The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread




Old white guys playing at the Holiday Inn can't be cool? Oh, noes!

Kinda reminds me of some friends of mine who were revamping their musical careers some years ago and ended up playing in the bar of a local bowling alley. You could hear pins crashing between every number. :D
 
Day off, for housecleaning and chores. :sigh:

Trying out Rosie Vela's Zazu, among other things, on a phono stage that just arrived.

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Verdict: the phono stage has tired tubes, as expected, so I'm comparing a bunch before making the leap. Two 12AX7s, and one each 5751 and 12AU7. (Do I get new issue Genalex Gold Lions? NOS Mullard military CV-series? NOS RCA clear tops? Decisions, decisions.) I'm also checking options for a step-up transformer, since the ART7 has a very low output.
 
The phono stage did sound better after it warmed up for over an hour, but that's still a sign the tubes might be a bit tired, as my preamp is usually good to go in about 15-20 minutes. There is also a hum/oscillation in one of the tubes.

In the meantime, I've been throwing everything at the rig, including the first Brasil 66 album, a few 12" singles (Barry White, Rick James, Gibson Brothers), the Pink Panther soundtrack, and currently the JD McPherson album Let The Good Times Roll.
 
Michael Franks day today. Queued up in the playlist:

The Art of Tea
Sleeping Gypsy
One Bad Habit
Passionfruit
Blue Pacific
Dragonfly Summer


May switch over to vinyl when I have some free time (for Passionfruit...I don't think I have Blue Pacific on vinyl).
 
John Klemmer day...

His first album Involvement, on Cadet Concept, before he got all spacey. This is pretty much all straight-ahead jazz, fresh out of Chicago.

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Followed by Touch, one of the more laid back dates. This was one of Mobile Fidelity's first releases, and either the MoFi LP or CD are the go-to versions here:

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Finally, a hard rockin' date from his Cadet Concept era, Blowin' Gold:

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John Klemmer day...

His first album Involvement, on Cadet Concept, before he got all spacey. This is pretty much all straight-ahead jazz, fresh out of Chicago.

upload_2019-1-23_10-2-17.png

Followed by Touch, one of the more laid back dates. This was one of Mobile Fidelity's first releases, and either the MoFi LP or CD are the go-to versions here:

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Finally, a hard rockin' date from his Cadet Concept era, Blowin' Gold:

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I have several of John Klemmer's albums on CD primarily from Barefoot ballet to his 1989 CD "Music" which was a bit of a disappointment he does too much spoken word in the songs I lost track of his music after that and just stuck with the ones I love most I wish he would return to the more Laid back style that I still enjoy today's
 
I think Music was one of his last albums. He had a later one in the 90s on his own label, but it was pretty much a rehash of his Touch-style albums. My sax tutor recommended Klemmer's first album since his tone on the sax was something good to work towards. I know a musician who played keys for him on one of his later records, and when I asked him about it, I think he told me something along the lines of, "Nice guy, but a liiittle strange." :laugh:

Some feel his Cadet/Concept records are among his best. Prior to his own recordings, he had played in one of Don Ellis' big bands, and they played some really "out there" charts at times. One of the Baja Marimba guys played in Ellis' big bands also--I think it was Dave Wells (trombone).

I always liked his solo on "The Caves of Altamira." Funny when I heard it, right away I knew it was Klemmer...even down to the Echoplex. :D
 
I think Music was one of his last albums. He had a later one in the 90s on his own label, but it was pretty much a rehash of his Touch-style albums. My sax tutor recommended Klemmer's first album since his tone on the sax was something good to work towards. I know a musician who played keys for him on one of his later records, and when I asked him about it, I think he told me something along the lines of, "Nice guy, but a liiittle strange." :laugh:

Some feel his Cadet/Concept records are among his best. Prior to his own recordings, he had played in one of Don Ellis' big bands, and they played some really "out there" charts at times. One of the Baja Marimba guys played in Ellis' big bands also--I think it was Dave Wells (trombone).

I always liked his solo on "The Caves of Altamira." Funny when I heard it, right away I knew it was Klemmer...even down to the Echoplex. :D
I know Bernie Fleisher ( also a BMB Alumni )played on either touch or Barefoot ballet on the flute as he was credited.
 
Last one for me has been a sealed LP of "It's Gonna Rain Again" by the Sensational Nightingales, a Negro Spiritual group. Nice harmonies, and fine funky arrangements, on Peacock Records (never heard a Peacock Spirituals LP or 45 I didn't like).
 
