The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

[Rudy]

The Dave Brubeck Quartet Jazz Goes to College. This CD was part of the Columbia Jazz Masterpieces series. They put the original liner notes into a booklet which includes the dates and locations of the original recordings but they don't give the dates of the remastering or give the year that the CD version was created. Not a big deal - just curious.

I know that the Columbia Jazz Masterpieces series sounded OK in later years, but the very earliest CDs in the series (which had Columbia's most popular jazz recordings, like Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis) had a ton of noise reduction piled on, and sounded horrible. Those were released in 1986. Jazz Goes To College (CK 45149) was reissued in 1989 so it's safe from the tampering.

 

[Rudy]

This evening was the Dick Schory Percussion Ensemble, Music for Bang, Barroom and Harp, on the Analogue Productions 180g reissue. (Good luck ever finding an RCA Living Stereo original, let alone a clean original!) Mel Torme Swings Shubert Alley in high-res, and Santana and Santana III from the SACD rips. Currently have the Cannonball Adderley Quintet Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at "The Club" playing on my desktop system while I finish up for the night.

Since I had a couple of long drives back to and from Columbus OH over the past two days, and my JVC head unit is in the old ride, I activated the free XM Radio trial for 60 days. I have to say that the classical channel was the only one I really liked. Sirius ruined many of XM's channels when they took over. The "dance" channel--used to be late 70s/early 80s R&B and funk, and now they include 90s and a few newer ones. The Sinatra channel got old after about 20 minutes. There is a "Classic Vinyl" channel that doesn't play vinyl but instead, a crap-ton of stale 70s AOR--the only good thing they played was a Led Zep track from Houses of the Holy. The "real jazz" channel...no clue as to what they were playing, but it certainly wasn't what I was used to. Could have used some Miles or Bill Evans.

So at least on the Classical channel, I got to hear the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 (or as I shorten it, Rach PC2), Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (which I should say is excessively spooky when driving up Ohio on a two-lane road in the dark, with the nearly full moon lighting up the fields) and quite a few others.

So as you can guess, I won't be renewing SiriusXM. I already have a backlog of a few dozen classical albums to work through at home, so I won't really miss the classical channel. It's a shame Sirius ruined much of XM's programming. I still prefer to stream Internet radio at home, or Pandora, to discover new music these days.

 

[AM Matt]

Santana just released "Live At The House Of Blues" (2 CD 1 DVD) & I gotta get that one!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[AM Matt]

Just bought Sting "57th & 9th" (Deluxe Edition) & I think his best CD since 1993 "Ten Summoners Tales". Also listened to Santana "IV" (which is 75:35 in length) & I think that should be nominated for "Best Rock Album" in the Grammys because it is that good!! Also I like to get Gerry Beckley "Carousel" (member of America 1st solo album) that just came out. Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[DeeInKY]

Apparently Columbus is the place to be this week. Made a trip up to visit a friend who is recovering from a badly broken leg. We were listening to a Sirius channel but not sure which one. I don't have much experience with Sirius. There were a lot of older tunes remade by newer artists, but there was so much stuff on the display that it was hard to keep up - incoming phone calls, email notifications, temperature, etc. And there were 4 of us in the car talking so that made it more difficult.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Also listened to Santana "IV" (which is 75:35 in length) & I think that should be nominated for "Best Rock Album" in the Grammys because it is that good!!

Gonna have to disagree there; I thought it was disappointing, but different strokes! I didn't realize there was a new Gerry Beckley - will have to check that one out.

 

[Rudy]

I am thinking Santana IV will get nominated just based on it being a reunion of the "classic" lineup.

Apparently Columbus is the place to be this week.

I was down there both Thursday and Friday. Grabbed a bite down at North Market (downtown) Friday afternoon but the prices were jacked way up since my last visit a few years ago--it's more yuppie/hipster now. Beyond that I was in the northwest suburbs (Dublin). There is no north/south Interstate that goes directly to Columbus, so for us it's a drive on some rural two-laners once we're past Toledo.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Gerry Beckley "Carousel" (member of America 1st solo album)

Actually it is his sixth solo album -- or seventh, if you count the remixed version of his first, Van Go Gan. (The remix version was called Go Man Go and I didn't think it was nearly as good as the original.)

