Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
Bill Frisell's Valentine  Gets to the Heart of the Musical and Sonic Matter
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 25, 2020  |  8 comments
Last year, producer Lee Townsend brought guitar-great Bill Frisell’s trio, fresh off the road and shortly after concluding two weeks at The Village Vanguard where almost 60 years ago another famous trio made an indelible record or two, into Tucker Martine’s Portland, Oregon studio for three days of recording.

The result is a first for Frisell—a trio recording with long time accompanists, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston that is simultaneously densely packed with musical ideas and yet throughout, window wide open to the spaces between the notes.

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Album Reviews
A Love Letter  From and To Jimmy Heath Is a Fitting Finale
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 27, 2020  |  10 comments
While you wait for that soon to be released Coltrane Ballads reissue, do yourself a favor and pick up tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath’s worthy final recording. The younger brother of MJQ bassist Percy Heath passed away at age 93 January 19th, 2020 at home in Loganville, Ga.

Heath was as well-known as a composer and arranger as he was as a performer. He began as an alto saxophonist, emulating Charlie Parker but soon switched to tenor to get out from under Bird’s plumage.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson   And the Love Is Mutual
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 03, 2020  |  11 comments
This agreeable set of standards sung by Louis Armstrong backed by the Oscar Peterson Quartet, then consisting of Herb Ellis, Ray Brown and Louis Bellson recorded at the then new Capitol Studios, L.A. in 1957 but not released in stereo until 1959, was a follow-up of sorts to the highly successful Norman Granz-produced Ella & Louis (Verve MGV-4003) recorded August of 1956.

Like this set, there Armstrong and Fitzgerald were backed by the Oscar Peterson Quartet, but with Buddy Rich drumming instead of Louis Bellson.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Miles' & Gils' Porgy And Bess  Still Sublime After All These Years
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 09, 2020  |  12 comments
Miles Davis's second collaboration with arranger/orchestrator Gil Evans (and the first recorded in stereo) is arguably the duo's best effort—a majestic, moody re-working of George Gershwin's classic folk opera recorded in three summer of 1958 sessions at Columbia's 30th street studios.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Lifeline Quartet's Music of the Underground Railroad
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 17, 2020  |  4 comments
There’s no better time than now to release a live performance of Civil War era “lifeline” spirituals dedicated to Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave herself, who is best known as an “Underground Railroad” organizer personally responsible for smuggling to freedom hundreds of slaves, first to the North and then after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 that allowed the recapture of freed slaves in non-slave states, to Canada.

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Album Reviews
Rough And Rowdy Ways, Number 39 Is Supreme Bob Dylan Storytelling
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 18, 2020  |  36 comments
The big Bob Dylan knocks are that he’s a serial plagiarist, a user, a manipulator and most damning of all that he’s “inauthentic”. Joni Mitchell is reputed to have said about Bob “….he’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He’s got a lot of borrowed things. He’s not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs. It’s a mask of sorts”.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Janaki String Trio's Young Beethoven  Is Musical and Sonic Gold
Ty Webb  |  Sep 28, 2020  |  2 comments
In this, the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthday, Yarlung Records offers a recording worthy of the master, a delectation from the Janaki String Trio that was originally recorded in 2006 in Zipper Hall. The sonics are as inviting as the playing.

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Album Reviews
Dialogues on Race Volume One  Is The Emmett Till Story Set to Unforgettable Music
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 29, 2020  |  12 comments
As I reached my home the other day after an early morning run a neighbor pulled over in his car and asked how I was doing. I said, “great, under the Covid-19 circumstances”. Noting my Biden/Harris lawn sign he said “The Democrats have been taken over by the progressives. Doesn’t that bother you?” I said “No, I’m fairly progressive myself. The GOP has been taken over by Trump, who isn’t sure he’ll hand over the reins of power if he loses the election, doesn’t that bother you?”

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Album Reviews
Gimme Some Truth  John Lennon The Ultimate Mixes
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 09, 2020  |  30 comments
Another murder most foul to revisit. Where were you on December 8th 1980 when the terrible news broke that John Lennon had been assassinated? A girlfriend and I were having dinner with Chuck and Nancy (not Schumer and Pelosi) and with Arnold and Maria (yes, Schwarzenegger and Shriver).

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Big Star's #1 Record  Gets Five Stars From Our Newest Contributor
Nathan Zeller  |  Oct 11, 2020  |  8 comments
We find ourselves during the ongoing pandemic abstaining from pleasurable activities like hanging out on the street. Listening to the 1970’s power pop group Big Star will one day help ease the way back to that once taken for granted lifestyle.

Discovering older musical acts like Big Star is for a child of the 21st century like me mostly a matter of pure luck. I happened upon Big Star’s song “Thirteen” on an episode of “That ‘70’s Show” airing on Netflix. That tune, a captivating piece of tender musical perfection, led me to discover Big Star the group and boy, am I thankful for that!

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Album Reviews
Lang Lang—The Classical Music Superstar Critics Love to Hate Hate Delivers his "Goldberg Variations"
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 20, 2020  |  29 comments
Lang Lang, a certified classical music "superstar" much loved by audiences for his performances of the romantic repertoire and detested by the cognoscenti and critics for being overly dramatic and self-indulgent, waited until age 38 to release a fully realized recording of Bach's mathematically certified "Goldberg Variations"—a piece definitely at odds with his romantic "sweet spot" and one he says he mastered—at least technically—20 years ago, though he performed it for a teacher at age 17 from memory.

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Album Reviews
Yung Lean Starz Standard Vinyl Update [Final]
Malachi Lui  |  Oct 24, 2020  |  1 comments
As promised in the original Starz vinyl report, I got the standard edition to compare to the disappointing glow-in-the-dark 2LP.

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Album Reviews
Rush's Permanent Waves Marks Forty Years With a Celebratory Box set
Nathan Zeller  |  Oct 24, 2020  |  31 comments
Every Canadian is bound to hear the question: “What does Canada offer to the world?” Maple syrup seems to be the general consensus among friends. While delectable, I’m not here to discuss maple syrup. After all, this is AnalogPlanet, not BreakfastPlanet! Rush better answers the question (Not to mention, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen the Band!, Arcade Fire and BTO (etc.)_ed.).

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Album Reviews
The Wonderful Sounds of Male Vocals
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 27, 2020  |  12 comments
Analogue Productions returns with another in its very popular “Wonderful Sounds” series that began with a Christmas compilation and followed up in 2018 with a female vocalist assemblage.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Love and Theft  Bob Dylan’s Southern Journey Through Time Finally Shines On Mobile Fidelity Vinyl (Where's Your Copy?)
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 27, 2020  |  34 comments
Talk about bad luck: Love And Theft Bob Dylan’s first album in four years, his 43rd (at the time, including live and studio) and the follow up to the million-selling, triple-Grammy Award winning (including “Album of the Year”) Time Out of Mind had a September 11th, 2001 drop date. Buildings dropped instead.

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