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Vinyl Music

Joe Henderson: “Multiple”

Details
Vinyl music

April 2025

Milestone Records / Craft Recordings—CR00845
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****1/2

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****1/2

Jazz saxophonist Joe Henderson made his name with Blue Note Records, where he recorded five LPs as a leader between 1963 and 1966 and appeared as a sideman on many other sessions. He moved to Milestone Records in 1967 and in the ten years that followed recorded 12 albums for them. His Milestone years offered a mixed bag of approaches to jazz, and there were some gems among them. One was Power to the People (1969), which Craft Recordings reissued last year on vinyl and hi-rez digital as part of its Jazz Dispensary series.

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Richard Dawson: “End of the Middle”

Details
Vinyl music

April 2025

Weird Records—WEIRD166LP
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

A little more than two years ago, English songwriter Richard Dawson released The Ruby Cord, the final album in a trilogy that looked at English life in the Middle Ages (Peasant, 2017), the present (2020, 2019), and the distant future (The Ruby Cord, 2022). For the most part, Dawson writes for acoustic instruments, and his work embraces folk-music traditions while subverting and reimagining them.

Read more …

Boz Scaggs: “Boz Scaggs”

Details
Vinyl music

March 2025

Atlantic Records / Acoustic Sounds SD 8239 /APA 070-45
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Boz Scaggs recorded his first solo album in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1965. Polydor Records released Boz in 1966, but it didn’t get wide distribution. On his return to the US, he joined up with Steve Miller in San Francisco. Scaggs had known Miller since high school, and they had played together in bands in high school and college.

Read more …

Opa: “Goldenwings”

Details
Vinyl music

January 2025

Craft Recordings / Milestone Records CR00767
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

I hadn’t heard of the Uruguayan jazz trio Opa until Craft Recordings reissued the group’s US debut, Goldenwings, in its Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf series. The label’s audiophile series has returned a few lesser-known albums by well-regarded jazz musicians, such as Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw, to vinyl. It has also brought back work by artists who deserve wider renown, including pianist Patrice Rushen.

Read more …

The Beatles: “The Beatles’ Second Album”

Details
Vinyl music

January 2025

Capitol Records—T 2080 Apple Records / Universal Music Group International 0602468019756
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****1/2

Sound Quality
***1/2

Overall Enjoyment
****

The Beatles’ conquest of America in 1964 happened so quickly, it caught the band and its record company, Capitol Records, by surprise. Capitol Records was the US subsidiary of EMI Records, whose Parlophone label had enjoyed unprecedented success with the group in England. Those records, distributed in the US by Vee Jay and Swan, did not do well at first. But “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which Capitol reluctantly agreed to release after passing up the group’s first three singles, turned out to be a massive hit. And American teens demanded more.

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Thelonious Monk Septet—“Monk’s Music”

Details
Vinyl music

December 2024

Craft Recordings / Original Jazz Classics / Riverside Records CR00725
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****1/2

Sound Quality
****1/2

Overall Enjoyment
****1/2

At first glance, it seems odd to see tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins listed in the credits for Monk’s Music, a 1957 release by the Thelonious Monk Septet on Riverside Records. But while it’s easy to think of Hawkins as a swing-era player—his career began in the early 1920s—he did play with bebop musicians in the ’40s and in 1944 led a session that featured Monk on piano.

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The Modest Jazz Trio: “Good Friday Blues”

Details
Vinyl music

November 2024

Pacific Jazz—ST 10, Blue Note Records 602448650498
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****1/2

Sound Quality
****1/2

Overall Enjoyment
****1/2

Blue Note’s Tone Poet series is in its fifth year, and producer Joe Harley is reaching deep into the label’s catalog to reissue some wonderful but often undervalued jazz recordings. In addition, the Tone Poet series continues to include jazz titles from other labels that have over the years become part of Blue Note’s holdings, including Pacific Jazz and United Artists.

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Devin Daniels Quintet: "LesGo!”

Details
Vinyl music

October 2024

Sam First Records SFR 006
Format: LP

Musical Performance
***1/2

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Earlier this year, on February 16, I followed a link to a live stream of a performance by alto saxophonist Devin Daniels at Sam First, a bar in Los Angeles that I wrote about that same month. Sam First sells tickets to its shows online. If you’re in Los Angeles, you can attend a performance at the bar for $25. If you’re somewhere else but want to see and hear the musicians, you can pay $10 for access to a live stream. Daniels did a two-night stand at Sam First, with shows on the 16th and 17th.

Read more …

Katy Kirby: “Blue Raspberry”

Details
Vinyl music

September 2024

Anti- Records 88009-1
Format: LP

Musical Performance
***1/2

Sound Quality
****

Overall Enjoyment
****

Singer-songwriter Katy Kirby’s debut solo album, Cool Dry Place (2021), was released on the independent label Keeled Scales in 2021. The album received warm reviews and made the end-of-year best-of lists of several magazines. Kirby moved to Anti- Records for Blue Raspberry, but she stayed with Alberto Sewald and Logan Chung, the two producers who worked on the first album. Cool Dry Place was a good showcase for Kirby’s songwriting talents, but her sophomore album brings her voice forward in the mix and contains a richer instrumental and sonic palette.

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Soft Machine: “Høvikodden 1971”

Details
Vinyl music

August 2024

Cuneiform Records Rune 530/531/532/533
Format: LP

Musical Performance
****

Sound Quality
***

Overall Enjoyment
****

Since 1996, Cuneiform Records has released quite a few previously unavailable recordings by the English prog-rock band Soft Machine. Most of them have been live albums sourced from soundboard recordings, or from performances filmed for European television. Two years ago, Cuneiform released Facelift France & Holland, containing recordings of 1970 live shows by a short-lived quintet version of the band. Last year, the label unveiled The Dutch Lesson, a 1973 performance in Rotterdam by the group’s second quartet lineup.

Read more …

  1. Paul Weller: “66”
  2. Mark Knopfler: “One Deep River”
  3. Charles Lloyd: “The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow”
  4. Art Pepper Quintet: “Smack Up”
  5. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, Max Roach : “Hot House: The Complete Jazz at Massey Hall Recordings”
  6. R.E.M.: “Reveal” and “Accelerate” Reissued
  7. The Leroy Vinnegar Sextet: “Leroy Walks!”
  8. André Previn and His Pals, Shelly Manne & Red Mitchell: “West Side Story”
  9. Miles Davis: "Miles Davis Live—What It Is: Montreal 7/7/83"
  10. Miles Davis: "Live-Evil"
  11. John Coltrane: "A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle"
  12. McCoy Tyner: "Expansions"
  13. James Booker: "Classified"

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