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Music Reviews from Issue 60

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Matt Taylor Band - No Trouble At All
B.E. Recordings BECD108 Reviewed by AH
Matt Taylor’s first album earned him nominations for best guitarist and best album at the British Blues Awards, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect to hear plenty of string bending on traditionally bluesy songs. That’s catered for on No Trouble At All but there’s also a whole lot more going on. This is what one might call eclectic; even some of the covers raise a few eyebrows. True, the Allman Brothers’ ‘It’s Not My Cross To Bear’ gets the full-on slow blues treatment and jolly good it is too, but to find a version of Sheryl Crow’s ‘Everyday Is A Winding Road’ nestling alongside – now that is something of a surprise. It stays relatively faithful to the original although not any better, but I still applaud Taylor for having a crack at it. He also tackles Dylan’s ‘To Be Alone With You’, infusing it with honky tonk piano, handclaps and a delicious solo, which is very pleasing on the ear. Diversity can also be found in the originals. ‘The Open Road’, with its gentle guitar intro would make a great single, such is the strength of its chorus, and ‘Snakes’ has an almost Rumba-like groove. ‘You Are The One’, however, is an insipid ballad and should have been strangled at birth. Purists will have kittens but there’s plenty here for the rest of us to sit back and enjoy.

Tekameli - Escolteu
Jade 699 654-2 Reviewed by DD
Originating from Perpignan in the South of France, not so very far from the Gypsy Kings’ Camargue, Tekameli have forged a reputation as one of the best bands to emerge from the French Catalan Gypsy scene over the last decade. The founding members of the band, Jean Soler, Salomon Espinas and Julio Bermudez also play Rumba Catalana and Flamenca, blending Latin American beats with flamenco, extending the range and flavour of their music.
The band’s name means “I Love You” in Calo, the old language of Spanish Gypsies, and conveys the band’s desire to convey joy, love and celebration in their music.
Recorded in Perpignan’s Casa Musicale, the set reflects the deep-rooted influence of Evangelical music on the band with an excellent collection of heartfelt and genuinely passionate singing and playing around religious themes. Particular standout tracks in this consistently strong selection are ‘A Capella’ and ‘Soy Heredero’, the former since the singing reaches a peak of emotional intensity, the latter due primarily to its engaging melody and joyful mood. This is a strong and uplifting album, my only small gripe being the lack of translated lyrics in the sleeve notes.

Moreland & Arbuckle
Northern Blues NBM0044 Reviewed by AH
The Northern Blues label has a habit of unearthing some real gems from the world of blues and they’ve gone and done it again with Moreland and Arbuckle, a throwback delta blues and country band from Kansas. Guitarist Aaron Moreland grew up on Zeppelin and Kiss but switched interest to the blues at the age of 22 after hearing a Son House record.
Singer and harpist Dustin Arbuckle’s calling came after hearing Elmore James and BB King at the tender age of 15.
Completed by drummer Brad Horner, Moreland and Arbuckle have a way of hitting the listener hard in the midriff with their particularly authentic take on the blues. Dustin has an earthy growl and blows the harp with real menace, and his style blends beautifully with Aaron’s considerable dexterity on the guitar. Whether the band are thumping their way through the all-out manic electric blues of ‘Gonna Send Yo’’ or stripping the sound right back to the acoustic guitar, harp and vocals of ‘Teasin’ Honey’, the end result is always the sound of musicians who learnt their trade by absorbing the traits of the masters. To listen to them throb their way through ‘Please Please Mammy’ with its easy going roll of a beat is to be in the presence of out and out quality.
Fans of the Fat Possum sound who want to hear how it used to be done should stop by.

