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DrJ
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Posts posted by DrJ
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Very true about the production influence, Jim.
I think Chicago was just plain spotty for the first 8 or so LP's, then consistently lame. That's why I'll pretty much always consider them a solid Top 40 pop singles band with pretentions to something greater (those multi-tune suites they seemed so fond of seldom worked). For example, CTA and CHICAGO II were very strong, but then CHICAGO III was pretty tepid. They regained form around V which was a pop immortal, kept runnin' strong for VI but then VII and VIII again waned a bit. One Cetera starting hitting it big with sappy pop ballads (and then Kath shot himself), it was all over.
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KILLER listing. VERY exciting news, thanks for sharing this guys.
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I think most of Chicago's hits and a (very) few of the stronger album tracks through about CHICAGO VIII or so hold up pretty well. Unlike jmjk, I tend to think Chicago was generally at its best (least indulgant, most tuneful and least lyrically embarassing) on the early singles - some of which were pure radio pop magic - although there are some great album tracks too (for example, check out "Thank You Great Spirit" on CHICAGO VIII for some great Terry Kath).
The rest, and everything after that point...doesn't quite hold up.
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Hey AfricaBrass, nothing to be embarrassed about in liking the band Lush, as far as I'm concerned. I still have and really enjoy their CD GALA (actually a compilation of early EPs and outtakes). "De-Luxe" is remarkable.
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I have to think Mosaic is going to eventually do the complete Basie on Columbia...by now if the parent company had any interest in doing it, it seems they would have (as they did for Billie Holiday). Whatever, I'd be thrilled to see EITHER do it!
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I certainly haven't heard all these, but the most recent version by Schaap sounds great. I'm also not a fan of using a lot of noise reduction. These recordings sound alive and "present," and for that I'll put up with a few pops and clicks.
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What an original - and a great musician. Happy birthday to a living legend!
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Ahh, the Cocteau Twins. VICTORIALAND is a personal favorite, tranquil and breathtakingly pretty. Also really enjoyed THE PINK OPAQUE, a compilation of much of their strongest and most tuneful earlier stuff. Both were on the 4AD label.
Picking up on the Haircut 100/Nick Heyward topic: there were more than a few bands that did the jazz-influenced thing in the 80's where it really worked. You can hear it in Haircut 100 for sure; and how about the Style Council's great one MY EVER CHANGING MOODS? The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy's stuff?
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There was actually another fairly recent and quite lively discussion thread on Elmo Hope, that one had a lot of good information (some I posted about SOUNDS FROM RIKERS ISLAND, including excerpts from the liners, a lot more from other people). You might use the search function to dredge that one up, too.
I love Hope, have yet to hear a bad recording by him. I have been most recently digging the Celebrity and Beacon trio recordings after snagging Japanese LP reissues of both records. Short measure (each only about 30 minutes long) but I got a good deal and the sound quality is quite good given that the original session recordings are a bit on the thin and lifeless side.
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Great, truly great, Big John Patton album. Perhaps his best for the label, certainly one of his most funky and exciting. "Soul Woman" just slays me, with that intriguing combination of down home, in the pocket funk mixed with free form modal excursion - Patton really left his mark on organ-based jazz with that mixture. All his albums from this point on had that hybrid thing going, with the balance tipping one way or the other depending on the musicians present.
Great choice for AOTW, I will be listening again this weekend!
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I agree with the high regard for the Wilson/Adderly album, it's a doozy from start to finish. NOT merely a formula ballads album, that much is for sure. Truly varied, with some wonderful arrangements. I've always absolutely loved the version of "Never Will I Marry" on this recording, a really interesting tune structurally that is given the kind of regal treatment it deserves.
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From the TOCJ:
1. Back to the Tropics (Whipper)
2. Aconteceu (Lincoln-Cezar)
3. Velhos Tempos (Luiz Bonfa)
4. Samba De Orfeu (Luiz Bonfa)
5. Un Dia (Rouse-Benskina)
6. Meci Bon Dieu (Frantz Casseus)
7. In Martinique (Belasco-Whipper)
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Don't mean to saturation post, but this topic excites me (we seldom get much discussion of this era on the boards!).
