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Wednesday, May 21, 2025

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: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 November 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Stereo Records CR00391
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

In the 1950s, Contemporary Records released a number of Broadway-themed LPs by trios led by pianist André Previn or drummer Shelly Manne. The sessions fronted by Previn featured Manne on drums and Red Mitchell on bass; Manne’s featured Previn and bassist Leroy Vinnegar. In my June 2023 review of the Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records reissue of West Side Story, the 1959 album by André Previn and His Pals, I wrote: “I’m already anticipating the Craft Recordings reissue of Manne’s My Fair Lady this fall.” Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady was a 1956 mono release by Shelly Manne & His Friends, and its popularity led Contemporary to ask Previn and Manne to record more albums in the same vein.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 October 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records / Acoustic Sounds CR00595
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman was so revolutionary that even now, 65 years after he recorded his first album, his music remains challenging. His recording debut, Something Else!!!! (1958), and its follow-up, Tomorrow Is the Question! (1959), both appeared on Contemporary Records, whose owner, Lester Koenig, signed Coleman after bassist Red Mitchell brought his work to Koenig’s attention.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 September 2023

Universal Music Recordings 4868197
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

Empty Glass (1980) was Pete Townshend’s second solo album, but his first to consist of songs he recorded with an eye toward official release under his own name. The album that preceded it, Who Came First (1972), included demos of songs recorded with The Who, tracks Townshend wrote in tribute to his spiritual advisor, Meher Baba, and one tune each by Billy Nicholls and Ronnie Lane, who were also followers of the Baba. The tribute songs originally appeared on limited-edition releases.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 August 2023

Jazz Is Dead Records JID018
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***
Overall Enjoyment: ***½

When the great Nigerian drummer Tony Allen was in Fela Kuti’s band, Africa 70, he helped invent Afrobeat, which combined American funk and jazz with Nigeria’s own musical heritage. Allen played with Kuti throughout the 1970s and began recording on his own in 1975, while still with Africa 70. He began focusing on his own music more intently by the mid-1980s and worked with younger musicians in various genres throughout the 2000s. He played in two bands with Blur’s Damon Albarn: The Good, the Bad & the Queen, and Rocket Juice & the Moon.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 July 2023

In+Out Records IOR LP 77146-1
Formats: LP, 24-bit/96kHz WAV download

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ****½
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

In 2002, jazz guitarist Larry Coryell was more than 30 years into his career when he recorded Tricycles for In+Out Records, a jazz label based in Germany. He was touring Europe with two other American musicians, drummer Paul Wertico and bassist Mark Egan, and in November they went into a studio in Heidelberg. According to Coryell’s liner notes, the weather had been bad during the tour. While the musicians were recording, they came down with “influenza or something . . . but somehow, we could still play.”

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 June 2023

Jazz Is Dead 17
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***
Overall Enjoyment: ***½

Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have helmed 16 previous recordings for the Jazz Is Dead series. They’ve worked with well-known jazz musicians, such as Roy Ayers, Brian Jackson, and Gary Bartz, as well as more obscure players. For Jazz Is Dead 17, they’ve developed nine tracks with jazz keyboard player Lonnie Liston Smith, whose discography includes 16 titles as a leader, and many other outings as a sideman. He contributed keys to albums by Miles Davis, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Gato Barbieri, and many other musicians over a career that began in the late 1960s.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 May 2023

Heavenly Recordings HVNLP198
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****½
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ****

H. Hawkline is the pseudonym of Welsh singer-songwriter Huw Evans. In 2010, Evans released his first album as H. Hawkline, A Cup of Salt, and followed it a year later with The Strange Uses of Ox Gall. Both albums were slightly eccentric and DIY in feel and showed a wide range of songwriting interests and instrumental skills. Evans’s guitar playing had hints of country blues and Welsh folk music, and his songwriting embraced everything from ’60s folk rock to psychedelia.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 April 2023

Craft Recordings / Contemporary Records CR00382
Format: LP

Musical Performance: *****
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****½

Art Pepper was one of the great saxophonists in jazz and among the most troubled—which is saying a lot. It’s a crowded field. Pepper struggled with drug addiction and did several stints in jail in the ’50s and ’60s. His memoir, Straight Life (1979), which he cowrote with his third wife, Laurie, is a harrowing story of his life in jazz. After reading it, I was amazed that Pepper had been able to make so many good records and be such a force in music.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 March 2023

Jazz Is Dead Records JID015
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ****
Sound Quality: ***½
Overall Enjoyment: ***½

In 2017 Ali Shaheed Muhammad, formerly of A Tribe Called Quest, and composer/producer Adrian Younge launched a jazz concert series in Los Angeles, California. The series was titled Jazz Is Dead, and in 2020 they established a record label under the same name. Muhammad and Younge began recording music featuring jazz musicians, many of whose recordings had been sampled over the years on R&B and hip-hop tunes. In just three years, Jazz Is Dead has released 15 albums; an impressive accomplishment considering that Muhammad and Younge produce and play on all of them.

: Written by: Joseph Taylor; Category: Recording of the Month; Created: 01 February 2023

Zappa Records / UMe ZR3848-1
Format: LP

Musical Performance: ***½
Sound Quality: ****
Overall Enjoyment: ****

In December 1971, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were appearing at London’s Rainbow Theatre when an audience member rushed onstage and pushed Zappa into the orchestra pit. Zappa suffered severe injuries, and was in a wheelchair for a year. He would not tour again until the fall of 1972, but recuperating from injuries was not something that would keep a driven, almost compulsive musician like Zappa down.