June 14th, 2024
David Bowie Made The Transformation as a “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star!” Box set documents his most legendary periodBy: Dylan Peggin
Until 1972, David Robert Jones’ career was a classic case of trial and flaw. After fronting various R&B groups in the mid-1960s with no success and avoiding confusion with the Monkees’ Davy Jones, he changed his last name to Bowie and embarked on a career under his new name. Testing various musical grounds to see what worked, his early output ranged from a music hall-tinged eponymous debut album to a novelty single about a laughing gnome. Bowie hit paydirt in 1969... Read More
April 24th, 2024
Revisiting 80s Bond: The Return of John Barry LaLa Land Records Releases All the Notes in its New Deluxe EditionBy: Mark Ward
Released as a companion to its Live and Let Die reissue, this limited edition, deluxe 2CD set explores every note composed by John Barry for his return to the series, whose sound he created two decades earlier.
Read MoreApril 23rd, 2024
When James Bond Met Two Beatles... LaLa Land Records' Deluxe Reissue Revisits How Paul McCartney and George Martin Re-Invented the James Bond SoundBy: Mark Ward
This is the first of two recent releases from LaLaLand Records exploring lesser-known Bond scores from the 1970s and 1980s. First up, this limited edition, deluxe 2CD release of Live and Let Die (1973), which was the first Bond film not to be scored by John Barry, and the first to star Roger Moore. While at the time of the film’s release many felt George Martin’s score was a pale shadow of Barry’s template, the passage of time has been kinder to this music, and there’s no doubting the power of Paul McCartney’s iconic theme song. Time, therefore, to follow LaLaLand Records’ cue and dive deep into the origins of “the Bond sound” and how two of the Beatles team tackled this impossible assignment to reinvent Barry’s stylings for a new era and a new leading man.
Read MoreApril 5th, 2024
The "Chirping" Crickets In STEREO? and mono sounding better than ever?By: Michael Fremer
My old friend Ken Kessler What's App'd me sounding more excited than I've heard him in years! The veteran U.K. based audio and watch journalist told me a U.K. label Roller Coaster Records had just released a CD reissue of The "Chirping" Crickets that used similar tech to what Giles Martin used to remix Beatles albums in improved stereo, but Ken said for some reason it worked much better on this old Crickets album that was recorded and released... Read More
Craft Recordings releases The Sound of Music soundtrack complete for the first time, including every piece of music used in the film and even some cues that were not. (Your editor feels it necessary to write to readers not at all interested in TSOM to please read film editor Paul Seydor's essay. It is filled with fascinating details and insight into film production and criticism. Don't miss it).
Read MoreMarch 14th, 2024
Ethan Iverson's Fling with Modern Tradition The former Bad Plus pianist makes his grandest album yetBy: Fred Kaplan
Ethan Iverson may be best known as the original pianist for The Bad Plus, a trio that made an improbably huge splash in the early 2000s by grafting jazz rhythms onto such pop and punk tunes as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” Aphex Twin’s “Flim,” and Abba’s “Knowing Me Knowing You”—and doing it with energy, wit, virtuosity, and genuine cross-genre feel for idiom: no nudge-wink po-mo irony. The group’s drummer and bassist, Dave King and... Read More
March 2nd, 2024
Herbie Nichols Gets Another Fresh Revival One of the coolest trios in jazz lays out previously unknown tunes by the not-quite-forgotten pianist-composerBy: Fred Kaplan
Herbie Nichols, who died of leukemia in 1963 at the age of 44, was a jazz composer-pianist of vast talent, wit, and virtuosity, but little luck. He recorded just four albums (three for Blue Note, one for Bethlehem), none of which sold well; his music may have been at once too formalistic and too quirky for its time. He had a playful style, not unlike Thelonious Monk's, who was a friend and contemporary, though Nichols' sense of structure and harmony was... Read More
March 1st, 2024
The Techno-kayō Gems of Tamao Koike Worthwhile obscurities finally compiled in one placeBy: Malachi Lui
Yen Records encapsulated bubble-era Japan’s artistic experimentation at a mainstream-adjacent level, though some artists never took off. Among them was Tamao Koike, whose new CD TAMAO - Complete Yen Years documents her short-lived '80s attempt at techno-kayō stardom. Partially produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra, Koike's music deserves rediscovery.