Various artists - You Don’t Know: Ninja Cuts
Ninja Tune Reviewed by JK
Ninja Tune is the record label that offers a home to artists such as The Cinematic Orchestra, Fink, DJ Shadow, Roots Manuva and many more. This is Ninja’s fifth label compilation and includes 49 tracks of such variety that they cannot be grouped under a single musical genre: there’s a lot of hip hop of both the rap driven and turntable powered variety, but there’s also Jaga’s Scandinavian prog and John Matthias who’s a bit of a folkie. With variety in material you get variety in sound quality, so there is a fair amount of sampled sounds but the live and acoustic recordings bring a welcome spaciousness and surprising intimacy. But this is all about spreading your musical horizons. The title chosen indicates that few will be familiar with all the material that this label has on its roster, which also means that only the truly enlightened will appreciate everything on these three discs. I enjoyed more than half the tracks on offer and particularly appreciated a dozen of them, Cinematic Orchestra’s rocked out take on Rite Of Spring and RJD2’s guitarfest ‘True Confessions’ among them. If you want to know what’s going on in the more adventurous extremes of beat oriented music you should get to know You Don’t Know.

Tab Benoit - Night Train To Nashville
Telarc Records CD83674 Reviewed by AH
Regular readers of Hi-Fi + will know I’m a big fan of this guy. His last album, Power Of The Pontchatrain found its way onto my ‘favourites of last year’ list, and if you haven’t discovered it yet you’re missing out. Fresh from being honoured with two awards in 2006 for BB King Entertainer Of The Year and Best Contemporary Male Performer, Tab unleashes his first live album. It was recorded over two nights in Nashville and finds him and some of his friends in truly scintillating form. Benoit’s sound leans heavily on his Louisiana upbringing, so there’s plenty of that fiery Cajun gumbo going on. Hot New Orleans combo, Louisiana’s Leroux are along for the ride and they provide masterful backing to a true genius of blues guitar. Whatever this guy plays, be it the thumping blues rock of ‘Night Train’ with its insurgent beat or the gentle country blues of ‘Moon Coming Over The Hill’ – featuring Jim Lauderdale on guest vocals – he always does it with the highest professionalism.
Working the riff is one of Tab’s specialities; he gets hold of a big fat juicy one and proceeds to grind it into a frenzy, punctuating the song with bursts of blistering soloing. Check out ‘Muddy Bottom Blues’ for evidence. There are few more exciting players out there than this man. The blues is lucky to have him.

Eric Lindell - Low On Cash, Rich In Love
Alligator Records ALCD Reviewed by AH
There’s no way that a Californian kid with this amount of funky rhythm and soul coursing through his veins was ever not going to find his way to New Orleans. Eric Lindell is the living embodiment of that area’s sound; he has the swagger of early Mink DeVille, the punch and groove of the Neville Brothers and the swing of The Meters. Low On Cash, Rich In Love follows on from his sparkling debut and roars along at a cracking pace. Lindell’s sound is summer personified, it’s like listening to Van Morrison without having to imagine the grumpy old sod scowling out from under his hat and hating everyone and everything in the world.
This music is all about the groove and connecting with the dancing feet… if you can’t move to it then you’re clinically dead. Ferociously infectious bass lines, horn breaks in all the right places, swirling keyboards and some of the tightest and funkiest guitar playing ever urge Lindell’s songs on, whilst the rest of us try to catch our breath. I get absolutely sick and tired of listening to the soulless drivel masquerading as music on the radio. If the powers that be had a modicum of courage or taste they’d create an ‘Eric Lindell day’ and play his music non-stop. God knows we all need cheering up and this is the perfect antidote for misery.

Fred Frith & Henry Kaiser - Friends & Enemies
Cuneiform Rune Reviewed by JK
If you have a taste for the outer reaches of what can be achieved with guitars, this compilation is sure to prove diverting. It’s also the only place where you find Frith’s instrumental interpretation of ‘Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues’ (by Skip James), released in the 80’s. This is one of the finest blues guitar pieces ever recorded. Frith manages to hold the tune together despite straying all over the place and attacking the notes and bending the strings with a ferocity rarely encountered. Frith and Kaiser were the most ‘popular’ exponents of such avant garde, experimental guitar music in the 80’s and 90’s. Fred Frith played in Henry Cow and has made records alongside Brian Eno, John Zorn, Evelyn Glennie and many more. Henry Kaiser has likewise played the field with artists as diverse as Richard Thompson, Herbie Hancock and is a key member of the essential Yo Miles project. As a pair, they recorded two albums, With Friends Like These in 1979 and Who Needs Enemies in 1983 and this compilation includes both albums alongside 11 live tracks from 1984 and six numbers from a 1999 studio session, making 36 tracks in all. The material runs the gamut from the completely free and musically challenged to the almost normal and even tuneful. In between there is a lot of noodling of the free persuasion and no shortage of high intensity Strat abuse.

