The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

[Nemily]

I've played through this one and it's a nice listen, with enough meat to make it interesting. It's a little on the lighter side of jazz, but some of the arrangements here are quite clever, like "Children of the Grave" and "Iron Man." Some of the chord changes and melodies in Black Sabbath's music are unusual enough that it's not difficult to pick out these subtle cues in the music.

This is a great find. I knew Wakeman toured with them, I even saw them in '16, but completely unaware of this little gem. I see there is also a volume 2. I'm getting ready for a road trip so this will make for a nice new playlist.

 

[Rudy]

I also thought this was as a decent reunion album. I like a few of the tracks on 13 however the sound seems like a one off for Producer Rick Rubin and the mastering is just loud.

That's my biggest issue with the album--it's mastered so loud that I can only play a few tracks and I have to take a break. I have the version with "Naivete in Black" as the final track.

The interesting part is of the original eight songs, the final track ("Dear Father") bookends their entire career, ending in the same rain and distant bell as the beginning of "Black Sabbath" which led off their first album. They did cut five additional tracks in 2017 following the end of their final tour (The Angelic Sessions), but all five are covers of earlier Sabbath songs.

I seem to recall at the time that Iommi wanted to do the project due to having lymphoma and thinking it might end up being the last Sabbath album he would be able to make. Fortunately he is still around, but the band did finally disband in 2017 once their final tour had completed.

Looking at the track listings of their two live recordings, Live...Gathered in Their Masses features three tracks from 13 (including "Methademic"), but the 2017 release The End: Live in Birmingham features nothing from the album.

 

[Rudy]

BTW, loud mastering is also what ruined the Van Halen reunion album with David Lee Roth, A Different Kind of Truth. It is even more smashed. I heard a needle drop of the album, wondering if the vinyl was any better...it wasn't. And that's a shame since some of those tracks had been written back in their early days.

 

[jfiedler17]

I had just seen the Bell & James vinyl a cou0e of weeks ago..

MCBYL has been my favorite Elton song since it’s initial release. Really.
After all these years. I thought I’d finally hunt down the EP.

I'd be hard-pressed to remember the last time I heard that one on the radio (for all the Elton John music on the radio, I seldom hear anything from that whole period between "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" and "I'm Still Standing," except for the rare encounter with "Little Jeannie," maybe; it's been years since I last heard anything from, say, Blue Moves, A Single Man, The Fox, or even Jump Up!), but "Mama Can't Buy You Love" is soooooo good! Arguably the most underrated of all his singles. It's an excellent piece of songwriting to begin with; Thom Bell's production on it is perfect as always and ranks up there with the best Spinners 45s; and Elton's vocal on it is one of the best performances of his career. You wouldn't think he could pull off a Philly-styled soul song as well as he does, but between how good he sounds singing in a lower key than normal and his lighthearted and vaguely-jazzy delivery of the lyric, it just works so much better than it looks on paper. I think that record really went a long way towards expanding his range as a vocalist. It's hard to imagine him doing, say, "Blue Eyes" (another one of my all-time favorite Elton 45s) without having had that experience with Bell years earlier.

 

[AM Matt]

Just read that musician Carla Bley has died at 87 years old. She worked on former Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason 1979 first solo album "Fictitious Sports" (released in July 1981). (complete album)

 

[Rudy]

Email this morning from Real World--Peter Gabriel's newest record i/o will be released Dec 1 2023.



Bright Side Mixes: Open Qobuz

Email this morning--the album i/o will be released Dec 1 2023. Peter has released ten tracks (which I put in the playlist above) with each full moon and new moon throughout the year, and the final two tracks will make the album an even dozen. It will be available in three versions--the Bright Side Mixes, the Dark Side Mixes, and the In-Side Mixes, the latter being available only on the 3-disc set with two CDs and a BluRay disc with both the albums in high-res and In-Side Mixes in a Dolby Atmos mix. The other release versions will include the 2-disc CD version, and vinyl releases of Bright Side and Dark Side mixes separately (2 LPs each, with a high-res download code) and next March, a box set with all these formats plus a book with additional liner notes. All packaging has a uniquely colored obi strip.

