The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

[Rudy]

Amazing rendition! Tremendous cast of players, and so, so much more entertaining than I typically find such lengthy jams to be. I never picked up that Big Band album of Phil's, but now I'm curious to check that one out. If it's even half as good as this clip, that should be a fun listen. Does George Duke appear on the album?

Duke only appears on "Pick Up the Pieces" on the album. The A Hot Night in Paris album is kind of a mixed bag as it grabs three of his solo hits and three hit Genesis tracks also but to their credit, it's like many jazz arrangements where the theme is introduced and the song opens up for soloing. In addition to those are the Miles Davis favorite "Milestones," and an original by Gerald Albright, "Chips & Salsa" (with Albright and Harry Kim arranging). The album ends on the high note of "Pick Up the Pieces" (which, if it isn't the Montreux recording, it's awfully similar--I haven't compared), and the "Los Endos Suite" (which is a newer performance of the same arrangement).

Overall it's a very nicely done big band album, and it leaves the two best tracks for last. Arrangers include John Clayton Jr., Arif Mardin, Harry Kim, David Stout, Sammy Nistico, and Mike Barone.

It also makes me wonder how the entire Trick of the Tail album would sound if it were done in a similar arrangement, with maybe a few of the better songs from Wind and Wuthering.

Does George Duke appear on the album? I'm not sure I was aware he had any connection to the Collins Big Band, but I'm a great admirer of his playing (especially anything he did in tandem with Stanley Clarke....)

I was a fan of the first Clarke/Duke album when it first arrived way back in the early 80s. Played it to death! They certainly did have a chemistry together. I did get to see them on one of their multi-artist tours back in the 80s, but unfortunately given the number of groups featured, they only had a chance to play four or five songs...and Duke was having an issue with his keyboards.

I later heard Duke in another multi-artist tour and he did a few favorites from his catalog, and the whole place erupted when he played "Reach For It," with multiple calls from the audience to "Take it to the bridge!!". He really enjoyed himself on that tour!

My favorites of Duke's albums are the Muir Woods Suite; Reach For It; Brazilian Love Affair; I Love the Blues, She Heard My Cry; Dream On; After Hours; and Guardian of the Light, along with the Clarke/Duke albums.

Plus, the self-title 101 North album (1987)...which at the time, many speculated was a George Duke album disguised under a group name so he could record for another label (Capitol). The keyboards are credited to Dawilli Gonga (a pseudonym for Duke), yet he was listed as composer, arranger, producer. And with so many familiar names in the credits, it certainly sounded like one of his projects. It was even recorded at his studio, Le Gonks West. It's a nice, downtempo "chill" album, kind of low key--I've always liked it, and the lead-off track "Lady of the Night" got airplay on our local jazz radio station.



Here's a really poor-sounding upload of the entire album. Sadly, long out of print.

 

[Bobberman]

I've posted this one before. Two years later, from the 1998 Montreux Jazz Festival. This one features George Duke on piano, and Gerald Albright, Sadao Watanabe, James Carter, Klaus Doldinger and Pee Wee Ellis in the horn section taking solos. Arif Mardin conducts, and arranged this piece.

Awesome Phil really Knocks it out of the park on this he's very versatile with all kinds of music I love this

 

[Michael Hagerty]

The alphabet this morning takes me to Art Blakey's Big Band---recorded in 1957:



That fella on the sax---John Coltrane. He's pretty good!

 

[Michael Hagerty]

The alphabet this morning takes me to Art Blakey's Big Band---recorded in 1957:



That fella on the sax---John Coltrane. He's pretty good!

...and from there to Blakey and the Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk:



....which makes me feel like I should have had three cups of coffee instead of one.

 

[Rudy]

Can't say I've heard either of those yet.

If I had to point someone to an Art Blakey record, this would probably be my top pick. It was responsible for getting a lot of listeners into jazz--so many classics on this one ("Moanin'," "Along Came Betty," "Blues March," and Blakey's drum workout on "The Drum Thunder Suite" is worth a listen). It was originally a self-titled album but Blue Note changed it to Moanin' at some point, based on its best-known track.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

Can't say I've heard either of those yet.