I think Music was one of his last albums. He had a later one in the 90s on his own label, but it was pretty much a rehash of his Touch-style albums. My sax tutor recommended Klemmer's first album since his tone on the sax was something good to work towards. I know a musician who played keys for him on one of his later records, and when I asked him about it, I think he told me something along the lines of, "Nice guy, but a liiittle strange." :laugh:

Some feel his Cadet/Concept records are among his best. Prior to his own recordings, he had played in one of Don Ellis' big bands, and they played some really "out there" charts at times. One of the Baja Marimba guys played in Ellis' big bands also--I think it was Dave Wells (trombone).

I always liked his solo on "The Caves of Altamira." Funny when I heard it, right away I knew it was Klemmer...even down to the Echoplex. :D

Klemmer played on 3 Ellis albums, Autumn, The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground and Live At Fillmore. He was with the band from 1968-1970.


Dan
 
Klemmer played on 3 Ellis albums, Autumn, The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground and Live At Fillmore. He was with the band from 1968-1970.


Dan
I think I have the Fillmore album here...oh and possibly Autumn. Sometimes I can't keep them all straight.
 
The musician and music/instrument geek in me really digs this completely improvised performance by Lyle Mays (formerly of the Pat Metheny Group) and percussion/drum legend Alex Acuña. If your speakers are good enough, listen especially to the double bass:



The video is over eight years old, but Spectrasonics creates different synthesizer products. Their Trilian bass module is a very lifelike sampling of bass.

The acoustic and electric basses in Trilian are sampled at an extremely high level of detail. The combination of the software’s intuitive, automatic selection of legato and release articulations as the user plays - and the extensive ‘Round-Robin’ variations introduced for natural sounding bass lines with repeated notes - create a more dynamic and subtle playing experience. Newly developed multisampled dynamic slides let notes realistically slide from one to another. Each of the basses feature multi-channel mixing between phase-locked microphone/amplifier and direct outputs of each bass.

This "behind the scenes" video from the same session shows a little more of what Trilian is capable of:



It's amazing how software can now capture the nuances of something like a bass and make it sound completely believable. On the video above, the setup apparently has the MIDI Yamaha piano doubling the double bass parts with the lowest notes Lyle is playing, and he used the smaller synth above to add a few punctuating notes here or there.

I've long said that Lyle doesn't improvise like a jazz musician--it is more like he composes in real time. Some of his solos are technically breathtaking--they have a theme throughout, a lot of development, and a clear beginning, middle and end. His solo on the Metheny Group tune "San Lorenzo" (at 4:30 below) is one of the best examples of this, as is his solo on the last half of "September Fifteenth" (from the Metheny/Mays Wichita Falls record, just after the 4:00 minute mark).

September Fifteenth:


San Lorenzo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RrUS2N2MyI
 
I've been listening to some of my imported Dutton Vocalion reissues one standout little group in my collection are 6 CD compilations of classic production music from the UK KPM 1000 series originally made between 1967 and 1978 and the CDs were complied over a few year period from 2008 to 2011 featuring artists like Keith Mansfield. Johnny Pearson James Clarke and many others this music was being used by most media outlets in the late 60s to late 70s Until Network music started in 1979 and began it's Dominance in the production music field and as I mentioned previously Network music publically released a big portion of it's back catalog in 2011 ( for Downloading only) it seems a lot of Download music I like was issued in 2011 quite a coincidence
 
Streaming on Qobuz at the moment:

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First time I've heard it, believe it or not. Although I've heard of it. Discovering so many good things lately. :)
 
Coolest Qobuz find so far.

I've mentioned it before around these parts, but I've collected Cal Tjader's recordings for decades. I already had dozens, then "inherited" an entire Tjader collection from the widow of another collector who was a completist. Well...I think I heard about this particular record maybe once, but had never seen it, and it wasn't in the shipment I received either. I'm thinking he might have owned it, but perhaps it was stored in with another set of records. This one I believe was Tjader's first-ever record under his own name, issued on a 10" LP in the early 1950s.

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What a thrill to hear it now! I am pretty sure I will purchase this from Qobuz, as I've never seen it on CD. It is quite an interesting artifact. :) Keep in mind that by this time, he was either just out of, or still part of, the George Shearing group where he took up his Latin bag.
 
