AAA Vinyl

Wouldn’t pairing a highly talented bluesman with one of the best house bands in the world result in a great record?

This limited to 1000 copies lavishly packaged "one-step" edition of John Coltrane's Lush Life sold out shortly after it was announced. Did you miss anything? If it's a favorite, probably. I hesitated to review it, much like I don't review The Electric Recording Company's limited editions that almost immediately sell out upon release announcement, but given Craft's uneven release history (unlike that of ERC), a review seems appropriate.

Following a turbulent decade battling personal demons in the 1950s, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon had mostly faded from the jazz scene by the end of that decade; after all, he only recorded three sessions (two of which he led) in the second half of it. By 1961, however, he began a successful relationship with Blue Note that commenced that year with Doin’ Allright. The Los Angeles-native moved back to New York City for the third time, got rediscovered by jazz listeners, and led a quintet on this album that included Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Horace Parlan on piano, George Tucker on Bass, and Al Harewood on drums.

Sir Simon Rattle conducts Brahms: The Berlin Philharmonic performs the four Brahms symphonies conducted by Rattle and recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonie direct to disc September, 2014 using a One-Point microphone set-up.

España is Chasing the Dragon's latest and most ambitious Direct-to-Disc record. It's difficult enough to record Direct-to-Disc a string ensemble, or a big band or a big band with vocalist, all of which the label has done successfully managed.

There’s plenty already said about the musical content of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 classic What’s Going On so I’ll avoid redundancy and just say that its scope—from the sociopolitically-minded lyrics to the carefully assembled song cycle structure and luscious musical arrangements—pushed the boundaries of what a Motown release could be, and truly stands the test of time. It’s an endlessly relevant record (decide yourself if that says more about the album’s excellence or society’s failures), and also one of the most exhaustively reissued: in the past 20 years, we’ve seen Universal’s 30th anniversary 2CD featuring the original Detroit mix, more alternate mixes, and a Kennedy Center live recording from 1972; Mobile Fidelity’s SACD and 33rpm single LP releases; UMG’s 40th anniversary “super deluxe” edition adding further session material and alternate versions; quite a few run-of-the-mill digitally-sourced vinyl reissues of the core album, done at United for the US and GZ for Europe; an Abbey Road half-speed 4LP mirroring the 2001 2CD; and MoFi’s 45rpm double LP UltraDisc One Step cut from tape. That’s not including the “Vinyl Lovers” Russian reissues of dubious legal origin cut and pressed at GZ, the 192kHz/24bit hi-res download, a Blu-ray Audio release (remember that format?), and the Japanese SACDs, CDs, and MQA-UHQCDs featuring a flat transfer of the original master tapes (yes, really!).

If Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas is a melancholic look back at childhood Christmas viewed through the eyes of the Peanuts gang, Duke Pearson's 1969 Blue Note release Merry Ole Soul is the Christmas record you'll want to play at a hip holiday cocktail party.