If I had to point someone to an Art Blakey record, this would probably be my top pick. It was responsible for getting a lot of listeners into jazz--so many classics on this one ("Moanin'," "Along Came Betty," "Blues March," and Blakey's drum workout on "The Drum Thunder Suite" is worth a listen). It was originally a self-titled album but Blue Note changed it to Moanin' at some point, based on its best-known track.

One of my favorites!

 

[Mark-T]

Speaking of Phil and Quincy, this one's my favorite:

 

[Rudy]

Little tidbit I learned on a podcast recently. There is one thing different about this song among all the others in the Police library.



This is the only Police song where Stewart Copeland appears on guitar. Copeland had recorded this as a demo, and Sting and Andy Summers only sang/played their parts over the track, rather than make a new recording of it. Summers added the guitar solo.

Source (an interesting podcast to watch):

 

[Rudy]

I've been studying up on Lee the past couple of months and thought I'd offer some details at this point in his recording career.

I've been referring back to your notes every so often, so, thanks for that!

One album that came into my radar is Cornbread, as I saw that it is back in production as a Tone Poet release. The Blue Note store sadly doesn't have it (they have a sale on for a few more days, with free shipping at $85 and up), but I may wait for things to settle down price-wise if I get it elsewhere. (It had been out of stock, but not out of print, so a lot of the price gougers were jacking the price way up and falsely claiming it was no longer available.)
Anyhow, what really stood out to me was the track that opens side two, "Ceora," which I understand is one of his better-known tunes. I don't know if it rates buying an entire Tone Poet for, but I'm going to listen to it via Qobuz a few more times to see if I really want it. "Ceora" kind of knocked me for a loop though--wasn't expecting it!

I was hoping to do a year-end lineup of vinyl (for another publication) and wanted to feature some of the Blue Notes released in 2023, but looking at the titles I have, I think maybe only one of them was a 2023 release (Electric Byrd). But at least that record has the interesting side story of being in the 313 Series. I might still pick up Somethin' Else (Cannonball Adderley) as I've heard it but never owned it. The Classic Vinyl version (released this year) is plenty good enough for me, especially with Kevin Gray's mastering; there is the new Mobile Fidelity OneStep vinyl release also but I can't see it being improved all that much to spend the extra dinero.

It's Silver's Serenade (Horace Silver) I'm really looking forward to next year, and I hope the next Classic Vinyl series touches on a few others I'm after, like Tokyo Blues (the 45 RPM Music Matters set is too pricey), Horace-Scope, maybe even a redo of The Cape Verdean Blues since mine was in the anniversary series sourced from digital, and the pressing is way off-center on one side. The Jody Grind and In Pursuit of the 27th Man may be two others but they are not that popular so I doubt they'd see reissues any time soon. (It's easy to tell which titles are in favor with Blue Note--they have high-res releases of the popular titles, where the lesser ones only had a CD release many years ago.)

 

[Mr Bill]

Little tidbit I learned on a podcast recently. There is one thing different about this song among all the others in the Police library... ...the only Police song where Stewart Copeland appears on guitar.

It was while listening to some of the Copeland-penned Police tracks that I realized Copeland was Klark Kent... "It's Alright for You" definitely has "Kent-ish" guitar rifts... "Bombs Away" from Zenyatta Mondatta is probably my favorite Police tune written by Copeland...

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

It was while listening to some of the Copeland-penned Police tracks that I realized Copeland was Klark Kent...

For me, it was the hair. I also had the same feeling--when I'd purchased the EP, it sounded very much like Copeland, and the photos in the EP kind of gave it away also. It's also ironic that the first time Sting, Andy and Stewart appeared onstage together was...for a Klark Kent gig. I forget (from one of the podcasts) who Stewart said the drummer was for that gig.