Read MoreDecember 8th, 2023
A lovesome piano-guitar discovery Geri Allen & Kurt Rosenwinkel's 2012 duet concert-album is one for the agesBy: Fred Kaplan
Just in time for the holidays, A Lovesome Thing—pianist Geri Allen and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel playing duets at the Philharmonie de Paris on Sept. 5, 2012, for nearly an hour, five tunes, mainly standards, unrehearsed—is a welcome and ravishing balm.The two had played together just once before—the previous July, when Allen briefly sat in with Rosenwinkel’s quartet at the Jazz Standard—and never together as a duo. Yet they make a perfect fit, Allen’s lush chords,... Read More
December 2nd, 2023
Sullivan Fortner's wild solo ride The pianist jags new paths over standards and mystery-toursBy: Fred Kaplan
Sullivan Fortner is best known as singer Cécile McLorin Salvant’s main pianist, but he was dazzling New York jazz aficionados for a few years before that gig materialized, and, like Salvant, he keeps getting better—more imaginative, more ambitious, more open to taking big risks. His latest, Solo Game (Artwork Records), is two very different albums in a single two-CD set. The first, Solo, is an acoustic-piano solo session, covering a wide array of jazz and pop... Read More
September 7th, 2023
Darcy James Argue's Big-Band Wonderland The brilliant composer-conductor's 4th album is by far his bestBy: Fred Kaplan
Darcy James Argue has evolved over the past 15 years, into one of our era’s great big-band composers and leaders, second only to Maria Schneider and, increasingly, a force worth taking on the same level of seriousness. His 4th and latest album, Dynamic Maximum Tension—his first in six years and his debut on the Nonesuch label—is his best to date: a work of stunning versatility and complexity, but thoroughly accessible, borderline passionate, for all its intricate maneuvers.
Read MoreSeptember 3rd, 2023
Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks' 'Orange Crate Art' "Hold(s) Back Time" From the archives: Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks release a misty eyed, warm hearted song cycle of California nostalgiaBy: Michael Fremer
(This review originally appeared in Issue 5/6, Winter 1995/96. A 25th Anniversary double vinyl LP issued by Omnivore with new liner notes and three previously unissued outtakes is currently available—see clickthrough at page bottom).When I was a child, I had a middle-aged second cousin Sophie who lived in far away California. She came to visit one cold New York winter in the late 1950s, bearing crates of tissue wrapped oranges, and jellies and jams from a place with a... Read More
September 3rd, 2023
Golden Smog's 'Down By The Old Mainstream' From the archives: A supergroup mimicking the 70sBy: Michael Fremer
(This review originally appeared in Issue 7, Spring 1996.)It is at once comforting and depressing to hear a band of (relative) youngsters writing and performing songs, most of which could easily be dropped into a cassette tape compilation from the early 70s and segue way so smoothly you’d never know they were new. Since I choose comfort over depression every time, I’m enjoying the hell out of this set of alternative shitkicker music which gracefully slips and slides... Read More
August 29th, 2023
Neil Young's Long-Neglected Mid-80s Country Album From the archives: Mobile Fidelity's ANADISQ 200 reissue of Neil Young's 'Old Ways'By: Michael Fremer
(This review originally appeared in The Tracking Angle Magazine Issue 7, Spring 1996.)Bryan Ferry covering Gogi Grant’s dramatic “The Wayward Wind” has always been one of my musical dreams, but Neil Young does a more than adequate version to open this long neglected mid-80s Young country album. While he doesn’t bring the kind of “camp” to the tune Ferry could, he’s got the spirit right, with cascading strings (17 count ‘em pieces), Waylon Jennings on guitar, and Bela... Read More
July 25th, 2023
Jason Moran's Lovely Pitch-Black Rainbow The pianist's solo soundtrack of our decadeBy: Fred Kaplan
As I’ve noted a few times in this space, Jason Moran is the most versatile, virtuosic jazz pianist on the scene. Around the turn of the decade, as player and composer, he focused on elegiac melodies, deceptively simple in form, rich in harmonies and textures, stirring, even spiritual, in their quest. Some tracks on this album from that period, The Sound Will Tell You, resemble movie music (but deep movie music); two of them were written for the HBO adaptation of... Read More