If I decide to get the vinyl, it'll be the Bright Side Mixes version as I prefer those. I will download both versions from Qobuz in high-res unless I get the vinyl first, as that has a download code inside for the high-res version.

 

[Mark-T]

Friend of mine just saw him in concert in Denver. Said he was great.

 

[Rudy]

Friend of mine just saw him in concert in Denver. Said he was great.

I'd seen he was doing a short US tour. I only saw him once, in 2003, and it's been 20+ years since his last proper studio album.

 

[Rudy]

Something new I discovered this evening, via Real World Records (Peter Gabriel's label): Afro Celt Sound System.



Just like it says on the tin--it combines elements of African and Celtic music with a club groove, which is a lot of fun to listen to. The band has been around since 1995 and has at least ten records in the catalog. This album has Peter Gabriel and Robert Plant guesting on one track each.

 

[Rudy]

This is a cool record! I mean, how can it not be a good time with Willie Bobo and Patato Valdez on it?? It has genuine bona fide Latin rhythms throughout the set, yet swings in all the right places. It comes from a time when this type of music was all the rage and yet doesn't come across as a knock-off. The only thing that gets a little old is Masseux on the chekere--he overdoes it a bit here and there.



(I'm in a decent mood today. Therefore I'll forgive the original artist for getting Carlos "Patato" Valdéz's name wrong. 😁)

Excellent Tone Poet pressing, I might add. It could have been recorded yesterday. Or wait, maybe not...today's recordings all sound so sterile and lifeless...

 

[Murray]

(I'm in a decent mood today. Therefore I'll forgive the original artist for getting Carlos "Patato" Valdéz's name wrong. 😁)

Potato, Patato, Tomato, Tamato... Let's call the whole thing off. 😁

 

[Rudy]

"Carlos, you're such a spud!!" 😁

¡Caramba!

Lee Morgan style, of course. Not Latin at all but still a tasty rekkid.

One of the Blue Note Classic Vinyl series. Kevin Gray has been on a tear these past couple of years.

 

[Harry]

After a turn by Artie Butler's CTi album, I've started spinning Bert Kaempfert's A SWINGIN' SAFARI (originally released as THAT HAPPY FEELING).

 

[jfiedler17]

My latest pickups: still-sealed copies of Tim Moore's High Contrast (big fan of his! Only discovered his music a few years back, so I was very late to the game, but really like his songwriting. I also wrote an article about his debut album for a music website I work as a columnist for, and he saw the piece and went out of his way to reach out and tell me how much he enjoyed and appreciated it, so that just made me like him all the more!), The Bongos' Numbers with Wings, and Burt Bacharach's Futures (the last of which I formerly owned as a kid but lost in a move at some point; I consequently hadn't heard anything from this record in literally over twenty-five years, and yet I somehow could still remember every note and word of "When You Bring Your Sweet Love to Me" sufficiently enough to sing along as soon as it came on! Funny how the brain works, isn't it? I can't remember where I misplaced something hours ago, but I can recall the entirety of a song I haven't heard in decades??? ]

Also picked up used copies of Bob Welch's The Other One (one of the few solo albums of his I was still missing), Michael McDonald's That Was Then: The Early Recordings of Michael McDonald (have never run across this one before in all my years of crate-digging; apparently, it was withdrawn from the market fairly quickly), and Tammy Wynette's Let's Get Together (which I admittedly would ordinarily have just flipped past, but this particular copy was autographed on the front cover, so I couldn't pass it up.) Also recently had a friend surprise me with a gift of original vinyl copies of all the Van Morrison albums from the first half of the '70s, so I've consequently been on a bit of a Van kick lately.

 

[Rudy]

Nice update @jfiedler17 !

I'm still chopping my way through the Colorado record crawl haul, and some recent new 180g titles I've picked up.

Face Value arrived last week, and Aja finally shipped yesterday and is showing delivery for tomorrow. But I've really been enjoying the two sale titles I bought along with Face Value--the Lee Morgan Caramba!, and Grant Green's The Latin Bit. I bought all three from The 'In' Groove in Phoenix, and with the latter Grant Green title being a Tone Poet release, the sale price put it below the usual price of a Classic Vinyl release (Blue Note, BTW).

