Blue Note Records just announced the 2020 continuation of the acclaimed Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series. "Tone Poet" Joe Harley (so named by jazz great Charles Lloyd) produces the series, originally launched in 2019 to honor the label's 80th anniversary. The all-analog 180g series mastered directly from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed at Camarillo, CA-based RTI features deluxe Stoughton Printing "Old Style" Gatefold Tip-On Jackets.

During my initial two years of record collecting, my dumb self rarely bothered to clean my records, and as an 8-year-old, I didn’t think grabbing records by the grooves it affected anything. Three years into the hobby, I began, with a MoFi brush and ONE solution, obsessively hand cleaning my LPs (as well as handling them properly). However, I never owned a vacuum record cleaning machine (RCM) until AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer gifted me one this summer and requested this review.

The French Record Company’s first release is a limited to 200 copies edition of a “never before released but should have been” 1958 recording of pianist Marcelle Meyer playing a Debussy program recorded for the Les Discophiles Francais label (DF 211-212).

SME press release (December 3):

SME will exit the tonearm retail and OEM business with immediate effect shifting our focus on our core turntable and tonearm combination business. The decision to leave the tonearm business was not taken lightly, especially as we have played a key role in the design and development of the world’s best tonearms. The growth of our turntable business and commitment to higher production levels means that we cannot continue both streams.

"What happens in Memphis stays in Memphis"—at least until you get these home (unless you live in Memphis!) might be Craft Recordings' slogan for this all-analog pair of Big Star reissues, probably the first all-analog reissues of these two ignored when first released but now highly regarded early '70s albums since Classic Records released them in 2009 AAA on Clarity vinyl.

Technics follows up on its successful re-entry into the turntable business (SL-1200 series, SP10R, SL1000R) with the SL1500C, a lower cost ($1199) direct drive turntable that features a version of the sophisticated coreless, single rotor direct drive motor used on its more costly turntables.

This video was originally blocked worldwide because one of these artists had a problem with a 10 second piano break that could be heard in the background in a hotel room at this show. Can you guess which?

Was it: Roger Waters, Donald Fagen, Eva Cassidy, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straights), Bebe, Leonard Cohen, Metallica, Patricia Barber, Michael Jackson, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds or Peter Gabriel?

Chet Baker was 29 years old when he recorded this album of vocals with occasional trumpet back in the summer of 1958 released today, 61 years later for RSD Black Friday.. He sounds like a kid. Actually you could argue he sounds positively girl-ish, which back then must have driven them pretty crazy—even crazier than did his chiseled, pugilistic face.

Newvelle’s Season Five Box is ready, but sorry, we’re behind so here’s coverage of Season Four’s box just in time for the subscription-based label’s Black Friday Record Store Day “open box” specials.

First the specials: eleven individual albums from the label’s first four years, including two from Season Four’s box, will be available exclusively from Wednesday, November 27th to Monday December 2nd, on the Newvelle website. There are albums from familiar names like the late Don Friedman and Ben Allison and others as well including from season four, Billy Lester’s From Scratch and Kenny Werner’s Church on Mars.

In addition, the label is offering during this Wednesday-Monday Black Friday RSD promotion, free shipping when you purchase the full Season Four box set.

Before I get further into this follow-up review, a short disclaimer: other than the US Apple/Capitol singles of “We Can Work It Out”/“Day Tripper” and “Hey Jude”/“Revolution” (which, as expected, sound lousy), I don’t have any Beatles 7” singles other than this new The Singles Collection box. All my Beatles listening is on LP (the 2014 mono series, the Giles Martin remix LPs, and a few mono and stereo UK and European pressings) and the occasional lossless digital format, therefore from these recordings I’m used to great sound quality. My expectations for The Singles Collection (generously gifted to me by AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer) were likely different from most others’: sure, I expected the all-analog lacquer cuts to sound good, but sound quality on 7” singles isn’t the first thing I think about. With the 7” format, it’s primarily about the musical content, collectibility, packaging (when applicable), and finally, sound quality.