Album Reviews

The prospect of reviewing a new, ultra-deluxe 180g version of the March 1958 hard-bop classic Relaxin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet has been simultaneously daunting and exciting. It is the first time I’ve gotten my hands on one of these tasty, fancy editions that’s an upstanding member of Craft Recordings’ popular and acclaimed Small Batch series. This series uses RTI’s noted one-step vinyl manufacturing process, which effectively delivers a pressing made off a first-generation metal mother made from the original lacquer. Good news: The Craft Relaxin’ LP is nicely centered, fairly flat, and RTI’s special Neotech’s VR900 vinyl formulation is especially quiet and transparent. Read on to glean more. . .

The Oscar Peterson Trio’s seminal 1964 release We Get Requests features his classic trio at a creative peak. This fine recording is an especially fantastic listen in a pristine new Verve Records/Acoustic Sounds Series 180g 1LP presentation that’s coming out August 19 via UMe. This reissue delivers on so many levels, and is in every way better than my original 1960s-era vinyl pressing. Read on to learn why this new edition is worth pre-ordering right now. . .

The ongoing Verve Records and Acoustic Sounds reissue series has once again delivered a new vinyl edition of an iconic album that is arguably better than the original in most every way. This new reissue of the October 1956 mono vocal jazz classic Ella And Louis features singing legend Ella Fitzgerald at a superstar-ascending crossroads, teamed with one of the architects of modern jazz, Louis Armstrong — a.k.a. “Pops,” a.k.a. “Satchmo,” a.k.a. “Satch.” Read onward to find out why this new 180g edition honors the now-rare originals while improving upon them in many ways. . .

In January 1993, Elvis Costello spearheaded a fascinating album inspired by a newspaper article about a professor from Verona, Italy who had taken it upon himself to write replies to letters that were addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic — and imaginary — character, Juliet Capulet. Called The Juliet Letters, Elvis’ song cycle imagined and brought these letters to life, as backed by a highly talented string quartet known as The Brodsky Quartet. It may be a good time for reconsidering this wondrous recording, now that The Juliet Letters is available on 180g 1LP limited-edition purple vinyl. Read on to discover more about this new vinyl edition of one of Elvis Costello’s most ambitious musical works. . .

The latest album in Claude Nobs’ amazing series of official private-collection releases features none other than the late, great keyboard master, Chick Corea. Culled from the archives of The Montreux Jazz Festival, Chick Corea: The Montreux Years 2LP 180g set via BMG sounds remarkably fine and consistent across the years that span the multiple eras of these recordings. Read on to learn more about how the MQA-mastered Montreaux Years makes the grade on wax. . .

Unlike household names like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock, respected drummer Idris Muhammad is perhaps not all that well-known to most mainstream jazz music fans. Luckily, the good folks at Vinyl Me Please — working in conjunction with Craft Recordings’ Jazz Dispensary series — have just released a quite fine, RTI-pressed, Kevin Gray-remastered-and-lacquer-cut 180g 1LP reissue of Muhammad’s rare second solo album made for Prestige Records, 1971’s Peace and Rhythm. Read on to find our why you need to get your hands (and ears) on this long-lost limited-edition soul jazz classic. . .