The podcast I posted above is part of a studio that does tape transfers, and the host in the podcast has been going through Stewart's old tapes and there was mention of a "deluxe edition" that would feature all the Klark Kent tracks we know, plus alternate/demo versions that could make up another disk. Stewart also quipped that the EP was on green vinyl for the Kryptone label, but the alternate versions should be on brown vinyl on the Kraptone label. Either way, I plan on getting whatever comes out, as I missed out on Kollected Works (I got a digital copy of it, but it is missing "Guerilla" which was the hidden bonus track on the CD).

 

[JOv2]

might still pick up Somethin' Else (Cannonball Adderley) as I've heard it but never owned it.

A rare chance (and perhaps his last in such a role) to hear Miles as a sideman. A+.

The Jody Grind

Probably my all-time Horace fave (you get early Woody Shaw (who for a spell there in '63-'64 at least two critics were sure was actually a pseudonym for "Freddie Hubbard"!) and the virtually unknown yet highly regarded Tyrone Washington.)

The ad-hoc dates aside, Lee was on fire at Blue Note during 1965-67. Arguably his 1960s peak (and also a peak for that Blue Note 1960s VanGelder sound). Cornbread is yet another excellent date.

 

[hannahtobin]

Little tidbit I learned on a podcast recently. There is one thing different about this song among all the others in the Police library.



This is the only Police song where Stewart Copeland appears on guitar. Copeland had recorded this as a demo, and Sting and Andy Summers only sang/played their parts over the track, rather than make a new recording of it. Summers added the guitar solo.

Source (an interesting podcast to watch):

Nice upbeat lead guitar.

 

[Mr Bill]

(I got a digital copy of it, but it is missing "Guerilla" which was the hidden bonus track on the CD).

Another one missing from Kollected Works is "HoHoHo," a Christmas track from the IRS Christmas disc Just In Time For Christmas (1990).

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

Another one missing from Kollected Works is "HoHoHo," a Christmas track from the IRS Christmas disc Just In Time For Christmas (1990).

--Mr Bill

I hope that is in the stack of tapes that Brian Kehew (of Round and Wound Tape Transfers) above has worked on. Stewart kept a lot of diaries (and apparently demo tapes) from all those years prior to and with The Police.

For my own purposes, I can do a needle drop of "Guerilla" and I think I may have "HoHoHo" here also, and add them both to the Kollected Works directory on my server.

(Actually, they should have left "Guerilla" as a separate track and made "HoHoHo" the hidden track...)

 

[Rudy]

Probably my all-time Horace fave (you get early Woody Shaw (who for a spell there in '63-'64 at least two critics were sure was actually a pseudonym for "Freddie Hubbard"!) and the virtually unknown yet highly regarded Tyrone Washington.)

It's become one of my Horace favorites as well. One I'm listening to now during lunch break is Horace Silver Trio Vol. 1: Spotlight on Drums. I believe it's a compilation of two early 10-inch Blue Note records (8 tracks each). Being in a trio forces his piano into the spotlight just about all the time, which is why I like it.

The past few months I've been turning to The Tokyo Blues quite a bit, and Silver's Serenade was in rotation through the summer. And The Stylings of Silver arrived a couple of weeks ago in fantastic shape for the price (which, after Song for my Father, was a gateway drug into the rest of his catalog).

The one interesting (yet ultimately sad) thing is hearing Roy Brooks in Silver's classic quintet lineup. Brooks hails from the Detroit area and was a great drummer, but suffered from schizophrenia. A buddy and I caught the last half hour of a set he'd done in the late 80s at a jazz festival and his performance on stage was erratic. He had a full stage of musicians (almost reminding me of Parliament/Funkadelic) with Brooks perched mid-stage on a riser with a small Fender amp behind his kit, facing forward.

The band would just get settled into a groove and he'd start waving his arms, where everyone would stop. He'd then do a few perfunctory drum fills with the little Fender amp cranked up and the "ECHO Echo echo echo echo" would follow each fill. Then everyone would start filtering back in, finally get settled back into a groove and he'd repeat. Honestly couldn't wait until he was done and off the stage. Just a couple of years ato I read he had schizophrenia and had been institutionalized and/or jailed (due to his behavior) at points later in his life. When he was good, he was brilliant. But his illness took a lot of that away from him sadly.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

A guilty pleasure of mine for many years has been Rick Springfield. He's always good for an upbeat pop song. His 1970s-era album Wait For Night was one of my favorites, especially the song "Take a Hand" which was covered by A&M band Head East at one point.

