Elvis delivers the album opening “Santa Claus Is Back In Town” on this fall of 1957 release with bawdy, bluesly, burlesque-like delight. There’s nothing in his voice that’s even remotely subtle when he sings “Santa Claus is coming down your chimney tonight,” or any of the rest of the tune’s normally innocent lyrics. At one point in a break Elvis utters some guttural grunts not normally associated with Christmas no how! This probably had teenaged girls tingling and their parents repulsed.

Back in 1956 at the dawning of the hi-fi era, the easy listening piano duo of Ferrante and Teicher, (whose career spans six decades) released an album called Soundproof! on Westminster records (WP-6014).



The cover art, featuring an iconic flying saucer shot taken from the MGM movie “Forbidden Planet” alerted potential buyers to something “futuristic” in the LP’s grooves. The back cover annotation explains that the two Steinways’ innards have been “gimmicked” with electronic devices.

Ed. note: Bishop Allen\\'s new album is set to release March, 2009. This review of the group\\'s debut album ran here December, 2007. It gets better with each play and is highly recommended.



This pleasingly tuneful, remarkably earnest and exceedingly smart record of musical Americana from the duo of Justin Rice and Christian Rice A/K/A Bishop Allen (a Cambridge, MA street where they once lived) hints that the two grew up in the presence of a good record collection.

Jimi Hendrix’s second studio effort upped the outrageousness of his debut (British or American), beginning with what many would say was a sacrilegious, though eye-catching, cover and continuing with the opening bit of “nonsense about space ships and even space people.”

There never has been a spectacular-sounding reissue of this great Cream classic and there never will be. Unfortunately, the original recording was not particularly distinguished.



While Cream was a UK-based band, it was signed to Atlantic and recorded by Atlantic in America by Tom Dowd. While the late Dowd is legendary, I\\'m not sure the legend, at least in terms of engineering, stands up to scrutiny.

While hard-bop tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin’s best known work was with Charles Mingus and his later Prestige albums are regarded as the hub of his solo recordings, this 1961 Candid set offers plenty of muscular grit, superb Nola Penthouse sound and the stellar backing trio of George Tucker on bass, Al Harewood on drums and one “Felix Krull” on piano, most likely a Nat Hentoff-assigned name given to Horace Parlan who was contracted to Blue Note at the time. In fact, Tucker and Harewood were part of Parlan’s quartet, as was Ervin for a spell.

Annie Ross may be best know among the “boomer” generation for the lyrics she wrote for Wardell Gray’s “Twisted,” the tune Joni Mitchell memorably covered on Court and Spark.

Born in the UK in 1930 but raised in the United States, Ross’s career includes movies, theater and of course singing jazz solo and with the legendary vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

Talk about throwing it back to the 1980s! These guys channel Manifestoera Roxy, Brit/Industrial (Joy Division) and even Haircut 100 on their latest double LP set (CD included for easy iTunes/iPod loading).

If you buy only one LP this year on faith because of what you read on this website, please make it this one that comes from so far out in left field, it’s in the bleachers.

I am an not even remotely aware of the contemporary opera world. Until handed this disc, I was unaware of either 26 Russian-born soprano Anna Netrebko or 35 year old Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón. The foxy-looking Ms. Netrebko has been called “Audrey Hepburn with a voice,” while Mr. Villazón has not.