Album Reviews

Do you need to add yet another Beethoven symphony cycle to your record collection? What's that you say, you don't have even one? That's not good. Every record collection should include at least one set of Beethoven symphonies even if you don't like classical music.

Pure Pleasure’s musical archeological digs have managed to find some interesting obscurities, this Gil Evans session from 1959 being one of them. It certainly deserves to be brought to your attention. However, its appeal will be limited to aficionados of Evans’ arranging excellence than for any other reason, though many fine players are involved, particularly and obviously trumpeter Johnny Coles as well as Steve Lacey, among others.

If I have to fight with you over the logic of releasing a double LP of music transferred from 78s, just think of your battles with digital lovers over the superiority of vinyl! I'm not suggesting that the original 78s from which this absolutely fascinating and often startling compilation was sourced sound like modern, full frequency response recordings. However, in the vital midrange, the sense of "living presence" is remarkable.

Speakers Corner has unearthed an unlikely gem here: a 1957 blues set by a stellar assemblage of jazz musicians  that's been obscured by time—at least I've never seen or heard of it before.

A more pleasant pairing of musical icons you’re not likely to hear and the backing by The Oscar Peterson Trio (Ray Brown on bass, Herb Ellis on guitar plus Buddy Rich on drums) completes the setting. Add a superb monophonic recording and a literally astonishing 45rpm re-mastering that just about brings them all back to life in your listening room and you have something truly special that’s clearly stood the test of (a long!) time.

Another decade, another reissue of DSOTM, this one using the very fragile original two track master tape, again supervised by James Guthrie. Guthrie had determined that the tape was in fragile shape back in 2003, which is why he opted for a remix in the analog domain. That edition was very good and worth having, especially if you didn't have a very clean early UK pressing, but in retrospect it departs from the original much as the Mo-Fi does: the EQ is a bit much at the frequency extremes, which bleaches out the mids. As for the mix's micro-elements and how close Guthrie came to reproducing the original mix, I have to surrender that to the DTOTM fanatics, of which I'm not one.

You'll never confuse Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 composed in 1957 with piano concertos composed during the romantic era, except when you get to the squooshy center where the composer goes all Rachmaninoff on you. The cinematic first movement sounds both ominous and light-hearted like a Hitchcock chase scene and it's easy to hear how Bernard Herrmann may have been influenced by this rousing first movement. It will get your heart pounding.