Album Reviews

In the nervous, jumpy, wiry world of guitar-driven late ‘70’s-early ‘80’s post-rock intellectual punk, popularized by bands like Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, early XTC and (more broodingly) Wire, Mission of Burma was America’s premier practitioners. They probably accrued more legend than record sales, though.

You had to be there, and I was.

Reminiscent of what Carl Jefferson was doing at Concord back in the 1970’s, this reissue of a French Black and Blue release recorded March of 1978, keeps alive the straight ahead tradition that seemed to be passing into jazz history back then.

I haven�t heard Mo-Fi�s hybrid SACD reissue containing twice as much music, but I have compared this limited edition 180g LP sourced from the original tapes with the Ace German boxed CD set that I own and the deep, richly dimensional mono LP laughs at the flat, cardboardy and cold sounding CD.

Gary Wilson inhabits a musical and cultural space somewhere between Donald Fagan, Son of Sam and Frank Zappa. The cult favorite is a creature of the night who obsesses about girls and his hometown of Endicott, NY just outside of Binghamton. He should live in a basement apartment if in fact he doesn’t.

Listening to a straightforward, blues/gospel-drenched comping session like this reminds you that jazz has lost its soul today and aims mostly for the head. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s good to get back to the essential, visceral nature of the genre. This set, recorded in New York at an unidentified studio or studios on three days during the summer of 1963, let’s you know why.

This is neither the time nor the place to extol the virtues of this classic album that has more than stood the test of time. You already know about it and perhaps own a copy or two. If you don't, then you can buy this new Capitol 180g reissue and be sure you have a competently produced, reasonably priced reissue, though clearly cut using a digital source that produces a record that's a thin, pale imitation when compared to earlier reissues.