1. Another thing I loved about the 80's - it signified the return of the single! Granted, it was often a 12", 33 RPM, remixed single, but a single nonetheless. An format that had all but disappeared as an outlet for "serious" musicians after the mid-70's (and indeed was often derided as inferior, because hey, you could hardly fit a 20 minute mock-opera on a 45, so it MUST be inferior, right?) returned with a vengeance in the 80's.
This was highly significant if for no other reason than this: let's face it, for a great many pop music acts, 1 or 2 quality songs is the most they're ever gonna come up with. You could leave 'em in a locked room for 20 years or more, with pad and pencil, and they'd still only come up with a couple of keepers. There were a bunch of what I'd pretty much consider one-hit wonders in the 80's, but often those lone or dual hits were really great, some of the best of the era (witness the best of bands like Romeo Void, Translator, and Wire Train from the Bay Area alone)
So the beauty of the 80's is that you got to hear (and if you wanted, to buy) those keepers as nice, concise singles, and you DIDN'T have to buy the whole album and suffer through all the other tunes that sucked (and hey, even if you did buy a lemon album, those sucky tunes were SHORT sucky tunes, not side-long sucky tunes).
So we were able to enjoy truly great tunes like the John Lydon/Afrika Bambaataa epic "World Destruction," Romeo Void's "Never Say Never," Book of Love's "I Touch Roses," and the Clash's immortal "Radio Clash" and "Magnificent Seven" that would probably have never seen the light of day a few years earlier.
2. As a related further thing I loved about the 80's - a return to the danceable basis of popular music! Not unlike the demise of jazz as a mass-audience scale popular form of music after the 40's resulting in part from the move away from danceability, rock foundered partly in the 70's as it drifted further and further away from the dance hall. Just try asking the girl you've been pining over to dance to "Roundabout" (and yes, in junior high, I did just that with the predictably shudder-inducing results!).
With the 80's, truly high quality musicians were no longer afraid or ashamed to make music kids could dance to. And they did, long and hard. Again, the exhiliration of youth infused pop music again, if only for a short time. -
Yes, that album with "New World Man" would be SIGNALS, probably Rush's crowning achievement. In my day I was a huge fan and, funny enough, also saw them on that same tour David, in San Francisco, with Max Webster opening!
Still, I don't think most of Rush's music (at least of that era - I lost touch after the album POWER WINDOWS) holds up well at all - it sounds rooted in its time, heartfelt and harmless but hardly something I care to return to much.
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Yeah, the Waterboys were cool - IN A PAGAN PLACE is my personal favorite for the spine-tingling "All the Things She Gave Me" and "Church Not Made with Hands," especially the former which has some of the best imagery in a rock lyric outside of Dylan (one of Mike Scott's big heros I hear).
With all due respect to contrasting opinions, the music of the 80's was easily (if not more so) as eclectic as the music of the 60's and certainly 70's. You just had to know where to look, since the era of truly monolithic, mass audiences for popular rock performers had passed (due to market expansion, and "multiple formats" hitting radio).
The thing I loved about the best of the 80's rock (including the late 70's pioneers that began the movement) is that it has a sense of exhiliration and abandon that was almost completely lacking in much of the music of the 70's. So while I do certainly enjoy some material by, let's say, Yes - such as the fine CLOSE TO THE EDGE album - it is not the music I turn to when I want to tap into the youthful energy of rock and roll. By the mid-70's the situation was desperate - mainstream rock was essentially repertory music, often played by disinterested, burned out, disillusioned junkies, deader than a doornail and twice as boring. Yes, there were some really interesting people still working at the fringes, and some of the greats were still turning out fine albums (e.g. THE WHO BY NUMBERS, ON THE BEACH, etc). But this was the era of legions of FM rock mediocrities, who couldn't hope to compete with the Beach Boys and Beatles revivals that were triggered by the release of ENDLESS SUMMER/SPIRIT OF AMERICA and the "red" and "blue" 2 LP greatest hits sets, respectively. Great music to be sure, but clearly there was a huge artistic void that was waiting to be filled with these retreads - not unlike the current situation in pop at all, where classic music reissues pretty much reign supreme for most with discerning tastes.
