Album Reviews

The Move, in their heyday — which was roughly 1967-71 — were quite popular in England and in Europe, despite never quite breaking through in a big way here in the States. Even so, The Move’s reputation has since continued to grow in stature — and their celebrated, hard-to-find sophomore LP, February 1970’s Shazam, has just been reissued by Esoteric Recordings. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if the Esoteric update of Shazam belongs in your collection and on your turntable. . .

The first Blood, Sweat and Tears group led by Al Kooper and including his former Blues Project bandmate Steve Katz, was the sophisticated assemblage that produced but one album. This one.

The Police have always been a well-produced, superbly recorded group. The first album, Outlandos D’amour, was an explosive, starkly recorded document. Issued as the punk movement ascended, the band chose to emphasize a propulsive, reggae infused rhythmic thrust rather than its considerable instrumental virtuosity. Stewart Copeland kept his pounding beats relatively simple, jazz virtuoso guitarist Andy Summers made do with slashing rhythmic attacks, and Sting shot his impossibly high-pitched rasp seemingly out of a cannon. Engineers Nigel and Chris Gray complied by keeping the miking close and the production simple, yet dramatically immediate and natural sounding. The first album was “in your face” big.

If you choose to linger on the external contours and often predictable constructive conventions of these tunes, instead of on how the musicians fill the spaces, this Horace Silver set can sound conventional, overly familiar and even mundane to 21st century ears.

For many music enthusiasts just getting into jazz, the arguable best way to discover the work of the legendary saxophonist John Coltrane is to, in fact, listen to his seminal recordings made for the Atlantic label in the early 1960s — and listen to them in mono. And thus, that leads us directly to today’s review subject, John Coltrane’s 1960–1964 Mono, a 180g 6LP box set released via Rhino’s most excellent High Fidelity Series back in late November 2025 as the ostensible kickoff celebration for this year’s Coltrane Centennial. (The late, great Trane was born in September 1926.) Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see exactly why you should make the investment to get your hands (and ears) on the 1960–1964 Mono collection. . .