I've normally been avoiding the Music on Vinyl label---their pressing quality is exemplary, but there is no idea of which sources they use. With the Sony (Legacy) titles, they are most likely from the existing digitally archived copies. (Music on Vinyl operates out of the old CBS Holland pressing plant, so there is a tie to Columbia / Legacy / Sony there. I bought the Idris Muhammad Power of Soul since I've liked it so much, and the tonal balance and timbre are most likely the same mastering as the high-res version. (All of the CTI and Kudu albums, except for Grover Washington Jr., are with Legacy.)

The only other things on my radar for the rest of the year are the 45 RPM versions of the Phil Collins Hello, I Must Be Going possibly the Genesis Selling England. If it hasn't been delayed, I may get Gaucho in December. And if I have time tomorrow, I may head down to Third Man and get a copy of the Donald Byrd Electric Byrd LP that they pressed.

 

[Rudy]

Alligator Bogaloo. A 1967 album by Lou Donaldson. The backing band includes quite a line-up. Idris Muhammad (billed as Leo Morris, his birth name) on drums, George Benson on guitar, and Lonnie Smith on organ. Melvin Lastin appears on cornet. Music for early lunch. 😁 🥗



The record also demonstrates how often George Benson and Lonnie Smith played together back in those days, including appearing on each other's albums.

---

From the rear jacket:

In this current album, Lou has once again merged his talents with rising young jazz stars in George Benson, guitar; Lonnie Smith, organ and Melvin Lastie, Sr., cornet.

The three youngsters are recent alumni of Rhythm and Blues, which has proven its close kinship to jazz. George began as an R & B singer and guitarist before settling on the guitar fulltime where he earned much attention for a few years as guitarist with Brother Jack McDuff. During his tenure with Brother McDuff, he proved to be a consistently hard and cooking swinger. And with the McDuff group playing the music rooms throughout the country that catered to patrons who liked a good blend of ballad jazz and blues, George learned his craft well. So well in fact that he was pegged to work the Guitar Workshop at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1966 and according to the well regarded jazz pianist and broadcaster Billy Taylor, who produced the workshop, “George broke it up.”

When he formed his own group upon leaving McDuff, he hired Lonnie Smith, who was waiting for the opportunity to become a full fledged member of the jazz academy. Since then, the two have been in the forefront of one of jazzdom’s most exciting young groups on the East Coast, playing to SRO houses at Count Basie’s, Minton’s Playhouse and Club Baron in New York.

Melvin Lastie, Sr. was a stellar member of a group led by Willie Bobo, the Boss of Latin Soul. The group had a big seller in I Know, which rested on the charts for a number of weeks. Melvin, known as the preacher to his musical constituents, has a big, fiery sound that is brassy and full. He is one of the last of the practicing cornetists in the business.

With the addition of Leo Morris, who has learned that drummers must do more than “kick” but must be musical in their sound as well as punctuate, Lou Donaldson has formed a group that has produced six illuminating sides in this album.

 

[Rudy]

I forgot what a fun record this is!



Dizzy Gillespie does a record with a calypso theme. Something like this could come across as tacky or cringeworthy but there is a lot of good playing throughout. And it's fun hearing everyone have a relaxed, good time with this. James Moody and Kenny Barron are part of the festivities. The songs that close each side, "Trinidad, Hello" and "Trinidad, Goodbye" are straight-ahead jazz blowing tunes with an exotic twist to them.

 

[3Favorites]

Reading this thread is kind of interesting, but I gotta admit...I don't know who a lot of these artists are that you mention. I guess I'm pretty square in my musical tastes. It's good to see that you can like the Carpenters and still have such diversified tastes. Most people I knew weren't like that.

 

[3Favorites]

Just bought the deluxe edition of Ever Since by Lesley Gore. Ever Since was the last CD that Lesley recorded. It was originally released in 2005. The new release includes the previously unreleased, re-imagined bonus song: "Love Me By Name." "Love Me By Name" was the title track of the album she recorded for A&M.

While I was there, I found another new release: Lesley Gore-the Rarities. It includes the stereo debut of the later singles that she recorded for Mercury in 1968 and 1969. It also includes 7 foreign language recordings as well as 4 songs from the Crewe label. I picked it up as well. Nice picture on the cover.