Oli Brown - Open Road
Ruf Records RUF1139 Reviewed by AH
If you’re a follower of homegrown blues talent then no doubt you’ll have heard of Oli Brown at some time or another. He joins a wealth of hot players out there; the likes of Aynsley Lister, Ian Parker, Ian Siegal and Matt Schofield are all doing sterling work and showing the rest of the world that Britain is once again a thriving blues community. Now it’s the turn of Oli Brown, and he’s got what it takes to be the best of them all.
He reminds me of Jonny Lang – before his record company turned him into something of a joke.
He’s got the voice of an older, wiser man – much the same as Lang – and he approaches the blues with fire in his belly. He knows his way around a guitar too, not in a flashy way but an honestto-goodness one. Never wasteful or interested in 30 notes a second, he puts it in where it’s needed and makes it count for something. He can play it mean or he can let it soothe your soul and he does it all with a minimum of fuss or effort, and like all the great players, he understands that when it comes to ‘feel’, less is most definitely more. Peter Green was a master of that philosophy so Oli’s in good company…and this is one belting debut that improves with every listen. Highly recommended.

Cat Power - Jukebox
Matador OLE 793-1 Reviewed by PD
This may be the best album of cover versions I have heard. The largely obscure or underrated songs Chan Marshall (Ms. Cat Power) has selected are excellent and have sufficient strength to grow more involving with repeated listening.
Marshall has also put together an excellent band, with no passengers in this group. Judah Bauer plays tasteful and precisely crafted electric guitar lines, often bathed in vintage tones with nice dollops of reverb and tremolo. Gregg Foreman’s straightforward acoustic and electric keyboards are often at the heart of the songs and Jim White is a splendid drummer. The sonic presentation is fairly consistent throughout. It takes a little getting used to, particularly since Marshall’s voice is usually treated with a sizable dollop of echo.
Where a more natural presentation is chosen on the Highwaymen’s ‘Silver Stallion’, and on the sole new Marshall composition here, her excellent ‘Song to Bobby’ for Dylan, the purity of the vocal is refreshing. The presentation of the instrumentalists is excellent throughout, especially on Bob Dylan’s ‘I Believe in You’, which has a tremendous groove, and ‘Aretha, Sing One for Me’, a tasty sample of swamp rock. This two LP edition, like the limited edition ‘Deluxe’ 2 CD version that is also available, even includes five additional tracks, while the 180g pressings are excellent.

Beth Hart - 37 Days
Provogue PRD 7258 2 Reviewed by RP
Beth Hart, that immensely gifted and troubled singer songwriter and rock pianist, has crafted an album that delivers on all the promise heard in her earlier outings. She has an agonising and gritty vocal style, emotionally supercharged and lyrically at least, it takes no prisoners. Hers is not one of those syrupy voices to beguile you.
Instead, true to herself, she rips and tears into the early songs demanding recognition and respect. There’s no sign of passivity in the deeply personal material contained within ‘Face Forward Son’, ‘Sick’, ‘Jealousy’ or ‘One-Eyed Chicken’. When Beth dissects a relationship she’s at your throat, tightening her grip and demanding to be acknowledged. This is a profoundly honest woman’s perspective; powerful advocacy propelled by an excitingly edgy rock groove. If I had a minor criticism then it would have to be the unremitting and singularly relentless and impassioned dramatisation of her life that unfolds in nearly every song. It eventually dulls the senses. Beth actually does delicacy rather well. The gentle and considered openings to ‘Crashing Down’ and ‘At The Bottom’, as well as one of the bonus tracks, the especially beautifully sculpted ‘LA Song’, prove there are subtle depths to her art that require further exploration.
Supplier: Frontier Promotions