By contrast, the Pixies' first couple of albums DO embody the core, unbridled energy and passion rock had for kids when people like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard hit the scene.
Some of the 80's era stuff that I think has held up best (many actually recorded at the end of the 70's, but who's splitting hairs?) includes:
1. The whole Minneapolis scene - not just Prince, who I thoroughly enjoyed, but the lesser known but mighty Husker Du and Replacements, each of whom turned out at least a couple of classics.
2. The UK ska scene - particularly the Specials and the English Beat, who turned out at least 2 masterpieces in their debut LP and then SPECIAL BEAT SERVICE (OK, the latter a bit uneven but any album that has "I Confess," "Jeanette," and "Save It For Later" is a keeper IMHO)
3. The Jam - actually began in the late 70's but belongs with the 80's for sure. Probably the single most impressive body of work of all these acts IMHO. Having just finally plumped for the boxed set DIRECTION REACTION CREATION, I've been fondly (and loudly) revisiting this body of work lately! One of many so-called "punk" or "new wave" bands that, in retrospect, was FIRMLY in the classic rock lineage (for God's sake, Weller worshipped the Who and 60's soul, covering many tunes from each canon, and just LOOK at them in those photos...)
4. The Clash - LONDON CALLING. Life affirming, even dinosaur rockers should enjoy this one. The breadth of rock from the start, in 2 neat LP's worth. Again actually at the end of the 70's, but in spirit a very 80's album
5. Elvis Costello - KING OF AMERICA. One of the finest albums of all time, period. Transcends time and genres. Given that Costello had been slogging away for quite a few years by this point, I think this album is one that gives the lie to the idea that all verteran rockers were forced to hire hot remixers and make embarrassing 12" dance mixes to continue to be relevant. How about jazz, swing, bluegrass, country, blues, and other influences and a sound recording that (finally) sounded like it was made by people who really understood engineering and record production?
6. New Order - LOW LIFE (Quest). They peaked here artistically, though they'd continue with a series of fabulous 12" singles and isolated tracks, and their recordings just kept sounding better and better. Still, from a songwriting and sheer force standpoint - combining the kernel of their later keyboard-dominated sound with the earlier, Joy Division-influenced guitar and bass grind - this was the one. Amazing.
7. X - UNDER THE BIG BLACK SUN. Rockabilly, really, pure and simple, just put through a magnifying lens both lyrically and musically. Punk? Well, maybe, but that was also a convenient marketing label...
8. XTC - SKYLARKING. The most beautiful rock album ever. MUMMER and ENGLISH SETTLEMENT take honorable mention for that award, by the way. I may have changed my mind about that "lifetime consistency award" I gave to The Jam a minute ago...
9. The Smith's - THE QUEEN IS DEAD. Perfection. Morrissey at his most pointedly angry and least whiny and absurd. Johnny Marr well to the fore.
10. Crowded House - WOODFACE. Just gorgeous, highly crafted pop, pure and simple (albeit with deceptive complexity). Again, by this time the Finn brothers had been at it for well over 20 years and were just starting to peak - and again, no embarrassing "80's moments" to be seen.
11. Pixies - SURFER ROSA/COME ON PILGRIM. Fantastic, and way ahead of their time. The blueprint for all the best bands of the 90's. Picture perfect production for this type of music - drums that sound like they're ambient mic'd, reverberating off your garage walls, guitars whining and spitting, and KIM DEAL when she was still a major presence in the band, people - KIM DEAL. That's: KIM DEAL. 'Nuff said.