I also found the vinyl re-release of Dusty Springfield's first US LP: "I Only Want To Be With You/Stay Awhile." This was the first album I ever owned. I always wanted a second copy of this album. I have multiple copies of all the others. But this one was out of print before I started buying duplicates. I suppose it's a waste since I already have the albums and CDs. But sometimes I can't help myself.

I've been listening to Dusty In Memphis the Deluxe Edition. It includes many of the songs from her unreleased 3rd album for Atlantic. One of the standouts is "Make It With You," which Rhino Records said it was almost criminal to not have released in back in 1972. Also included is "You've Got A Friend."

Before that I listened to Gloria Loring's "And Now We Come to Distances." which includes my favorite version of "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

And now I've been spinning Michael Buble's "To Be Loved" which includes my favorite song by him "It's a Beautiful Day."

 

[AM Matt]

Buble's "To Be Loved" has a duet with actress Reese Witherspoon "Somethin' Stupid" (remake of the Frank & Nancy Sinatra 1967 song).

 

[3Favorites]

Yes. I like it too. Never checked to see who was singing with him.

 

[Rudy]

It's good to see that you can like the Carpenters and still have such diversified tastes. Most people I knew weren't like that.

A lot of casual music listeners can have tunnelvision for sure! It's kind of an odd reference point, but in high school, rock was the big thing everyone was listening to and, to a lesser extent, many of us picked up on New Wave. Yet at our 10-year reunion, there was a lot of great response from everyone when the DJ played "Private Joy" by Prince. His music never played on rock radio nor did I ever hear anyone talk about him in school (except for a very small group of us who listened to R&B and funk).

There are also a lot of rockers who grew up on 60s and 70s rock and that is all they listen to, even today.

Musically, I climb the walls if I'm stuck in any one type of music for long. My history in Roon Player looks like a deranged person at times. 😁 I'll sometimes play an album a second time all the way through; then I'll follow up with something completely different and off the wall. Or with classical, I'll play it for hours on end, such as when I'll play all four of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos. And oddly, will do the same with Led Zeppelin if I'm outdoors working--I can queue up their albums sequentially and just let them play.

I'm also one of the few on the planet who feels the Beatles are not the be-all, end-all in music. They're just one important stepping stone from where we've been, to where we are at today. They would not even be around if it weren't for the groundwork laid by early rock and roll pioneers like Jackie Brenston ("Rocket 88," often referred to as the first rock and roll single), Chuck Berry, Bill Haley & The Comets, etc., and those artists wouldn't even be here without the groundwork laid by blues and jazz. And a group like Carpenters has direct lines to these predecessors as well--Les Paul and Mary Ford (multitracking vocals), melodies (Carpenter/Bettis were inspired by Lennon/McCartney, Goffin/King, etc.), numerous pop vocal groups that preceded them, etc.

I think I just see music as a huge puzzle, and it's been interesting to see how all of these small pieces fit together as one big picture.

 

[Michael Hagerty]

A lot of casual music listeners can have tunnelvision for sure! It's kind of an odd reference point, but in high school, rock was the big thing everyone was listening to and, to a lesser extent, many of us picked up on New Wave. Yet at our 10-year reunion, there was a lot of great response from everyone when the DJ played "Private Joy" by Prince. His music never played on rock radio nor did I ever hear anyone talk about him in school (except for a very small group of us who listened to R&B and funk).

There's a term I learned while programming radio in the 70s---"music discovery". People like you and I are into that. We'll hear something we like and want to know more about the artist and what they do. And often that leads to other artists.

The vast majority of the public, though---and especially the public that consumes commercial broadcasting---they don't like unfamiliarity. I know some people who have been involved in research for radio. They found that stations that start to get eclectic---not just new artists or artists that have not yet had commercial success, but deep cuts from established artists---get negative comments in research and the term most often used by those listeners is "weird music".

The music itself isn't weird---mostly---but it's weird in that they didn't recognize it. It's why so little new music is exposed. You couldn't do what Top 40 did in the 60s, 70s and 80s and have three brand-new "hitbounds" a week. That's too much unfamiliar music.