Beth Hart - 37 Days
Provogue PRD 7258 2 Reviewed by AH
The world is full of wannabe rock singers who think they have what it takes to make a difference, but most will never leave their mark because they’re either not good enough or they just won’t get the breaks. One, however, is so good that she stands head and shoulders above the rest, and her name is Beth Hart. She isn’t just another rock singer – she’s the greatest female rock singer since the legendary Janice Joplin.
When her first album, Immortal hit the streets it became abundantly clear she was something very special. The power in her voice and the quality of the songwriting was stratospheric, but Beth, like so many before her, walked a tightrope between brilliance and total self-destruction. She eventually, in her own words, “got her shit together” and went on to release more albums showcasing that extraordinary voice. 37 Days is the latest, and it’s rammed with amazing songs like ‘Soul Shine’, the incredible ‘Jealousy’ and two of the hardest hitting rockers anywhere in ‘Sick’ and ‘Fast Forward’. To hear this woman spit the word “bitch” is to listen to anger at its most primeval. There is a DVD available called Live @ The Paradiso and I suggest that if you want to know what all the fuss is about, you purchase it immediately. I guarantee you won’t believe your eyes and ears - the woman’s a force 10 hurricane!
Supplier: Frontier Promotions

RP:

AH:

Anita Wardell - Kinda Blue
Specific Spec009 Reviewed by DD
Following the success of her debut album Noted, which featured an impressive set of vocalese performances of instrumental originals, Wardell has returned to conventional songs in this collection, carefully selecting a nicely balanced choice of numbers she particularly loves. Not to say that she has entirely abandoned her remarkable vocalese skills. These are re-employed here in ‘Loose Bloose’ (also known as ‘A Race Against Time’), where she has put lyrics to Jim Hall’s guitar solo, entirely successfully too, resulting in one of the strongest numbers of the set. Her reading of Rogers & Hart’s ‘Little Girl Blue’, whilst it will never erase Nina Simone’s magisterial version, has a compelling lightness of touch about it. Another particularly strong number is Oliver Nelson’s ‘Teenies Blues’, with some terrific scat singing from Wardell and an equally powerful performance from her band, notably Phil Robson on guitar. ‘Learning the Blues’ nicely couples downbeat lyrics with a jaunty reading, the number fairly bouncing along.
It shouldn’t work but Wardell and the band bring it off beautifully; great piano in this number from Robin Aspland too. Taken together this is another very fine CD from Wardell that easily equals and in some cases betters her excellent previous album.

Return to Forever - Anthology
Concord Records Reviewed by JK
Funkier than Brand X, more disciplined than Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever was a definitive super-group and its output while not always consistent was righteous. This two-disc set, released to coincide with the band’s first reunion and a summer tour, gathers 20 of their finest tracks, culled from four albums released between ‘73 and ‘76. The stellar line-up consisted of Stanley Clark on bass, Chick Corea on keyboards, Lenny White on drums and Al Di Meola on guitar; how so many egos managed to sit down and create music is remarkable, the fact that their output was not all of the same calibre not surprising. But condensed down in this fashion you can hear all that’s good about a musical style that has remained unfashionable for long enough to let you know it must be good. One reason virtuosity is in such scarce supply is because it’s no longer a requisite of musical success. RTF reveals that great musicianship can be allied with great compositions. At their best this band produced truly majestic work which for this anthology has been re-mastered from the ground up by Mick Guzauski (who did Back Home for Eric Clapton). He has done a fine job, extracting the energy and finesse and presenting them in a clean yet organic form that encourages extended listening.