 

[AM Matt]

I also want to get Martin Page "In The House Of Stone And Light" which has the title track & the song "Keeper Of The Flame" (1995). Martin has 3 more CD's on the CD Baby website which are "In The Temple Of The Muse" (from 2008), "A Temper Of Peace" (2012) & "Hotel Of The Two Worlds" (his latest from 2015). I am also planning of up the remaining Curtis Stigers 8 CD's including "Real Emotional", "Hooray For Love", "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", "Secret Heart" (which is the Ron Sexsmith remake), "Lost In Dreams" "Baby Plays Around", "You Inspire Me" & "Let's Go Out Tonight". Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[Acapulco 1922]

Ray Charles 1967 anthology: A MAN AND HIS SOUL.
This (vintage) comp. is, for the most part, still the only way to get the hits of his ABC years in one place.

 

[Rudy]

Blues, baby!

 

[Rudy]

Lately I've been hitting some tracks on a handful of the Chick Corea Elektric Band albums (Eye of the Beholder, Beneath The Mask, Inside Out, Light Years, and the self-titled album). There are a few interesting tracks I've found among these, some having shown up on my Pandora jazz/fusion channel.

 

[Acapulco 1922]

This afternoon: an old bootleg reel of LOU REED's December 26, 1972 radio concert in Hempstead Long Island (he was -at the time- promoting the TRANSFORMER album).

 

[Rudy]

Added these to the Four80East collection. I have to say I haven't yet completely warmed to Positraction, but Round 3 is similar to the other two I've had.

And this is still getting plenty of play, via the 45RPM 2LP Analogue Productions 200g vinyl reissue. I have never heard this album in this much detail before:



I have the Pink Panther soundtrack in the same series headed to me soon. I already have the pink vinyl RSD copy (numbered, limited edition) from a couple of years ago which was cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Mastering, which sounds really good, but like most colored vinyl, it has a small bit of background noise to it. A few others are en route. Should be a good week.

 

[Rudy]

Among other things, today's playlist has included:

A somewhat overlooked collaboration between Tjader and Palmieri, which is actually one of two they did together. This one is on Tico records, the other El Sonido Nuevo: The New Soul Sound being on Verve.

Arriving today was the 2-LP 45RPM self-titled Santana on Mobile Fidelity. Fantastic sound on this pressing! The jam of "Shades of Time/Savor/Jingo" takes up the entire side two. "Waiting" and "Soul Sacrifice" also groove quite hard in this version.

And, the recent Music On Vinyl 180g pressing of Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters arrived as well. The Pygmy flute and vocals on "Watermelon Man" never sounded as "human" as they do on this version, which surprised me to the point of stopping what I was doing to listen to it.

 

[Rudy]

I've been spinning this one this afternoon:

It OK, but I have to say that it gets a little thin after a while. Gomez and Motian were both in Bill Evans' trios, and Explorations was the title of one of his earliest Riverside albums. Corea of course is an inventive player of course, but for my taste, I would rather just grab a Bill Evans album instead. This one just doesn't have the rich melodicism that draws me to Evans. So, it does get tiring after a handful of tracks.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

Funny you mention Corea. I've been playing a trio outing from 1977 with Chick, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul called A.R.C. on the ECM label. Pretty good stuff!

Another 1977 release that I downloaded from HDTracks is from The Quintet called V.S.O.P. that has the Miles Davis alumni - Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams, featuring Freddie Hubbard on trumpet. I wore out my old LP.

 

[Rudy]

I have V.S.O.P. kicking around on my network drive, but haven't given it much of a spin yet. I may pop that one on while I work tomorrow.

Speaking of Tony Williams, "Fred" (from Believe It) is playing on my Pandora channel at the moment. I picked that up on a Music On Vinyl pressing a few months back--they did a nice job on that one. Million Dollar Legs was the follow-up to that one. Can't say it has grown on me quite as much.

