012
The classically trained Cuban-born jazz pianist Elio Villafranca and his group the Jass Syncopators recorded this album Direct-to-Disk last Winter at the "Least Significant Bit Studios", which is actually a large room in the Sound-Smith.com production facility converted into a performance space/recording studio.

The double LP set is but one of many DirectGrace D2D records produced by Sound-Smith's founder Peter Ledermann to benefit a charity dedicated to helping some 215 million exploited children around the world enduring child labor, or abandoned to the streets due to the AIDS epidemic and other public health catastrophes.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Love's "Forever Changes" Finally Gets Long Deserved First Class Vinyl Reissue
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 26, 2012
The late Arthur Lee exited a California prison in December of 2001, having served more than five years of a twelve year sentence for negligent discharge of a firearm. The long mandatory sentence resulted from California's ridiculous, now repealed "three strikes you're out" law.

Before being incarcerated Lee had resurrected his moribund career by teaming with a talented group called Baby Lemonade (named for a Syd Barrett song) much as had Brian Wilson with The Wondermints. Once out of prison, Lee took up where he left off, touring the world as Arthur Lee and Love.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Heartbreak" Is Right! How Did This Happen???? (Pressing plant correction)
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 10, 2012
The backstory here is almost as interesting as the music on this just reissued, long out of print record first released in 1982.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Chicago "Field Recordings" Continue to Excite the Senses
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 08, 2012
When we think of "field recordings" we often think of Alan Lomax trudging through the South with a tape recorder, setting up shop wherever he found the music.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Rock Of Ages" Even Better in Retrospect
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 08, 2012
Recorded late 1971 during a multi-night gig at New York City's Academy of Music and released the next summer, Rock of Ages was intended to be a celebratory send-off for one of the greatest bands of that era as it contemplated a long touring and recording break that went on for far longer than expected.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Don't Play This With a Mono Cartridge! Or Maybe You Should?
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 09, 2012
What happens when you gather thirty one jazz musicians including MIles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Mann, Phil Woods, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, Ben Webster, Hank Jones, Art Farmer, Donald Byrd, Milt Hinton and many other jazz greats (including a baritone sax role for Teo Macero) in Columbia's iconic 30th Street Studio?
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Meeting By the Potomac: Ry Cooder's "Election Special"
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 05, 2012
Arlo Guthrie is a registered Republican (though of the ultra-rare libertarian/progressive strain). That leaves Ry Cooder to carry on his dad's uncompromising protest song tradition and he does so with musical and lyrical conviction on this album aimed at the upcoming election that's no more likely to date than has "This Land is Your Land."
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Mick And Keith Meet Their Maker! Muddy Waters -The Rolling Stones Live at The Checkerboard Lounge
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 03, 2012
This is crazy! Why did it take so long for this to be officially issued? Whatever. It's Muddy Waters and his band live in Chicago, 1981 at the tiny Checkerboard Lounge, with Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Stones pianist Ian Stewart in the audience. Oh, and Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and Lefty Dizz.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Belafonte Sings the Blues" at 45rpm From IMPEX
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2012
Conceptually, Harry Belafonte singing the blues probably strikes some as inauthentic. After all, Belafonte's introduction to American audiences was as "the king of calypso" singing "Matilda" and "The Banana Boat Song" that much later was used by The New York Yankees and Ray Davies as a crowd rouser.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
The Cars Get Mo-Fi Drive: Candy-O and Shake It Up
Randy Wells  |  Sep 26, 2012
It was the summer of 1978. The Cars were moving in stereo. They let the good times roll and were just what I needed.

As it turns out, The Cars were just what another million music fans needed too. Recorded at London’s AIR studios, their debut record was so fresh and appealing that it instantly became an AM radio favorite and went Platinum in six months.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Sade's 80's Aural Aphrodisiac
Randy Wells  |  Sep 22, 2012
When Diamond Life burst onto the scene in 1984/1985 it provided a calm oasis. This was not post-punk or techno-pop. This was an album of lush and lovely music with smooth jazz moods and world beat underpinnings. Superficially cool, the Latin tempos trapped in the grooves simmered with a passion just waiting to explode.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
When Jazz Giants Roamed The Earth!
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 20, 2012
Imagine a hard bop jam session featuring three tenor sax greats: Johnny Griffin, Hank Mobley and John Coltrane. Add Lee Morgan on trumpet and propel them with the rhythm section of Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bas and Art Blakey on drums.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
No, Your Midrange Driver Is Not Blown! That's What's Left of Bob's Voice
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 13, 2012
Does it matter that the rattle and phlegm in Bob Dylan's voice makes it sound as if your midrange driver has blown? No. Hell no. In fact, despite the ragged vocals and 50 years since his debut, this is Dylan's best album in quite some time.
Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
"Another Side of Bob Dylan" Sounding Better Than Ever
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 06, 2012
Bob Dylan cracks himself up performing some of these songs. Producer Tom Wilson must have gotten it, but recording engineers Roy Halee and Fred Catero might have been ready to stop the tape. After all, this was staid, but still pre-corporate Columbia Records. It was “straight” and at that point Halee was more experienced recording Percy Faith than Bob.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Cluster & Eno: Eno Seeks Country Krautrock Comfort
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 03, 2012
Brian Eno's early influences include John Cage, Steve Reich and other minimalists. He was more art than rocker. In 1971 when he joined forces with Bryan Ferry's Roxy Music he was more a knob twiddler than a musician. He worked saxophonist Andy Mackay's VCS3 synthesizer and along with a pair of Revox A77s provided the electronic sounds and "tape treatments" that on the group's first two albums, helped create Roxy Music's unique sound.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X