Whiskeytown - Stranger’s Almanac (Deluxe Edition)
Geffen Records 0602517398603 Reviewed by AH
When Stranger’s Almanac appeared in 1997 it thrust into the limelight a young singer called Ryan Adams. His talent was there for all to hear but his band Whiskeytown constantly lived on the edge of destruction, such was their inner turmoil.
Destiny dealt its cards though, and against all the odds they came up with this fantastic album. The original 13 songs appear on disc one in remastered form and are a reminder of just what a great songwriter Adams is when he puts his mind to it. Some of his finest compositions are here; ‘Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight’, ‘16 Days’ and the utterly gorgeous ‘Everything I Do’ are consummate examples of a truly gifted tunesmith. This Deluxe Edition also houses some real treasures. Too often the extra tracks are little more than throwaways, but here you get five in the studio live performances and 17 unreleased demos, along with soundtrack inclusions and early versions that really are a delight to hear. 13 tracks are taken from the Barns On Fire sessions; stripped back pre-production takes that, because of their rawness actually improve on the originals. ‘16 Days’ in particular benefits from an uncluttered approach, and in quite a few cases the recordings are staggering in their simplicity. It’s over 10 years old now, but it still sounds as fresh as the day they laid it down.

Watermelon Slim and the Workers - No Paid Holidays
Northern Blues NBM0047 Reviewed by AH
William Homans – aka Watermelon Slim – is one of those bluesmen that makes it all sound so damned easy. Blessed with the perfect growl for the blues, and a really mean guitarist and harp player to boot, Slim sings it with honesty and grit. Homans’ rise to prominence has been remarkable. His last two albums won him many awards and even managed to score highly on Mojo’s ‘Best Of The Year’ lists – no mean feat for a relatively unknown artist. But then Slim’s nothing if not resilient, and he surely knows how to make one unholy racket, and I mean that in the nicest possible sense! There’s more than a touch of Hound Dog Taylor’s style in his guitar playing; it’s loose but wild and instantly finds its way to the dancing feet. The same can be said for his harp playing, and there’s no better example of both instruments in perfect harmony than on the manic stomp of ‘Chearzy’s Boogie’. ‘Max The Baseball Clown’ shows off Slim’s prowess on acoustic slide, and when he switches to electric and tells us how much it hurts on ‘I’ve Got A Toothache’ it’s easy to hear why he’s so revered.
No Paid Holidays crosses many styles on its 14 track wander through the blues, and it will no doubt lead to more awards and a lot more critical acclaim.

Chuck Berry - Is On Top + St. Louis To Liverpool
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDCD 776 Reviewed by RP
Berry is of course a seminal and hugely influential figure in the evolution of rock music. His performances defined the genre and a prolific appetite for recording, especially on the Chess label between 1958 and 1965, delivered a succession of fine LPs. Two of them are presented here and in one, the truly magnificent St. Louis To Liverpool, we have what is widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest ever rock & roll albums.
These songs captured an essence of American life. Big, bold and brassy – they often paint quite personal yet striking pictures of teenage romance: the fumbling uncertainty and heartache with which they could identify. Elsewhere there is a distinct sense of ambition and destiny often communicated through Berry’s zippy, zinging and wickedly adaptable guitar work in songs such as ‘Maybellene’, ‘Johnny B. Goode’, ‘Promised Land’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘No Particular Place To Go’ and ‘The Things I Used To Do’ that chase down the elusive American dream. His super cool vocal style assertively dramatises the confidence of a generation in pursuit of this goal. It’s also brilliant entertainment.