Not intended as a putdown of those people, Rudy, but a succinct way to put it is that we music discoverers know what we like (and know there's more out there), while that vast majority of the listening public likes what they know.

There are also a lot of rockers who grew up on 60s and 70s rock and that is all they listen to, even today.

As a Boomer, the thing that has surprised me most is how our musical tastes calcified. If you go back to radio airchecks and listen, the Middle of the Road (MOR) stations our parents listened to in the 1950s and 1960s rarely played more than two non-current songs an hour. And those songs were rarely more than ten years old. The whole "Music of Your Life" nostalgia trip was aimed at them after they hit 55 and there wasn't current music that appealed to them being recorded in enough quantity to feed a format.

Boomers, on the other hand, got old fast. By their 30s, there was a big business in music that started with Elvis and ended with the Beatles---a 14-year window. Eventually, as the middle boomers (born after the mid-50s) started listening to Classic Rock, the margins got pushed a bit forward...beginning with the Beatles and ending with the Eagles (a 15-year window), and there it sat for decades.

Musically, I climb the walls if I'm stuck in any one type of music for long. My history in Roon Player looks like a deranged person at times. 😁

About 12 years ago, I tried Pandora, which is (or was--I haven't used it in at least a decade) a random player. You give it a song, and because it would cost them more in rights fees to play it right away, it will play you things it believes you'd like based on that for an hour before playing that specific song. You help tune the algorithm by giving thumbs up or thumbs down responses, and/or skipping a song you really don't like (but you only get a limited number of skips in an hour).

The first song was usually really good, no matter what first song I gave it. So was the second. I'd usually thumbs-down or skip the third, which would cause Pandora to try to make adjustments, and that's where it would go off the rails.

My joke was that by song six, Pandora would stop playing music and just start sobbing.

I'll sometimes play an album a second time all the way through; then I'll follow up with something completely different and off the wall. Or with classical, I'll play it for hours on end, such as when I'll play all four of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos. And oddly, will do the same with Led Zeppelin if I'm outdoors working--I can queue up their albums sequentially and just let them play.

I was raised in the album era. To me, still, albums are a snapshot of where an artist is emotionally, philosophically and musically, at that time. If I want individual songs, that's what radio, mixtapes or playlists are for. But when I'm listening to music, I'm playing albums all the way through. And most days, I manage to listen to three or four of them, mostly as I have my morning coffee and catch up on e-mails and stuff.

Too busy the past couple of days, but on Friday of last week, I listened to Milt Jackson's BURNIN' IN THE WOODHOUSE, BURT BACHARACH (the 1971 album), Snoop Dogg's BUSH and Rick James' BUSTIN' OUT OF L SEVEN. Just playing albums from my Apple Music library alphabetically.

Other times, like you, I'll go for something I'm specifically in the mood to hear, but I habitually listen to music most mornings and I'll just hit play and go with what's there.

I have a lot of music I haven't heard yet in my library, and for me, it's fun to go from something I know by heart (Burt) to something I've never heard (Snoop). And, working at an NPR news station that also has a Classical sister station, I'm hearing music in the hallway or the break room that I'll think is beautiful, pull out my cell phone, hit SoundHound, find out what it is and add that album on the spot to my library. I do the same in restaurants and have found artists I'd never heard of before that dinner that are now among my favorites.

I'm also one of the few on the planet who feels the Beatles are not the be-all, end-all in music. They're just one important stepping stone from where we've been, to where we are at today. They would not even be around if it weren't for the groundwork laid by early rock and roll pioneers like Jackie Brenston ("Rocket 88," often referred to as the first rock and roll single), Chuck Berry, Bill Haley & The Comets, etc., and those artists wouldn't even be here without the groundwork laid by blues and jazz.

I feel seen. I like the Beatles. But (and they'd be the first to say it) they had great stuff and not-great stuff. And music moved on without them after they broke up. On balance, they did it better than most of that era. And they absolutely acknowledge that all they were trying to do in the beginning was recreate those sounds on those early R&B singles that got shipped over from America.

