Recording of the Month

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Thursday, November 21, 2024

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: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 April 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records CR00382
Format: LP

Musical Performance: *****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

Art Pepper was one of the great saxophonists in jazz and among the most troubled—which is saying a lot. It’s a crowded field. Pepper struggled with drug addiction and did several stints in jail in the ’50s and ’60s. His memoir, Straight Life (1979), which he cowrote with his third wife, Laurie, is a harrowing story of his life in jazz. After reading it, I was amazed that Pepper had been able to make so many good records and be such a force in music.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 March 2023

Jazz Is Dead Records JID015
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ***½

In 2017 Ali Shaheed Muhammad, formerly of A Tribe Called Quest, and composer/producer Adrian Younge launched a jazz concert series in Los Angeles, California. The series was titled Jazz Is Dead, and in 2020 they established a record label under the same name. Muhammad and Younge began recording music featuring jazz musicians, many of whose recordings had been sampled over the years on R&B and hip-hop tunes. In just three years, Jazz Is Dead has released 15 albums; an impressive accomplishment considering that Muhammad and Younge produce and play on all of them.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 February 2023

Zappa Records / UMe ZR3848-1
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

In December 1971, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were appearing at London’s Rainbow Theatre when an audience member rushed onstage and pushed Zappa into the orchestra pit. Zappa suffered severe injuries, and was in a wheelchair for a year. He would not tour again until the fall of 1972, but recuperating from injuries was not something that would keep a driven, almost compulsive musician like Zappa down.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 January 2023

Weird World Record Co. WEIRD149LP
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***
Overall Enjoyment: ***½

English musician Richard Dawson has made recordings under his own name since 2005, but also under the pseudonym Eyeballs and in collaborations with other musicians. His primary influence is English folk music, but his recordings are highly experimental and veer into prog rock. His music has a willful eccentricity that sets him apart from the mainstream and makes him worth hearing, but it requires some time to absorb and appreciate.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 December 2022

Blue Note Records BST-84132/B0033488-01
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ***½

I became a fan of jazz guitarist Grant Green in the early 1990s, but copies of his recordings on vinyl were hard to find at that time. I tracked down nearly all his Blue Note sessions on CD, including his outings as a sideman, but for a long time I only had a handful on LP. Over the last several years, Blue Note has done a fine job of bringing Green’s recordings back into circulation on vinyl through its 75th Anniversary, Tone Poet, and Classic Vinyl series.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 November 2022

Impulse! Records B0036068-01
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ****

The saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has played with a number of bands and musicians, including the Sun Ra Arkestra, Polar Bear, and The Heliocentrics. Those bands are genre-bending—Sun Ra, after all, stretched the definition of jazz—so it’s not surprising that Hutchings is currently part of a musical trio that has hints of jazz but defies categorization. The Comet Is Coming was formed in London, England, in 2015, and the members of the band appear under pseudonyms. Hutchings is King Shabaka, keyboardist Dan Leavers is Danalogue, and drummer Max Hallett is Betamax.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 October 2022

Blue Note Records BST-84221 / Ume 4579754
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

Jazz organist Larry Young died too soon—in 1978, at the age of 37—but he had played on many notable sessions throughout the ’60s and ’70s, both as sideman and leader. He appeared on Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and John McLaughlin’s second album, Devotion, both in 1970. He was a member of the Tony Williams Lifetime from 1969 to 1971, alongside McLaughlin and Jack Bruce. Young recorded as a leader for a number of labels, but his best-known album under his own name was Unity (1966), his fifth album and his second for Blue Note Records.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 September 2022

Pacific Jazz Records ST-61 / Blue Note Records B0033487-01
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

When jazz trumpeter, arranger, and composer Gerald Wilson died in 2014, at the age of 96, he was celebrated as a great and important American musician. He had received many accolades throughout his later years. In 1990, the National Endowment for the Arts named Wilson an NEA Jazz Master, and various other awards came to him in the years that followed. Over his long career, a number of his recordings were nominated for Grammy Awards.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 August 2022

Verve Records / Acoustic Sounds / UMe V6-8613/B0033124-01
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

When Verve Records and Acoustic Sounds reissued Bill Evans’s Trio 64 on vinyl in July 2021, it was originally intended to be released simultaneously with a second Evans title on Verve, Trio ’65. Supply chain issues, along with increased demand at pressing plants, caused schedule changes for many labels, and Verve was no exception. Trio ’65 was delayed, and finally made its appearance as part of the Verve / Acoustic Sounds reissue program on July 1, 2022, a year later than planned.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 July 2022

Virgin Records/UMC RMLP 3
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Stranded was Roxy Music’s third album in less than 18 months. Its second album, For Your Pleasure, had been released just eight months earlier, in March 1973. Brian Eno, a cofounder of the group, left soon after For Your Pleasure, to be replaced by Eddie Jobson on keyboards, synthesizers, and violin. Bassist John Gustafson also joined the group, and the lineup on Stranded, which included Bryan Ferry on vocals, Phil Manzanera on guitar, Andy Mackay on sax, and Paul Thompson on drums, would remain fixed for two more albums.