Tift Merritt - Another Country
Fantasy Records FCD30455 Reviewed by AH
What does an American who’s spent more time than she can remember travelling round the world do when she feels the need to find herself again? She packs her bags, travels to Paris and books herself a little apartment with a piano – and just writes. That’s what Tift Merritt did; in fact, she wrote so much that she almost convinced herself she was dying.
“Otherwise, how could I possibly write so much?” she says in the liner notes. The time spent in Paris redefined her sound; this is a far more reflective offering than the big production on her last one, Tambourine. Tift’s always been an exemplary writer, one who knows how to convey the heart’s emotions.
She has an incredible ache to her voice and a keen ear for a rich melody, and those qualities hit home on this lovely, lovely record every time. Although this is essentially a singer/songwriter album, it’s underpinned by a gentle country lilt, with the pace of the tracks being one of quiet solitude. That’s hardly surprising given the nature and surroundings of how it came about, and therein lies its beauty and undeniable charm.
The lyrics point to a woman searching to find herself again, acknowledged in ‘I Know What I’m Looking For Now’: “Well, I got here early, trying to decide / there was nothing to hope for, nothing inside.” What a delightful way to return to self.

Roy Haynes Quartet - Out Of The Afternoon
Impulse/Speakers Corner AS-23 Reviewed by DDD
Drummer extraordinaire Roy Haynes leads a super group composed of multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Tommy Flanagan on piano and Henry Grimes on bass. This is a jewel of the Impulse catalog, easily one of my top five favorite Impulse releases. This 1962 recording from the Rudy Van Gelder studio, made during Impulse’s most creative period, when Bob Thiele was in control, defines the genius of that label – modern jazz of the highest quality. No other label came close during the 1960s. This title includes the only appearance on Impulse of a young Roland Kirk who was just starting his string of remarkable recordings for Mercury. About half the numbers are Haynes’ compositions, including his ‘Snap, Crackle’. Haynes, who played in Charlie Parker’s quintet for several years and innumerable great bands thereafter, continues to perform at a high level in the 21st Century. No matter how many times I listen to this music, I always hear something new, and there are few records I can say that about. Speakers Corner has come close to matching the sound of the original and those original pressings are quite expensive at three or four times the cost of this re-issue, so this has been near the top of my re-issue wish list for some time. Unless you already have an original, run, don’t walk, to get this music.

Milt Jackson Sextet - Invitation
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDSACD 2031 Reviewed by RP
A terrific line up with Kenny Dorham, Jimmy Heath, Tommy Flanagan, Ron Carter and Connie Kay joining “Bags” at the New York Plaza Sound Studios delivers a really well-balanced and often captivating set. Jackson’s ebullient caresses breathe renewed vigour into starchy standards like ‘Stella by Starlight’, ‘Ruby’ and the title track, ‘Invitation’. The playing here is imaginative and formidable. For less familiar repertoire that includes ‘None Shall Wander’, ‘Ruby My Dear’ and ‘Too Close For Comfort’ the solos are smooth, intuitive and engaging. A relaxed atmosphere, easy communication between some big personalities, appropriate moments of discipline and freedom and that intoxicating mix of bluesy and swinging rhythms is fully realized in a stunningly good SACD transfer. Its intimacy, cleanliness, and tactile presentation of individual instrumental details – whether they are those muscular and versatile Jackson vibes, Heath’s resourceful tenor, Carter’s powerfully propulsive bass technique or Dorham’s soaring trumpet playing – are memorable.
Alternative and previously unreleased takes for ‘None Shall Wander’ and ‘Ruby My Dear’ are a real bonus too, as it gives us valuable insights on the group dynamic and the direction these sessions eventually took. They further enhance this Invitation’s desirability.

Cassandra Wilson - Loverly
Blue Note 50999 5 07699 1 9 Reviewed by DDD
To put this in a nutshell, Cassandra Wilson is my favorite jazz vocalist performing today; and this is her finest record in years, a strong contender for best album of the year. Her two songs on David Murray’s Sacred Ground last year whet my appetite for a new Wilson album, and then along came this disc of standards – not exactly what I was expecting after the edgier fare on Sacred Ground. But dashed expectations gave way quickly when the disc went into the CD player. Backed by a septet of top-notch players, including my favorite pianist, Jason Moran, Wilson puts her stamp on a very broad selection of standards ranging from Hammerstein (Lover Come Back to Me) to the blues tune ‘Dust My Broom’ best known in its Elmore James performance. Her rendition of Bonfa’s ‘Black Orpheus’ is as good as I’ve heard, and her ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly’ is simply enchanting. I’ve heard Wilson perform live a few times and can’t recall her catching fire with such consistency as she does on this album. The CD sound was pretty good, but this new LP re-issue is much better. It’s a Capitol Records in-house mastering job, pressed on regular thickness vinyl, leaving us to wonder how good this would sound with first-rate treatment.

