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.
Not kidding. Supersense and Universal Music Group, Austria are making available a limited number of lacquers cut directly from the original master tapes of a few albums including A Love Supreme and Getz/Gilberto. That's what they are saying, I don't blame you for being incredulous.
Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas album is a secular holiday delight sure to please every listener, even atheists and agnostics. Originally released in 1960, the sound here is warm and inviting as a Yule log burning in the fireplace—once you get past the opener "Jingle Bells", which is somewhat brighter, brasher and more in your face than the rest, though having Ella in your face is hardly problematic.
The Electric Recording Company announced that sales of its limited edition reissue of The White Stripes' White Blood Cells goes on sale this Friday, November 5th 1PM EDT on the ERC website. In addition a limited number of copies will be available via Third Man storefronts.
In the worthy annotation to this historically remarkable release, educator and author of the biography “John Coltrane His Life and Music” Lewis Porter provides a play by play of this unlikely nightclub performance of Coltrane’s worshipful masterpiece recorded October 2nd 1965.
No need to check your calendar it's not April 1st and this is for real: ERC just announced it would be releasing The White Stripes' White Blood Cells, the group's 2001 final release on the Sympathy For the Record Industry label cut from the original analog master tape and packaged in the usual meticulous ERC way.
(photo: Jeremy Neech)
The blank white The Beatles double LP gatefold jacket intended to show the world that the group was finished with busy, production heavy studio creations that relied for completion upon production tricks and gimmickry. Instead, the group wanted to emphasize musicianship and “live play”.
Never mind that the songs sometimes ended up being more individual than group efforts and that squabbling and disagreement led to acrimony as well as long time engineer Geoff Emerick exiting, producer George Martin going on holiday and even Ringo Starr walking out for a few weeks.
The electrical service in my house has been problematic since I moved in 22 years ago. I’ve had ground hum issues, amplifiers that mysteriously buzz here but not elsewhere and general noise on the line problems too.
(Update: I was wrong. These were cut from files and not from tape. The information I received was not clear. Some of the commenters are correct and I was wrong. I am always happy to end up with egg on my face to get correct facts published. These digital transfers are the best I've heard. I'm leaving the review "as is".. Brief and to the point: This is a previously unreleased Sarah Vaughan fan “must have” double LP set recorded at the Berlin Philharmonie November 9th, 1969 with Vaughan sympathetically backed by a trio of relative unknowns: Johnny Veith on piano, Gus Mancuso on bass and Eddy Pucci on drums. Mancuso’s story is fascinating and worth a read. You’ll have to fend online for yourself for more about the others.