If Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas is a melancholic look back at childhood Christmas viewed through the eyes of the Peanuts gang, Duke Pearson's 1969 Blue Note release Merry Ole Soul is the Christmas record you'll want to play at a hip holiday cocktail party.

Not kidding. Supersense and Universal Music Group, Austria are making available a limited number of lacquers cut directly from the original master tapes of a few albums including A Love Supreme and Getz/Gilberto. That's what they are saying, I don't blame you for being incredulous.

Earlier this year, I wrote a four-part series about Yellow Magic Orchestra, the seminal synthpop trio of Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Of course, that’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg; between solo records, collaborations, other bands, productions for others, and session credits, hundreds of wildly varying releases encompass the YMO-centered extended discography.

Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas album is a secular holiday delight sure to please every listener, even atheists and agnostics. Originally released in 1960, the sound here is warm and inviting as a Yule log burning in the fireplace—once you get past the opener "Jingle Bells", which is somewhat brighter, brasher and more in your face than the rest, though having Ella in your face is hardly problematic.

The Electric Recording Company announced that sales of its limited edition reissue of The White Stripes' White Blood Cells goes on sale this Friday, November 5th 1PM EDT on the ERC website. In addition a limited number of copies will be available via Third Man storefronts.

In the worthy annotation to this historically remarkable release, educator and author of the biography “John Coltrane His Life and Music” Lewis Porter provides a play by play of this unlikely nightclub performance of Coltrane’s worshipful masterpiece recorded October 2nd 1965.

Michael Chapman died on September 10. He was 80 years old. Pitchfork, NME, and The Guardian published obituaries all of which referred to him as a folk singer-songwriter, best known for the 1970 album Fully Qualified Survivor. Chapman did not like being called a “folk singer” for the excellent reason that the term was inaccurate when applied to him. After fifty-four years as a professional musician, with an unlikely career resurgence beginning when he was fifty-seven, that produced thirty albums including 50, which many regard as his best work, it probably also would have rankled him that that he was mainly remembered for FQS his second album.

No need to check your calendar it's not April 1st and this is for real: ERC just announced it would be releasing The White Stripes' White Blood Cells, the group's 2001 final release on the Sympathy For the Record Industry label cut from the original analog master tape and packaged in the usual meticulous ERC way.