And a group like Carpenters has direct lines to these predecessors as well--Les Paul and Mary Ford (multitracking vocals), melodies (Carpenter/Bettis were inspired by Lennon/McCartney, Goffin/King, etc.), numerous pop vocal groups that preceded them, etc.

I think I just see music as a huge puzzle, and it's been interesting to see how all of these small pieces fit together as one big picture.

Amen.

 

[3Favorites]

When I'm with someone, I can listen to anything they want to listen to. But when I'm buying I'm much more selective. One thing I don't care for is when the base is so loud it distorts the sound or rattles the pictures on the wall.

I liked the Beatles at first during the first couple of years, but after that I didn't listen to much. Although I have found that I like many of their songs when some other artist sings them. Also, when I play their songs on the piano, I find that I like the chords and the arrangements that they created.

 

[Rudy]

There's a term I learned while programming radio in the 70s---"music discovery". People like you and I are into that. We'll hear something we like and want to know more about the artist and what they do. And often that leads to other artists.

That is how I roll. And when getting into jazz, it's like a gateway drug.

One example. I discovered jazz composer and pianist Horace Silver back in late 2019 thanks to the song "Lonely Woman" which came up on a somewhat new piano-jazz-themed Pandora station I created. I knew a Horace Silver had written the tune, as it appeared on a Pat Metheny album that I bought back in the mid 1990s (Rejoicing, on ECM Records). But had never heard the original until then.

I then queued it up in Roon Player (via Qobuz) as it was part of the Song for My Father album which, to my surprise, is considered one of the definitive albums in jazz and for the Blue Note label. (The piano riff in the title track opens the Steely Dan song "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"....that's how wide its influence is.) That led to other Horace Silver albums. That also led me down a path of discovering albums like Lee Morgan's Sidewinder (as Morgan was in one of Silver's classic quintets), and Art Blakey's self-titled album on Blue Note (which is now referred to as the Moanin' album, itself another definitive jazz recording), as Silver and Blakey first formed the Jazz Messengers and Silver had split off on his own after a couple of recordings.

So that one discovery led to probably over a dozen albums I hadn't known existed, and even the Blue Note connection led to other purchases on the label. I don't particularly care for most Blue Note style recordings (most are noodly and repetitive) but the records that stand out to me are excellent.

My recent CTI Records adventure also opened up a lot of doorways into music I never knew existed. One of my top albums for this year, Power of Soul (Idris Muhammad, on the Kudu label) is such a nice, laid-back recording of soul jazz that goes down easily and is something even non-jazz lovers would like.

Brazilian is another rabbit hole. "Who wrote that?" Sure, Joao Donato...then I'm down a rabbit hole seeking out his records! One example of way too many I can think of!

Eventually, as the middle boomers (born after the mid-50s) started listening to Classic Rock, the margins got pushed a bit forward...

Some friends of mine commented recently that hearing Nirvana and Pearl Jam on a "classic rock" station is...disturbing. 😁

About 12 years ago, I tried Pandora, which is (or was--I haven't used it in at least a decade) a random player.

Pandora is powered by the Music Genome Project. It's not a random radio service, nor is it one where you can enter an artist and expect to hear only music by one artist. It's based on musical attributes ("genes", where songs can have between 150 and 450 genes eacy) which are assigned to each song in the database, and mathematics are used to determine how similar songs are to each other. My oldest station was created in 2010 and after tuning it (with additional "seed" artists and thumbs up/down votes), it remains a very interesting station to listen to. Unfortunately I can't share my tuned version, as their "sharing" feature only shares the seed artists for the station, not the up/down votes that weed out certain characteristics.

Music Genome Project - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Too busy the past couple of days, but on Friday of last week, I listened to Milt Jackson's BURNIN' IN THE WOODHOUSE, BURT BACHARACH (the 1971 album), Snoop Dogg's BUSH and Rick James' BUSTIN' OUT OF L SEVEN.

Bustin' Out of L Seven and Street Songs are two Rick James records I listened to in high school--quite a few tracks had airplay here on the R&B/funk stations. I think I had the 12-inch single posted a couple of months ago.

beginning with the Beatles and ending with the Eagles

The remaining members should tour as The Beagles on the Liverpool Freezes Over Tour.