Jazz at the Pawnshop (30th Anniversary)

If you want to stop any discussion on a jazz board dead in its tracks or, in reverse, want to flame an ongoing discussion on any audiophile forum, you just need to either mention “Jazz at the Pawnshop” or say it’s at best a mediocre effort. Whatever you do wherever, you’re bound to illicit complete deafening silence or a flame war with loads of hissy fits. With all its reappearances in probably more formats than any other session ever recorded, it’s always fun to watch this one being hotly debated to the point of Internet insanity.

If you ask your local audiophile twerp, you’ll get a three-hour treatise on how good these recordings sound and that you simply have to run to your nearest dealer and buy one box for yourself and several for your friends. Of course, the audiophile is accused by the jazz connoisseur of not having any understanding of jazz whatsoever (“… shit from Shinola”, you know, that kind of argumentation) and the audiophile will lob an “elitist swine” right back at him or her. The “real” jazz fan will without fail compare this session (actually two sessions) to those of more well-known artists and judge it mediocre at best, not worth one’s time at worst. Usually, his or her post will be accompanied by inflammatory language and a reminder as to how many great sessions remain unreleased or only exist in crappy sound quality whereas these Swedish sessions remain in print seemingly indefinitely in great sound. Continue Reading →

The Complete Joe Newman RCA-Victor Recordings (1955-1956): “The Basie Days”

I love this double-CD and it is probably one of the most frequently-played reissues in my home. It’s also the one that made me search out many more double-CDs from this wonderful early 90s reissue series, “Jazz Tribune” (later sold under the title “Indispensable”) by RCA/BMG France.Joe Newman (1922-1992) was best-known for his lengthy stay with Count Basie’s Orchestra. Newman started fronting pick-up groups from March 1954 onwards, but these sessions here start with the first ones for the giant RCA-Victor, starting in early 1955. Newman built an octet around fellow Basie members Wilkins, Green and Wilson by adding representatives of the swinging Kansas City style. The recording was done with one single microphone and soloists were brought to the forefront by simply making them stand up. The group’s sound was recorded exceptionally well and this reissue has more than decent sound, although I could imagine that a label like “Mosaic Records” could remaster this material to really make it shine. Still, this early 90s BMG reissue is a fairly flat transfer and is the better for it (you can really turn this one up without your ears starting to bleed), especially since you can still find this one at relatively cheap prices ranging from about $10 to $20 via second-hand sites or Amazon marketplace dealers. Continue Reading →

Illegal Downloads

Note: Readers beware. This post contains some slightly stronger language that might offend some, but only because it is directed at those who have gotten more money from me than anyone else on this planet.

With a tip of the hat to Indie HQ, a wonderful site which you should be reading regularly, I’m about to go on another verbal rampage here, something I haven’t done for quite a while.

The question posted over there, more or less, is if downloading (readily available for purchase) music is acceptable. It’s a bit more complicated, but head over there to check out the original post yourself.

Let me go off on a slight tangent here with one single example:

Gosh, where do I start? Maybe with this: I don’t want to download music, not only because even the best lossless formats aren’t the real thing, with home-printed covers and the eternal hunt for liner notes and whatnot, but also because I don’t believe in keeping a collection of digital files. Still, the labels have – in the past – forced me to do so. Continue Reading →

The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (Deluxe Edition)

OK, OK, I like ambient music. My PC is filled to the brim with it and I’ve always been a big fan of electronic music, although I don’t have many CDs that fit the description. I bought this Universal Deluxe Edition recently for next to no money on sale and to be quite honest, I didn’t hesitate a single second because The Orb did not only invent and define ambient-house music but also put out one of the best albums ever – this one. When it came out, it was new, energetic, surprising, hip, cool and whatnot and it paved the way for a slew of other recordings I started to hunt for once I was bitten.Yes, this concept album was also more than controversial. The tracks are loaded with samples and, for example, Rickie Lee Jones wasn’t all too happy about her being sampled, especially because she sounds way out there (she only had a cold) when she appeared on an American TV talk show from which this sample was taken. You can find The Orb spinning Sergio Leone, Allegri, Steve Reich, Pink Floyd and a ton of others and one can safely say that they at least helped kick off the heated copyright debate that followed when sampling really took hold after the release of this double-album. Unfortunately, the samples remain largely uncredited on this Deluxe Edition as well. Continue Reading →

Fathead: Ray Charles Presents David Newman

This is one of those albums I pull out regularly, especially because it is mostly an up-tempo bebop romp with oodles of soul thrown in for good measure. The sound is excellent on this Atlantic reissue that in 1958 marked David “Fathead” Newman’s debut as a leader. Newman was in Ray Charles’ band at the time and hence Charles and some of his musicians are also present on this album. Everyone delivers a more than solid job and the tight ensemble sound is just fun to listen to. At times one gets the impression that one is listening to a much larger band: Hank Crawford’s charts, apparently also added to by Quincy Jones, are invariably excellent. Continue Reading →

Universal Deluxe Editions

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UFO: Walk on Water

The other day I basically ransacked the various online stores I frequent, hunting for special offers. January and February are my busiest shopping months, simply because the various stores do their spring cleaning early, throwing out their stock to make space for the new year’s upcoming releases. These past years, a pattern began to emerge: January is clearance sale around the globe and end January and beginning February, at times, is extra clearing sale, getting rid of the stuff that wasn’t sold the weeks before.

So, I was clicking my way around the globe and I came across a name that I hadn’t heard for quite some years, UFO. It should come as no surprise to you regular readers that I decided to jump on this one, especially since it cost the equivalent of about two dollars (good for me, perhaps not good for the band, although the record label probably sold the copies at a fixed price). Continue Reading →

Music for Contemplative Moods

Music is a mood thing, always has been and always will be. There’s the loud stuff for the beginning weekend (at the moment I’m enjoying the hell out of Jeff Beck’s – for that time – extremely noisy but also fun-driven albums “Truth” and “Beck-Ola” from 1968 and 1969 respectively), there’s music to celebrate the good things in life with which for me is always jazz from the 30s to the 60s, there’s music to get penned-up aggression out of the system with (Judas Priest always gets that job done for me), there’s music to work to (I’ve written about that extensively on this site), and there’s music to simply listen to attentively.

Lately I have noticed that very often I end up in contemplative moods in which just about anything that is too noisy gets on my nerves. As my life is going through some major changes, I spend quite a bit of time sitting and thinking and it is really not all that easy to find music that can further that process without interfering too much. Continue Reading →