LATEST ADDITIONS

They’ve been out of commission for 22 years, but you’d never know it listening to Mission of Burma’s powerful, bracingly-fresh, time-warp of a post-punk/art-rocking noise assault, recorded last year. It sounds more like someone lowered the stylus on a record that’s been spinning silently for decades than the premier effort of a re-formed trio of middle- aged geezers who sound as youthfully exuberant as they did in 1979.

At a time when glam “hair bands” reigned, and “synth bands” waned, two guys named David and a producer named Davitt decided to make a grittier sound—a rock-roots kind of album—yet one that didn’t stray completely from the synth strains still permeating pop music.

One might argue there have been enough Krauss vinyl reissues, what with two outstanding ones from Diverse Records, but give this two LP set a spin and end of argument-even if you have those two superb sounding sets.

Producer Norman Granz's “songbook” concept, made possible by the invention of the LP, proved to be one of his most popular and enduring ideas. Ella sang Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, and of course Gershwin, but this one, pairing two of the biggest names of the last musical century, with Ella performing with three ensembles, was perhaps Granz's most ambitious undertaking. Ella and the Duke were signed to different labels, and both had busy concert and recording schedules, but after Ella performed with Ellington at a Jazz at the Philharmonic date, Granz set about getting the two together in a recording studio for a songbook production.