Modern Jazz Quartet fans will find this Milt Jackson solo outing surprising and in a sense liberating. While the vibraharpist remains his usual cool, resilient self, the addition of Kenny Dorham on trumpet and Jimmy Heath (brother of MJQ bassist Percy) on tenor sax gives the outing a bit more swagger and drive compared to the MJQ’s usual studiousness.
I’ll throw my two cents into the “greatest rock vocalists” ring: Steve Marriott. He’s the one for me. His work with the original Small Faces stands above all else, but later Marriott joined Peter Frampton and the two formed Humble Pie with bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley.
Drop John Lee Hooker off in the parched environs of Paris, Texas and tell him to do his mournful thing and that it’ll be okay because Miles Davis will be right behind him with his mute trumpet following his every musical move the way Ali Akbar Khan followed Ravi Shankar's.
Former Image Hi-Fi magazine editor Dirk Sommer and his wife Birgit Hammer-Sommer recorded and produced this solo double bass performance by Dieter Ilg using a purist analog chain direct to ¼” analog audio tape. Compression was neither contemplated nor used, nor was there any filtering or equalization of any kind.
Note: since this review was originally posted February of 2009, we have learned of the existence of a flat transfer made from the now missing master tape. The version reviewed here was almost certainly mastered from a digital transfer done using some analog "work parts" and some digital sources not clearly identified in Capitol's original CD reissue series.
Ed. note: In light of Bob Dylan's recent Rolling Stone interview in which he championed vinyl and complained both about CDs and modern recorded sound, we thought it appropriate to bring this to the home page yet again:
Back in 1994, ten years into the "digital revolution," the editor of Tower Records's "Pulse" magazine, bravely commissioned me to write an article expressing my feelings about digital sound, ten years after the introduction of the compact disc. It was published in "Pulse!" much to my delight. I thought you might find it interesting in 2005--MF