Also just heard "Into The Light" from the Metheny/Mehldau Quartet album. That album took a while to grow on me but has some good playing on it.

 

[Rudy]

One other tune of note popped up. This one is "Flite" by The Cinematic Orchestra.

What caught my ear on this tune several months ago? This group sampled an Eberhard Weber recording. :bigeyes: Namely, "Silent Departures" from Weber's Fluid Rustle. And they put a 7/8 rhythm on top of it.

Cinematic Orchestra:

... The music [Jason Swinscoe] recorded on his own at the time melded '60s and '70s jazz, orchestral soundtracks, rhythm loops, and live instrumentation into genre-defying compositions, as reflected on his contribution to Ninja Tune's 1997 Ninja Cuts 3 collection and his remixes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Coldcut tracks. The Cinematic Orchestra built on this musical blueprint, letting a group of live musicians improvise over sampled percussion or basslines. ...

 

[Rudy]

Forgot this one...I didn't even know this SACD existed until just recently!



I have the CD with Trois Nocturnes and Jeux on it. I still need to hold onto the CD for Jeux, but it is really nice to finally hear the other works sound so lifelike.

 

[Rudy]

In my shipment of vinyl yesterday was Rumer's latest, This Girl's In Love. On first listen, well....it is also my last listen. Her last two albums have suffered from weak production and arranging. The entire first side of this album is like one single stream of the same loudness, the same energy, the same gauzy sound....the same sameness. Which is a shame. The all-Bacharach tune selection is spot-on, and Rumer is one of those rare singers lately who doesn't screech and wail, and can also sing on-pitch without Autotune (like so many current singers use as a crutch). Yet...like Clara Peller used to say, "Where's the beef??"

Rumer's first album is still far and away her best--there is actual emotion to the singing, dynamics to the music, shifts in mood, you name it. This new one has no cojones. Rumer could use a producer who can push her beyond her limits. She is capable of far better than the pedestrian backing she had here (and on her previous album).

Paging Rick Rubin...?

I also wonder if part of this is the engineering. The entire sound of this record is like it was recorded behind a gauze. Percussion is muted, there is no punch or dynamics, and it is what I would call overly warm and lush, to a fault. There are no dynamics--the strings just sort of slip into the mix at the same volume as everything else. Too much compression going on here. And while the vinyl is a bit noisy, it looks like it is a bit cruddy--I might run it through the ultrasonic and vac cleaning before trying it again...or selling it.

I need me some Santana now...

EDIT: "Walk On By" is a bit better than the rest of the tracks on the album, but like all the other arrangements, they all come across as very watered-down versions of what Burt originally recorded decades ago.

Perhaps I should just come right out and say it: this album is musically boring.

 

[Rudy]

One of my favorite Live albums (and favorite Lou Rawls album) of all time:

The monologue "Street Corner Hustler's Blues" alone is worth the price of admission.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I've been listening to a needle drop of Matrix's Wizard. Matrix was a jazz-fusion group that supposedly was going to be the next "big thing", but it never materialized. They did have a couple of good albums.

 

[Rudy]

For big band and drum geeks...

This video is from the making of the first Burning for Buddy tribute album, featuring the Buddy Rich big band and guest drummers. Quite an impressive list--Joe Morello, Steve Gadd, Dave Weckl, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Omar Hakim, Billy Cobham, Simon Phillips, Steve Smith, and many others, and was produced by Neil Peart and Buddy's daughter Cathy Rich. Both parts of this video are over an hour long but include the complete performances. There are a third and fourth parts that are from the second Burning for Buddy tribute, which I haven't watched yet.

 

[Rudy]

Today's evening playlist has been the aforementioned Debussy SACD, along with another 2-SACD set of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos, No. 1 through No. 4. These are performed by Steven Hough, featuring the Dallas Symphony Orch., Andrew Litton conducting. This is like the third or fourth version of No. 2 and No. 3 that I have, including Van Cliburn and Byron Janis.