Even though his heyday is long over, he's never stopped making new albums. He just came out with a new one last summer called Automatic, which I found out about by accident on Amazon. It's chock-full of catchy pop tunes and he has not lost his touch for a killer singalong hook.

This is one thing I've found out over the years is, just because your favorite artist isn't all over the map anymore, does not mean they haven't been releasing new music. I got to thinking about Mike + the Mechanics a few months ago and found out they had six or seven albums that I'd never heard of! So I've been checking them out lately. Lots of bands and singers from the 80s and 90s are still putting out music regularly, you just need to find it.

 

[Rudy]

I got to thinking about Mike + the Mechanics a few months ago and found out they had six or seven albums that I'd never heard of!

M+TM was interesting in that Paul Carrack was one of the lead singers for the group on their best-known earlier albums ("Silent Running," "The Living Years," etc.), and he has fronted other groups over the years, like Squeeze ("Tempted," from East Side Story where he also played keys), Ace ("How Long"), and also did a lot of session work. I only owned the first M+TM album up until the past few years, where I finally got Living Years and Word of Mouth (2nd and 3rd albums).

 

[Rudy]

I'll also add that prior to M+TM, Mike Rutherford recorded a solo album for Atlantic, Acting Very Strange, which was notable in that Stewart Copeland played drums on the record. Rutherford sang the lead, though, and his voice is somewhat gravelly and rough, which probably turned off quite a few listeners. Although "Maxine" from the album became a Top 40 hit in Canada, of all places.

 

[Rudy]

Listening to Toto XX recently, I took a look at the liner notes. Two things I learned.

The track "Tale of a Man" is a reference to a guitarist friend of the band who was one of Charles Manson's acquaintances. "Helter skelter doomsday plan..." is the broadest hint in the vocals as to what David Paich was writing about. As I suspected, it was recorded during the Hydra sessions and it's a shame they didn't ditch "All Us Boys" from the album and put this song in its place.




Also, it didn't occur to me that the Toto demo track "Miss Sun" (from their "audition" tape for Columbia, which later became a hit for Boz Scaggs) is done in the soul style of Al Green, even the "stumbling" drum beat throughout.

 

[jfiedler17]

This is the only Police song where Stewart Copeland appears on guitar. Copeland had recorded this as a demo, and Sting and Andy Summers only sang/played their parts over the track, rather than make a new recording of it. Summers added the guitar solo.

I never knew that about "It's Alright for You"! Very cool! I'll have a new appreciation for that one anytime I hear it now.

A guilty pleasure of mine for many years has been Rick Springfield. He's always good for an upbeat pop song. His 1970s-era album Wait For Night was one of my favorites, especially the song "Take a Hand" which was covered by A&M band Head East at one point.

Even though his heyday is long over, he's never stopped making new albums. He just came out with a new one last summer called Automatic, which I found out about by accident on Amazon. It's chock-full of catchy pop tunes and he has not lost his touch for a killer singalong hook.

This is one thing I've found out over the years is, just because your favorite artist isn't all over the map anymore, does not mean they haven't been releasing new music. I got to thinking about Mike + the Mechanics a few months ago and found out they had six or seven albums that I'd never heard of! So I've been checking them out lately. Lots of bands and singers from the 80s and 90s are still putting out music regularly, you just need to find it.

