Album Reviews

The first time I recall hearing a vibraphone was on a record at E.J. Korvette's. I was perusing the vinyl back in 1960 something or other when the store clerk put on a copy of Terry Gibb's That Swing Thing (Verve V6-8447), cuing up Bobby Timmon's catchy as the flu "Moanin'" which this clueless suburban adolescent had never heard.

Perhaps, in a perfect audiophile world, Shel Talmy would have arranged to remix these three-track originals to analog for the LP release and to digital for the CD. But this isn't a perfect world. However, compared to my original American Decca "stereo" pressing of The Who Sings My Generation (Decca DL 74664), this is perfection. The original stereo edition was an electronically reprocessed, boxy-sounding compressed mess. While purists may have preferred it in mono, the stereo remix found in My Generation (Deluxe Edition) is respectful and keeps most of the action centered, avoiding hard-left and -right separation. I did get a chance to hear an original UK Brunswick mono pressing, and this reissue has nothing to be ashamed of.

There’s so much to recommend here, starting of course with Gerry Mulligan. There’s also a great deal to live up to, given the legendary “Gerry Mulligan Meets….” series on Verve from the 1950’s, one of which (Gerry Mulligan Meets Ben Webster) is reviewed elsewhere this month.

Friday afternoons around 4PM, after a hard week’s schooling back in 1968, my roommates and I at Cornell University engaged in a particular ritual: one of us would go into the garage behind our rented house and retrieve our well-hidden pot “stash.” The most skilled roller amongst the 4 of us would produce a doobie, and then we’d smoke away our tensions while listening to? Charles Lloyd’s Forest Flower (Atlantic SD 1473), recorded live at the 1966 Monterrey Jazz Festival.

In retrospect, Tom Waits’ trajectory from singer/song writer to down-beaten jazz-fueled street person scowling at the piano in the 1970s made perfect sense. But when he came out of the gate in the early 1980s, his transformation was almost as dramatic as David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust reinvention. Five new of-era 180g 1LP reissues from Island/UMe — namely, 1983’s Swordfishtrombones, 1985’s Rain Dogs, 1987’s Franks Wild Years, 1992’s Bone Machine, and 1993’s The Black Rider — all seek to remind us of just how fertile this period was in Waits’ overall canon. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts combo review to see if any or all of these new wonderful Waits reissues belong in your collection. . .

Our first 2024 installment of Review Explosion Short Cuts includes a trio of fine new 1LP releases from the cool Radiohead side project knows as The Smile, the latest, hi-fi-sounding album from indie faves Guided By Voices, and the debut LP from East L.A. “souldies” pioneers Thee Sinseers. Read Mark Smotroff’s combo-platter review to see if any, or all three, of these new LPs belong in your collection. . .