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Album Reviews
Donaldson and the 3 Sounds Epitomize the Bluesy Blue Note Sound
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Lou Donaldson playfully skids into a few bars of David Rose’s “Holiday For Strings” mid-solo during a cover of the Kelmar/Ruby standard “Three Little Words,” indulging himself in a bit of shtick popular back when jazz could be lighthearted, studious and physical. Sonny Rollins was and is a deft practitioner of the off-handed musical quote as are and were many of the other jazz greats of a bygone era. It’s rarely done today. Jazz is more serious and cerebral, unless it gets goofy as the drummer Matt Wilson sometimes can get.

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Album Reviews
Blind Pig Re-enters Vinyl Market With Eyes Open
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Recorded live on June, 28th at the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival, this hot session features Wells and Guy backed by a last minute “pick-up” band consisting of ex-Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman, Otis Spann’s Muddy Waters band replacement Pinetop Perkins, ex-Manassas drummer Dallas Taylor, best known for peeking (or peaking) out the door on the back cover of Crosby Stills, Nash (on which he also played) and his brother Terry Taylor on rhythm guitar.

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Album Reviews
Charlie Haden Birthday Party Gig Open to All!
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2008  |  0 comments

From the NAIM archives comes this triple LP/double CD set, originally issued as two, long out of print, individual CDs, featuring Charlie Haden’s Quartet West, featuring Saxophonist Ernie Watts, pianist Alan Broadbent and the late, great drummer Billy Higgins on one session and the great, not late Paul Motian on the other.

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Album Reviews
Jackson Hits All the Right Notes On Return to Roots
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Joe Jackson is like one of those balloon magicians, only instead of producing elaborate figures from a simple form, he does it with notes.

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Album Reviews
Lee Morgan Leads Jazz Supergroup
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Let the Blue Note reissue riot continue! Fans of the cool, bluesy, gospely Blue Note sound can’t help but feel blessed at the output, whether from Classic in mono or from Analogue Productions and Music Matters in stereo.

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Concert Reviews
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival Mirrors the Crescent City's Post-Katrina Dilemma
Roger Hahn  |  May 31, 2008  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  2 comments

(As we approach the August 29th 2007 second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we thought it a good time to reflect on the pathetic response by the Bush administration then and now and to present our man in New Orleans's Roger Hahn's coverage of last spring's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival—ed.)

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Book Reviews
Fanciful, Factual Fables Highlight Music Lover's Book
Michael Fremer  |  May 31, 2008  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments

“Body snatching” aliens invade earth and disappear among the populace. Someone discovers that playing Black Sabbath’s song “Paranoid” causes the aliens to melt. It’s mankind’s only hope for survival. But not any version of “Paranoid” works: only pure analog ones do—either on vinyl or tape. Used copies become scarce. Turntable sales rise…

From that premise author Mitch Myers conjures up detailed and often hilarious scenarios, capping the vignette with a surprise ending sure to elicit a physical reaction.

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Album Reviews
Don't Buy This Reissue!
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2008  |  0 comments

John Cale's guitar-fueled, angry yet nostalgic first Island release from 1974 is easily his finest solo effort in my book. It's certainly his most consistently well written and performed record.

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Album Reviews
Dusty T-Bone Walker Relic Makes For Curious Pure Pleasure Reissue
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Another Pure Pleasure mono reissue more important for the music than for “audiophile sound,” which these 1950 and 1951 mono sessions surely are not.

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Album Reviews
Dexter's Second Blue Note Outing Gets Double 45 Treatment From Analogue Productions
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2008  |  0 comments

Dexter Calling , recorded May, 9th, 1961, just a few days after Gordon’s Blue Note debut session, opens with “Soul Sister,” a “chicken and biscuits” track the tenor saxophonist wrote for the West Coast edition of “The Connection,” which Freddie Redd had scored for the East Coast original. The tune’s slow, bluesy, Southern-tinged melody, played in ¾ waltz-time sounds like something Floridian Cannonball Adderley might have penned though Gordon grew up in Los Angeles, son of a prominent physician who tended to the likes of Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton.

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