Yeah, Rick Springfield is a guilty pleasure for me as well. He tends to get savaged by critics, but his songwriting has always been highly infectious, even going all the way back to "Speak to the Sky," and he's still crafting some pretty great singles to this day. Songs for the End of the World (from 2012, if I remember correctly) is another post-heyday album of his that's absolutely overflowing with hooks.
For a guy who has something like 17 or 18 Top 40 hits to his name in the U.S. (the last being 1988's "Rock of Life," if memory serves me right), it's also weird as hell that "Jessie's Girl" is the only one I ever hear on the radio anymore (and way, way too doggone much, at that; I can't scan the radio dial in my car at any given moment without coming across that one, it seems). Most of his other hits have held up really well for me over the years, though, not in the least since radio hasn't worn any of them out. And some of the "filler cuts" on his biggest albums are surprisingly nearly every bit as catchy as the singles, like "Light of Love" or "Carry Me Away" on Working Class Dog (how "Light of Love" got overlooked for consideration as a single is beyond me; it's probably my favorite song on the album next to "Love Is Alright Tonite") or "Tonite" or "Just One Kiss" on Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet.

Mike + the Mechanics pretty much vanished off the radar in the U.S. after "The Living Years," sadly, but Rutherford's cut plenty of delightful music since then. (Shame, of course, that Paul Carrack is no longer with them - I'm a big fan of his, not just for his work with M+TM, Ace, and Squeeze, but his too-often-overlooked solo records, like "Don't Shed a Tear" (which still floors me to this day on the rare occasions I hear it) and "One Good Reason" - but Andrew Roachford - formerly of "Cuddly Toy (Feel for Me)" fame - is handling most of the vocals for the band these days and doing a nice job of it.)

I'll also add that prior to M+TM, Mike Rutherford recorded a solo album for Atlantic, Acting Very Strange, which was notable in that Stewart Copeland played drums on the record. Rutherford sang the lead, though, and his voice is somewhat gravelly and rough, which probably turned off quite a few listeners. Although "Maxine" from the album became a Top 40 hit in Canada, of all places.

I've never heard Acting Very Strange - the reports about his vocals have kinda scared me away from giving it a try - but I quite like his previous solo outing, Smallcreep's Day. Very, very overlooked.

Also, it didn't occur to me that the Toto demo track "Miss Sun" (from their "audition" tape for Columbia, which later became a hit for Boz Scaggs) is done in the soul style of Al Green, even the "stumbling" drum beat throughout.

I didn't even realize a Toto version of that song existed! Very fascinating to hear. The lyric seems to be dramatically different from the Boz recording, but the rhythm track seems to be almost fully realized, albeit maybe just a wee bit slower. Kinda weird that Toto sat on that one and didn't include it on their debut. I think that song could have been even bigger - whether for them or for Boz - had it come out sooner than it did.

 

[AM Matt]

Speaking of Mike Rutherford "Acting Very Strange", here is the music video "Halfway There" from late 1982. Got airplay on 97 WLAV FM (96.9) Grand Rapids, MI back then (which is a "Classic Rock" station).

 

[Rudy]

For a guy who has something like 17 or 18 Top 40 hits to his name in the U.S. (the last being 1988's "Rock of Life," if memory serves me right), it's also weird as hell that "Jessie's Girl" is the only one I ever hear on the radio anymore (and way, way too doggone much, at that; I can't scan the radio dial in my car at any given moment without coming across that one, it seems).

I won a copy of one of his albums from a local radio station back in the day. Living in Oz, with the hit "Affair of the Heart" on it. Can't say I played it much, but what I remember was good.

I've never heard Acting Very Strange - the reports about his vocals have kinda scared me away from giving it a try - but I quite like his previous solo outing, Smallcreep's Day. Very, very overlooked.

It's worth it for the songwriting and musicianship--just Rutherford and Stewart Copeland alone make it worth hearing. The vocals grew on me after just a couple of listens--a little unconventional and a little strained at times (I mean, how can someone with a voice as deep as Barry White even attempt notes in the tenor range?), but they serve the songs well. There are a few Duke/ABACAB Genesis touches here and there, but the mix of styles he uses on the record are surprising.

An uploaded version of the record (not my needle drop):


It's been years since I've listened to Smallcreep's Day--I need to fix that soon.