Horace Silver - The Cape Verdean Blues
Blue Note/Music Matters 84220 Reviewed by DDD
Horace Silver had been with Blue Note for ten years when this album was recorded in 1965, and was a follow-up to his incredibly popular Song For My Father. The front line brought back Joe Henderson on tenor sax and added Woody Shaw on trumpet and J. J. Johnson on trombone. Shaw replaced Carmell Jones in the trumpet chair, and these back-to-back records make for a fascinating comparison, featuring two of the outstanding trumpet players of the era. Whereas Jones received first-rate recorded sound on his recordings for Pacific Jazz, Shaw suffered less than perfect sound at the hands of Columbia and other labels during his prime recording period in the 70’s and 80’s. It is refreshing to hear him so well recorded here. I continue to marvel at the improvements wrought by Hoffman and Grey in these Blue Note re-issues.
I can hear so far into the mix that low level details I thought were lost in the recording process turn out to be details buried in the original mastering process. Little cues that are hard to catch unless you’re sitting close to the stage and visually confirm them, like the drummer’s brushwork and light stick work, are evident for the first time in this splendid mastering job. This is a top notch performance by great musicians, and the sound is far better than I thought could be pulled from these master tapes.

Pat Martino - East!
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDSACD 2018 Reviewed by RP
Between 1967 and 1972 Pat Martino, that wonderfully supple, dark-toned yet vibrant and lightning quick jazz guitarist from Philadelphia, cut five albums of a consistently high standard for the Prestige label. East! was perhaps the most remarkable of them all. The rehearsal session at Richard Alderson’s studio in January 1968 at first descended into musical farce. In the absence of any rapport, the planned tracks were jettisoned one-by-one. With under two hours recording time left and the supporting line-up reduced to Eddie Green (piano), Ben Tucker (bass) Lenny McBrowne drums and Tyrone Brown (bass for the delicious mysticism of the title track) all formal structure was abandoned for an impromptu jam, with Brown’s inspired bass line for ‘East’ causing everything to click. Martino wrote ‘Trick’ on the spot. Coltrane’s ‘Lazy Bird’ was picked to close out the session - with the beautiful ‘Park Avenue Petite’ and resonant ‘Close Your Eyes’ sandwiched in between. The focal point is Martino’s sustained and dynamic solos – five minutes long on ‘Trick’ – but the sidemen shine through too in this highly articulate recording that majors on precision, tonal accuracy and instrumental realism. It’s a lovely and colourfully infused album.

Stan Getz - with guest artist Laurindo Almeida
Verve V6-8665/Speakers Corner Reviewed by DDD
This was Getz’s fifth bossa nova LP – this time around with guitar player Laurindo Almeida, George Duvivier on bass and a quintet of drums and percussion. Recorded in 1963, music lovers had by then filled out the bossa nova section of their record collections and this LP did not sell in large numbers. That was the loss of the many who passed on this foldout package of mostly Almeida compositions. Getz and Almeida blend beautifully and produce one of the most consistent and romantic of bossa nova albums. Indeed, the case can be made that of all Getz’s bossa nova collaborations, this is the most consistently romantic of the lot. The session was recorded at New York’s Webster Hall, then one of the premier acoustic recording venues and RCA’s east coast recording venue of choice. Many of the finest sounding classical and jazz recordings were made here and this is no exception. Recording engineer Val Valentin created a recording that perfectly captures Almeida and Getz at their luscious best. By 1963, Verve had been acquired by MGM, and the MGM pressings do not always serve the recordings particularly well. Speakers Corner’s fine remastering and pressing solve this problem, giving us a guilty pleasure we need not be guilty of.

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