Never mind that the tape has some occasional serious dropout, never mind that the legendary performance of the title track “One Down, One Up” commences mid way through the tune during a Jimmy Garrison bass solo, never mind that these performances are station dubs from live radio broadcasts, never mind Alan Grant’s radio announcements sprinkled throughout, and never mind that this treasure trove is probably not in the same league historically as the Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert unearthed at the National Archives and issued by Mosaic on vinyl recently (MQ1-231).
The poet/singer Gil Scott-Heron struck a raw nerve in the early '70s with "The Revolution Will Not be Televised," a sarcastic, simmering three minute taunt set to a flute, drum and bass soaked jazz backing track that sounds today more like Beatnik parody than jazz.
Whatever "it" is, Welsh born 23 year old Duffy has it. If you're old enough to remember and were a fan of Lulu's "To Sir With Love," you'll love Duffy's surprising debut, co-produced by Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, who's had an extensive solo and collaborative career since the breakup of that '90's band, the very busy Jimmy Hogarth, producer of Susan Vega's excellent Beauty and Crime reviewed elsewhere on this site as well as co-producer of James Blunt's unfairly reviled debut album, among many others and Steve Booker.
Who producer Kit Lambert flew to New York Spring of 1969 to supervise the mastering of Tommy for American Decca’s 2 LP release (Decca 7205). With the lacquers cut, Lambert declared the results a “masterpiece” and celebrated by incinerating the tapes. So the oft-repeated story goes. Fortunately, it’s not a true story, for during the tape research for this special edition, the original 2 track master tape was discovered in a storage vault. That leads one to wonder what Mobile Fidelity used a few years ago for its “Original Master Recording” gold CD issue, but why cry over spilt polycarbonate and gold sputtering when this superb edition is now available?
If you buy this and just hear some moldy old monophonic Dixieland you deserve to spend the rest of your life listening to Aqualung and Patricia Barber, not that there’s anything wrong with either that album or that artist. I don’t mean to insult anyone but the audiophile “pop charts” are depressingly mundane and predictable.
I don't have kids. Didn't happen. We've dealt with it. They say if you play Mozart for your kid in the womb it's good for his or her development. I wouldn't know.
Duke Ellington in a hard charging trio session may surprise some listeners expecting the Duke's usual light touch. Spurred on by Charles Mingus's angry plucks and Max Roach's polyrhythms, Ellington hits the keyboard harder than usual, punctuating his flourishes with greater dynamic gusto than one hears on his big band recordings.
Krauss and company’s tuneful, crossover bluegrass-pop may not be pure enough for the dogmatic, but for the rest of us, the smooth-to-the-touch instrumentals and lilting, lockstep harmonies bring mountain-sense and countrified order to a chaotic world however far into the pop arena the group occasionally strays.
Yes, it's a horrendous conflict of interest, I suppose, for me to be reviewing this double LP TRON soundtrack reissue since I originally supervised it back in 1982, but I was there, so who better qualified to do it?
While two of the three previous jazz records guitarist/arranger Anthony Wilson made with producer Joe Harley were guitar/drum/organ sessions, this one also featuring those instruments is much different.
Clearaudio couldn't have gone into the record business to provide software support for its line of turntables. There’s no shortage of new vinyl in 2006. Perhaps the album’s producer is a friend.
The long running outfit known as Mercury Rev (first album, Yerself Is Steam issued 1991 on the UK Mint Films label and 1992 on U.S. Columbia) didn’t take its name from the liquid element. The first album’s back jacket offers a clue: with or without permission, it reproduces the ‘Stereo 35MM’ logo found on cloth-spined Command Classics LPs and that’s fine with me. “Fine”—get it? Fine? It even reproduces the part of the logo that says the recording was on 35MM magnetic tape, but I doubt that album really was. (Hint: those Commands were recorded by the legendary Mercury Records engineer (and mastered by George Piros for that matter).
Never one to sit idle, even after a debilitating physical injury he sustained in late 1971, Frank Zappa pushed onward to make some of the most creative music of his entire career. The resultant two albums — July 1972’s Waka/Jawaka (official Zappa album No. 15) and November 1972’s The Grand Wazoo (official Zappa album No. 16) — are two sides of a coin now duly feted in a pair of new, 50th anniversary 180g 1LP editions sporting all-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to find out why you need to get your hands, and ears, on both LPs. . .