Another unsettling evening, and I end up turning to Bill Evans. This set features the complete recordings of the legendary gig at the Village Vanguard (from which the Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby albums were taken):

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There was a vinyl release of this, but I'm guessing it is long past being readily available. I am holding out for a possible box set of the Riverside recordings from Analogue Productions, mastered at 45 RPM, if they decide to do a new pressing run of it.
 
Coolest Qobuz find so far.

I've mentioned it before around these parts, but I've collected Cal Tjader's recordings for decades. I already had dozens, then "inherited" an entire Tjader collection from the widow of another collector who was a completist. Well...I think I heard about this particular record maybe once, but had never seen it, and it wasn't in the shipment I received either. I'm thinking he might have owned it, but perhaps it was stored in with another set of records. This one I believe was Tjader's first-ever record under his own name, issued on a 10" LP in the early 1950s.

upload_2019-1-31_0-18-13.png

What a thrill to hear it now! I am pretty sure I will purchase this from Qobuz, as I've never seen it on CD. It is quite an interesting artifact. :) Keep in mind that by this time, he was either just out of, or still part of, the George Shearing group where he took up his Latin bag.
Wow you Are on a Roll My friend.and I've been listening to George Shearing quite a bit lately my most recent favorites are two standouts from his 1963 album Touch me softly " Lollipops and Roses which has a good Latin beat to it and a nice version of " Sunday Monday or Always" they were recorded during his stint at Capitol records Great memorable stuff
 
A good friend of mine in California said that George Shearing was "make-out music" when he and his wife attended university back in the late 50s/early 60s in Nebraska. He got me hooked on Shearing--he sent a cassette of Latin Escapade and told me to ignore the "love crackles" from the record having been played so much. :D
 
Haven't played this one much, but I was making a lengthy Cal Tjader playlist on Qobuz last night and gave a couple of the tracks a spin. (I'm already familiar with a few from his Fantasy Greatest Hits CD.) Another classic Renfro work of art on the cover. :D

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Next up--that last CD was rather lengthy. :D

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A Fantasy two-fer of Ritmo Caliente! and Mas Ritmo Caliente. I inherited mono copies of the originals, but had the 2-LP two-fer for a while prior to the CD coming out. (I can't recall if Fantasy eliminated one or two tracks from the CD release, as they often did on the CD two-fers.) As one might expect, it is a more rhythm- and percussion-heavy set than some of Tjader's other projects, with the second album adding a small horn section. Tjader often switches to timbales on these tunes. Ritmo Caliente! is the album from which his three-part version of "Cubano Chant" hails from.
 
Time to move on.

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I dug out an old CD release of this.

Trying to find the purest-sounding release of this has been a debacle for decades now. I ultimately want to find a sealed copy of the ABC AB-1006 pressing, but talk about a needle in a haystack! (I bought a used copy last year but like so many other used records, it is unacceptably worn towards the inner grooves.) The Cisco vinyl reissue was short-lived and now costs $150 or more. The Mobile Fidelity vinyl is awful--the EQ is very strange. Their CD is better, but is still bright and I don't particularly care for it either. MCA's own CDs have also had a checkered past. The Glenn Meadows mastered Citizen Steely Dan box set was the first of the digital "processing" of these albums, where he used CEDAR to lightly remove tape noise and boost the rolled-off highs as a result of it, along with some digital azimuth correction. The later MCA CD masterings doctored them up even more, apparently. They sound superficially good but one can't help but wonder what the originals sound like. A recent SACD release just sounds...I don't know...weak? I'm betting they did a flat transfer of an existing backup master in Japan (and "flat transfers" are rarely a good thing). I managed to get my hands on one of the rare first MCA reissues that has Steve Hoffman's mastering, and while I find there might be a couple of minor sonic issues (largely from the master tapes and/or original recording), I'm finding it is the most natural of any of them. Apparently at some point, someone in the Steely Dan camp ordered that digital (1630) copies be made of the masters, and those were deemed to be the only official masters to use for future releases. Hoffman's came before that, apparently.

If you want to read about the whole sh!tshow about this album's digital versions, check out the recent post in Audiophile Style.
 
I once had a vinyl copy of AJA, but it disappeared ages ago. I think it was appropriated by someone who 'borrowed' it.
 
Streaming this one at the moment. Christian McBride, Sci-Fi.

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Impressive roster of artists including Herbie Hancock, Dianne Reeves, Toots Thielemans, and David Gilmore (yes, that David Gilmore), among others. Interesting covers of "Aja" and "Walking On The Moon" (yes, that tune by The Police).
 
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