Album Reviews

A fabulous new retrospective collection being released via BMG on November 4 that celebrates Jamaican-born jazz pianist Monty Alexander is the latest offering from the Montreux Jazz Festival archives. Called simply Monty Alexander: The Montreux Years, this 180g 2LP set is a fine addition to this important archival series, which curates the finest performances from the Swiss festival’s acclaimed, vast catalog of recordings between 1993 and 2016. Read on to see why Alexander’s Montreaux Years on vinyl deserves to be a part of your upcoming rotation. . .

Your decision as to whether you need the second volume in the 1950s trilogy of recorded collaborations between Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong — October 1957’s Ella And Louis Again — may depend on how much of a fan you are of the Great American Songbook and vocal jazz in general. Read on to see if this 180g 2LP offering from Verve and Acoustic Sounds whets the audiophile palate. . .

Unlike household names like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock, respected drummer Idris Muhammad is perhaps not all that well-known to most mainstream jazz music fans. Luckily, the good folks at Vinyl Me Please — working in conjunction with Craft Recordings’ Jazz Dispensary series — have just released a quite fine, RTI-pressed, Kevin Gray-remastered-and-lacquer-cut 180g 1LP reissue of Muhammad’s rare second solo album made for Prestige Records, 1971’s Peace and Rhythm. Read on to find our why you need to get your hands (and ears) on this long-lost limited-edition soul jazz classic. . .

The latest album in Claude Nobs’ amazing series of official private-collection releases features none other than the late, great keyboard master, Chick Corea. Culled from the archives of The Montreux Jazz Festival, Chick Corea: The Montreux Years 2LP 180g set via BMG sounds remarkably fine and consistent across the years that span the multiple eras of these recordings. Read on to learn more about how the MQA-mastered Montreaux Years makes the grade on wax. . .

In January 1993, Elvis Costello spearheaded a fascinating album inspired by a newspaper article about a professor from Verona, Italy who had taken it upon himself to write replies to letters that were addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic — and imaginary — character, Juliet Capulet. Called The Juliet Letters, Elvis’ song cycle imagined and brought these letters to life, as backed by a highly talented string quartet known as The Brodsky Quartet. It may be a good time for reconsidering this wondrous recording, now that The Juliet Letters is available on 180g 1LP limited-edition purple vinyl. Read on to discover more about this new vinyl edition of one of Elvis Costello’s most ambitious musical works. . .

The ongoing Verve Records and Acoustic Sounds reissue series has once again delivered a new vinyl edition of an iconic album that is arguably better than the original in most every way. This new reissue of the October 1956 mono vocal jazz classic Ella And Louis features singing legend Ella Fitzgerald at a superstar-ascending crossroads, teamed with one of the architects of modern jazz, Louis Armstrong — a.k.a. “Pops,” a.k.a. “Satchmo,” a.k.a. “Satch.” Read onward to find out why this new 180g edition honors the now-rare originals while improving upon them in many ways. . .