News

Today (September 21), record club Vinyl Me, Please formally announced the latest in their VMP Anthology box set series, The Story of Herbie Hancock. Bernie Grundman cut all-analog from tape where possible, GZ pressed the eight albums over 11 LPs on 180g black vinyl and packaged in tip-on jackets. The set retails for $349 and includes a “deluxe” booklet. Curated by Hancock himself, the chosen titles are: Takin’ Off (1962, all-analog), Maiden Voyage (1965, AAA), Head Hunters (1973, AAA), The V.S.O.P. Quintet: Live Under The Sky (1979, digitally recorded), The Piano (1979, AAA), Future Shock (1983, AAA), 1+1 (1997, digitally recorded), and River: The Joni Letters (2007, digitally recorded). Live Under The Sky, a 1979 Japanese CBS/Sony Master Sound live album recorded digitally, is newly re-sequenced and amended at Herbie Hancock’s request. The box set shipping this winter is housed in a two-piece box hand-numbered to 1500 units.

This order sheet sent by Sundazed's Bob Irwin 14 years ago when the label was reissuing mono Byrds albums proves that 1A, 1B and 1C pressings are all "first pressings".

The RIAA today released its mid-year data on U.S. consumer listening and recorded music revenue. Growth in paid subscription streaming more than offset declines in other areas, in great part affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Resonance will release for RSD "Black Friday" as a double LP set this previously unreleased recording of Evans' short-lived 1968 trio with bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The 20 track package will include an overview essay by veteran critic Brian Priestley, new Interviews with Gomez, DeJohnette, pianist Chick Corea, and Evans’ good friend Chevy Chase, and a one-of-a kind album cover drawing by legendary artist David Stone Martin.

Pandemic-related closures temporarily put Blue Note’s “Tone Poet” series production on hold, but the series resumes on August 28th with the release of three titles: vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson’s first session The Kicker (1963), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean’s It’s Time (1964) and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’s The State of the Tenor: Live at the Village Vanguard, Volume 1 (1965).

Optimal Media recently announced a new "ecco-friendly" vinyl pressing package along with other environmentally friendly options for vinyl clientele wishing to minimize or eliminate their contribution to carbon-based pollution.