I didn't even realize a Toto version of that song existed! Very fascinating to hear. The lyric seems to be dramatically different from the Boz recording, but the rhythm track seems to be almost fully realized, albeit maybe just a wee bit slower. Kinda weird that Toto sat on that one and didn't include it on their debut. I think that song could have been even bigger - whether for them or for Boz - had it come out sooner than it did.

From a recent interview (hosted by Sunset Sound, on YouTube), I feel as though Toto essentially walked into their record deal with Columbia. David Paich and Jeff Porcaro were already very active session musicians at the time, as was David Hungate, and Lukather was similarly just picking up steam in sessions himself. (Paich, the Porcaros, and Luke were high school pals.) I get the feeling this demo track and the other one, "Love is a Man's World," were mere formalities at that point. Boz's version also had most of Toto on it as well (Jeff and Steve, Paich, Luke--the bass is synthesizer, possibly Moog like the demo), so it's not much different.

I should add that there are some really good interviews done by Sunset Sound on YouTube. The interview above with David Paich and Steve Porcaro is very informative. The interview with Lukather is completely different--lots of names and info, but Luke and co-guest, engineer Niko Bolas, are hilarious and the interview is very NSFW in a side-splitting way (especially a few of the antics that Toto members used to get up to at the studio). Overall though, both interviews show how much Lukather, Paich, and the Porcaros love and respect each other even to this day (although sadly Jeff and Mike are both gone--if I'm not mistaken, their father Joe Porcaro outlived them).

 

[Rudy]

This is a coincidence...

I've been listening to my Fusion Mashup station on Pandora for several hours today, as I haven't had time to play much of anything else. Looking just now, I noticed something:



So tomorrow (Thursday), this station will be 16 years old. I also see I've given a thumbs-up to 144 tracks, and 102 got booted to the thumbs-down category.

One interesting feature that I usually forget to use is the "Tune Your Station" feature. I chose Deep Cuts today, where it features infrequently-played album cuts. So it's been an interesting variation on my station today. I have yet to try the others.



I think these options are also available on the mobile version. I tend to use Pandora on the computer, and can cast the tab in the browser to several devices in the house if I need to. As I have a paid account, I have zero ads, and I can skip ahead an unlimited number of times (far as I know--I've skipped three or four tracks and never ran into an issue, unlike the free version).

One surprise with the Deep Cuts today is that it has played two instrumental Jeff Beck songs. One was from Blow By Blow, while the current song is from Wired. The sound of his tracks are actually really close to what the Mahavishnu Orchestra was doing at the time, as well as the earlier Atlantic Jean-Luc Ponty albums. I'd always taken Jeff Beck as more in the rock side of music but this surprised me with how the selections fit right in. (That's a testament to how well the Music Genome Project works.) This track "Sophie" currently playing sounds like other guitar-based fusion jazz I've heard or actually, very similar to the 2nd iteration of Return to Forever as there's interplay between guitar and electronic keyboard.

My 80s station is a good example of how I've tuned some of my stations. It started out with only Hall & Oates, but that also led to a little too much on the pop side of the 80s. I later added Tears for Fears, then finally iced the cake with Depeche Mode, and that has made it way better as Depeche Mode made the channel lean a little more into the lesser-known bands that featured synthesizers more prominently. After you define an artist for a channel, you can "seed" it with other primary artists and as always, can give a thumbs up or thumbs down to further tune what it plays. (And no, it's not tedious--if I'm working, I just reach over to the Pandora window and tap thumbs up or down. Or in the kitchen, tap either one on the kitchen phone.)

 

[Rudy]

Anyhow, back to what's spinning.

I'm working on my best-of list for 2023 and deciding what I may or may not list. It'll probably appear right near the end of the year. I have some records to catch up on, and others to reacquaint myself with.

This is on at the moment:



I'm shaking my head. I bought this new. It was released in 1980. That was 43 years ago. Ponty hasn't released a record in 16 years, beyond a trio gig with Bireli Lagrene and Stanley Clarke (G-Stringz, in 2015) and the Anderson Ponty Band record around the same time. He has cut back touring to only a few gigs each year.