Music Reviews: Vinyl

Music review of the 2025 Craft Recordings reissue of the introspective Bill Evans Trio album Moon Beams with Paul Motian and Chuck Israels. Motian and the late Scott LaFaro were in the famous trio that recorded with Riverside just before Moon Beams was recorded.

As part of their OJC Series, this brand new Craft Recordings reissue of Moon Beams is pressed at RTI on 180-gram vinyl with all-analog mastering from the original tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio.  

Late '60s British rock bands had to fit themselves into a specific mold, whether it was a psychedelic uniform of flared pants and satin shirts, or the presence of a guitar god and wailing vocalist. In the case of Jethro Tull, when audiences saw a scruffy Ian Anderson wearing an overcoat, standing on one leg, face twisted into possessed expressions, blowing excitedly into a flute, eccentricity worked in the band's favor . Jethro Tull's fit into the scene... Read More

Before they were “first band in space,” Pink Floyd performed to the ghosts of thousands. From the accidental destruction of footage to a glimpse at the creation of one of the most iconic albums in rock-and-roll history, all the way down to one very controversial aspect ratio crop, it’s been a long road to 2025’s Pink Floyd at Pompeii. Of course a show played at ancient Roman ruins would have this mythos surrounding it!The ashes have been brushed off this storied... Read More

Ever arrive at a party in progress where everyone knows everyone and you know no one? Leslie Mandoki's A Memory of Our Future an 80 minute double album arrived in a big box just before Munich High End 2024 along with multiple copies of a sumptuously produced promo booklet and an even bigger bound book touting the Mandoki Soulmates, drummer/producer Leslie Mandoki's all-star band that's been playing together in one form or another for thirty years. Ever... Read More

Habana, the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove's previous release with his hard bop- Afro-Cuban group Crisol (crucible/melting pot) won a 1998 GRAMMY for Best Latin Jazz Performance. Somehow this follow-up recorded April, 1998 was never released, but it's not because there's something wrong with it or it's disappointing in any way, or it doesn't sound good or whatever. The album was finally released October 18th, 2024 a few days after what would have... Read More

Ever since arriving on the U.K. scene, harmonica holder around neck, strumming a guitar, singing a "wind" song (about catching it not looking for answers blowing in it), and being described as "the Scottish Bob Dylan" Donovan has unfairly suffered a respect deficit among some Boomer-aged music fans. The famous clip from "Don't Look Back" where a half a decade younger Donovan plays and sings in a room full of Dylan fans has long been... Read More

Now's the time for another generation to discover the wonders of Buena Vista Social Club—the music, the artists, the history and the cultural phenom that made stars of some very old practitioners of musical genres and groupings referred to as Son, Danzón and other musical flavors and the unlikely story of how this record came to be, now being told in the Tony Award nominated Broadway show. Wim Wenders produced a same named documentary.It's difficult to... Read More

Honestly at this point with the Ward/Johnson team writing for Tracking Angle, I often feel inadequate writing about classical music but I'll do my best. The Spanish concert pianist Alicia De Larrocha (1923-2009) gained fame in America touring in 1954 with The Los Angeles Philharmonic. She left an extensive discography that included many sonically outstanding recordings for Decca/London, highlighting Spanish composers including Granados, Rodrigo, Falla, Albéniz... Read More

Neil Young has been perfectly and, for some, frustratingly in the moment since the 1960’s. But, what does that look like in 2025? Prior to the pandemic, Neil was recording and touring with Promise of the Real, a band largely made up of Willie Nelson’s kids. Decades younger, and with a vibrancy that goes hand-in-hand with youth, the members of Neil Young’s backing band seemed to be just as inspired by his fire as he was by theirs. That era in Neil’s music was truly... Read More

Lori Lieberman has released albums aimed at the so-called audiophile market for almost 30 years, but this one is the first (since her days on Capitol) with full analog bonafides. That's no guarantee of great sounding results, anymore than her previous digitally recorded ones did not have superb sound, because they did—2022's American Songbook themed Truly for instance. Here she's also gone "live in the studio", which adds considerable risk.... Read More

Freshly sprung from his contractual ties to the other Fabs, the McCartneys and Co. in January of 1975 lit upon New Orleans. With a batch of new songs that he was sure would surpass those on Band On The Run, contemporary reports found that Paul was feeling as toppermost as he had in years. And by settling on the Crescent City as his recording venue, he may have been hoping to recapture the magic (and the Grammy noms…) he’d found by once again working outside of the... Read More

Queen’s legacy is at the same ante as the Beatles, where one in every four households is likely to own their Greatest Hits compilation. Best known for crafting mini operatic suites and sports stadium anthems, the casual listener is probably not in tune with Queen’s hard-rocking origins. Hollywood Records focused on that era with the release of Queen I last year. Different release configurations transformed it from a remix of their self-titled debut into a period deep... Read More

Dylan Peggin did a great job writing for Tracking Angle recently when he gave us the back story of the making of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album. He also gave us the scoop on the new Rhino High Fidelity pressing, giving it very high marks for packaging, music and sound.For comparison, he used the well-regarded 2006 Rhino pressing of Paranoid cut AAA by Kevin Gray, which was subsequently repressed on colored vinyl in 2015 for Vinyl Me Please. He also had the Rhino vinyl... Read More

The Doors are one of the most represented Record Store Day artists, guaranteed every year to have a special release. Whether it's reissues of long-forgotten mono mixes, singles, curated compilations, live recordings, or studio outtakes, RSD is a means for the most obsessive of Doors completists to stuff their shelves with the yearly limited edition offerings. No artist output has been nit-picked and criticized as much as the Doors' catalog, but the past few... Read More

In early 1928, in Avalon, Mississippi, John Hurt was awakened at 2 am by a knock on his door. He recognized the voice of Willie Narmour, a white man and a local fiddler who Hurt sometimes accompanied at dances. Narmour said "Get up John. Here's some people from New York want to hear you play some." Of course, Hurt didn't believe this incredibly unlikely story, but as a Black man, he knew better than to say so. "I didn't say anything to... Read More

Having owned a couple of copies of Mulligan Meets Monk, I’ve always felt that the stereo record magnified the differences between these two musicians by featuring them on different channels and casting too much of a spotlight on Mulligan’s sax. As good as those copies sound, including the 1980’s OJC LP and the AP 45 from the ‘90s, I had little experience with the mono recording that was made in the studio at the same time, except for a Fantasy SACD. So, when I heard... Read More