Yes, yet another Thelonious Monk reissue review. What can I tell you? Love that Monk. Criss-Cross with the same quartet (and in serious need of a reissue) was the second jazz record I ever bought and it made an even bigger impression than Coltrane's My Favorite Things, which was my first.
While his solo career is littered with covers, on this new Bryan Ferry album, the covers are of his own songs performed instrumentally with "The Bryan Ferry Orchestra", a 1920's style emulation.
Van Dyke Parks: singer, songwriter, arranger, session musician, producer, creator of soundtracks, music video audio-visual pioneer...raconteur, (I'm sure I'm missing a few)...and above all, an artist. I can't think of another figure in recorded music for whom the title "Renaissance Man" would be more fitting.
On March 12, 2013 Reference Recordings will release a CD version and then sometime later a double 45rpm 1/2 speed mastered 200 gram Quality Record Pressings edition of a new recording by Piedmont blues specialist Doug MacLeod.
Disc mastering veteran Larry Boden released the first edition of his book "Basic Disc Mastering" back in 1978. He self-published the fifty page book because he was so often asked about the disc mastering process he figured a book made sense.
Nick Drake was born June 19, 1948 in Rangoon, Burma. Such unusual beginnings for a shy singer-songwriter who would die of a drug overdose twenty-six years later might seem exotic to some. But the gentle music he created sounded quite ordinary to most, if they heard it at all.
A few months ago my friend and fellow Stereophile writer (not to mention Pulitzer Prize winner, author of a new book "Insurgents" about General Patraeus, etc.) Fred Kaplan and I were lamenting the absence of reissues of Thelonious Monk's Columbia catalog.
Analogue Productions will have for sale on February 5th a deluxe box set edition of its six double 45rpm 180g Doors reissues. The magnetic door front opening box (there must be a tech-packaging name for it that I don't know) is beautifully and ruggedly manufactured inside and out. It feature a gray cast covering containing a ghostly iconic image of Jim Morrison on the front cover and the group on the back.
Atoms For Peace is a Thom Yorke side project collaboration with producer Nigel Godrich, Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist Flea, drummer Joey Waronker (son of former WB Records exec Lenny), and Brazilian percussionist Moro Rofosco.
Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan's 1959 major label debut features his self-penned liner notes advocating putting the fun back in jazz and not worrying about hipness. Mulligan states that the album is all about fun and he's not kidding.