For the most part, the best Art Pepper could do in 1972 when this set was issued was listen to and talk about old performances and old tapes. He recorded only one album during an extended period of inactivity stretching from 1968 to 1975.

Caught in 1972 between The Beatles and Byrds pop/folk undertow and too early to catch the indie rock wave pioneered by bands like REM later in the decade, commercial failure was all but assured for Big Star, aided by what many at the time considered was a bad Memphis, TN based record company roll out with spotty distribution and less than stellar promotion.

You can bet the Ardent label tried, but back then indie label distribution was challenging. The release dropped quickly from radio’s radar screen.

The mid-sixties may not have been Monk’s most creative period but it was arguably his strongest and most focused both in the studio and onstage. If any jazz musician was poised to withstand the rock era it was Monk the performer and Monk the composer.

CSN&Y played and sang live better than ever during this 2006 “Freedom of Speech” tour as you\\'ll hear on this 16 track document, none of which was overdubbed. The only “overdub” was of a 100 voice choir recorded at Capitol studios, Hollywood before the tour that was added to the live shows as well.



I saw the show at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ and it was as good live as on this double LP set, pressed on 200g vinyl in Japan.

Careening between sweet Beatlesque pop delivered via three part harmonies and dexterous rhythms and edgy blues-boogie that channels Alex Chilton’s inner Marc Bolan via Memphis country/soul, Big Star’s second album is even more thrilling and satisfying now, 35 after it’s 1974 release. The album hasn’t lost a step.

Rare, desirable and expensive when first issued in 1973 as a triple LP set in Japan where it was recorded and available in America only as a hard to get import, Lotus didn’t make it to CD until the earl 1990s.

Sergio Mendes’s frothy Brazilian pop reinterpreted for the hip-hop generation serves as the high concept for this 2006 release produced by The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am who also performs solo and with a guest list that includes Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, Q-Tip, John Legend and Justin Timberlake, among others.

Leonard Cohen, the enduring romantic, recorded his debut album appropriately enough, in the waning days of the “summer of love,” in August of 1967. By then he was in his 30’s and capable of expressing his views of love and intimacy in refreshingly sophisticated and sometimes indelibly bleak terms.

By the time he tried his hand at music he’d been a published poet and novelist and while you couldn’t look him up on Wikipedia back in 1967, you didn’t have to, to know Cohen wrote from experience.