AAA Vinyl

This minor musical and major sonic gem features the great vibraphonist Gary Burton, Dave Brubeck Quartet drummer Joe Morello (reference only in case you just arrived from outer space) and veteran bassist Joe Benjamin on a jazz session headed by the great Nashville guitarist Hank Garland.

Perhaps it's because "Dino" cultivated a less than serious image as a friendly drunk or perhaps it's because of his long running role as Jerry Lewis's "straight man" in the most successful duo in comedy history, or maybe it was his long running "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" television show.

A reader recently asked if analogplanet would review some “heavier” musical material. I pointed out that we reviewed Volto! and The Mars Volta, among other purveyors of heavy guitar-based grooves, but that we’re not locked into bands with volt references. I referenced the Polish prog-metal band Indukti

I’ll tell you how I got into medieval era dance music similar to what’s on this record and on la Spagna: back in 1969 when I worked in the downstairs record store division of Minuteman in Harvard Square, a salesman named Duane who worked upstairs selling audio gear I could not at the time afford, insisted I buy a record on Deutsche Grammophone’s Archive Production label.

If you've already got a version of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" that you like, I'm not suggesting you need a "second opinion" though in my world any well-produced, good-sounding musically worthwhile and well-performed D2D record is a treasure worth owning

Donald Rumsfeld once famously said "You go to war with the army you have not the army you want". While reissuing Miles Davis' iconic Kind of Blue is hardly as consequential as invading a country, in context of our little musical and sonic world it probably is.

Gerry Rafferty has long been under-appreciated. Oh, sure, "Stuck in the Middle" was an unlikely hit when first released by A&M in 1972 and later found its way into Quentin Tarrantino's "Reservoir Dogs" where the bouncy, anthemic, Dylanesque record company exec knock reached a new audience.