12. The Fall - THIS NATION'S SAVING GRACE. Much of this group's work is downright impenetrable to me, but they reached a real artistic and (by their standards) accessibility peak with this wonderful record.
There are of course many more favorites, but these leap to mind right off the bat.
Some more obscure stuff:
- Bonnie Hayes and the Wild Combo's first album, GOOD CLEAN FUN. This one never got much play outside the Bay Area, apparently, but it's a blinder, at first listen a glorious throwback to 50's girl vocals pop but on further listens a very world-wise, uplifting record (Hayes was after all a lot older than most of the people she was playing for). The follow-up EP BRAVE NEW GIRL was nearly as good, and in fact a couple of the tunes ("Night Baseball" especially) were at least as strong as the best of the LP.
- THROWING MUSES (4AD), the debut album. Stunning, artsy, in your face, haunting, harrowing, and, most importantly, it still rocks like anything. They never came anywhere close to matching this. Recently available in a 2CD edition that included a roughly contemporary EP that, while good, still gives little hint of what is in store on this fantastic record.
- Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - any of their stuff, but especially RATTLESNAKES and MAINSTREAM. The former, their debut, is great start to finish, a neglected masterpiece of the era. The latter more spotty, but worth it for the fantastic "My Bag," a microencapsulation of a whole subset of 80's culture, and a few other great ones.
- Todd Rundgren - A CAPELLA. Yes, you read that right, Todd. An album made entirely from the sound of his voice, layered and often processed to emulate instruments. Sure, the sound has an 80's thing, but he's also doing some of the best songs he's ever written, and the effect is startling when you realize it's ALL his voice. Check this one out if you enjoy Todd, deserves a wider hearing. And again - another "dinosaur" making really creative music with not a hint of pandering.
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Obviously, I'm a big fan of much that went down in the 80's. The dross to quality ratio, by my read, was absolutely no different than in any other era.
I have to say the whole way this discussion began was kind of kooky and is the type of thing that, while well-meaning, ultimately really sells the 80's scene short. There were plenty of bands that essentially never touched a synthesizer during this time (most of those listed above, actually) and made great, rocking, intelligent music. And many who DID go in for synths (e.g New Order) that made great music too that didn't pander to any pop or dance hit mentalities but was still great danceable pop.
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Finally: I also don't agree about ALL the old vets all sounding lucicrous with the "new sound" trappings. There are several examples to the contrary above. And Peter Gabriel really benefitted from being stripped of the turgid, meandering sounds he had wallowed in before...albums like the third PETER GABRIEL (melting face cover), SECURITY, and even the more poppy SO were to my ears easily his most interesting and best conceived. There are other examples, too. Robert Plant, on his 80's solo dates, sounded positively reinvigorated and made some really creative music, again nearly all firmly guitar based (Robbie Blunt - whatever happened to him? - was on fire!). The Stones did some interesting things in the 80's too, mostly not really impacted in the least by the prevailing sound (and those that were, like some of the best of the album UNDERCOVER, were pretty far afield from the pop mainstream, some downright spooky). And Joni made maybe 1 or 2 dogs in the 80's, but she quickly returned to form with stuff like CHALK MARK IN A RAIN STORM, not one of her very greatest but a fine album.
What REALLY was annoying was the sudden "return to roots" movement in the 90's, signified in "let's cash in" terms especially by the "unplugged" lemming-fest. So we got to hear (and unfortunately see) aging, no longer relevant (or talented) rockers warble in cruelly bare, unforgiving settings. Oh joy. Followed by the geriatric arena rockers - Aerosmith, Ozzy, The Who, etc etc - returning to arena rock, tights 'n all. Even Neil Young, who I love, I find highly guilty of this - hobnobbing with Pearl Jam, turning out stale riffs and slogans in the form of songs like "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World." Please...this was what we were given by the man who made literally scores of classic albums in the 70's and, at least continued to bamboozle and try different things (albeit with little success) in the 80's? Give me TRANS any day.
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1. The track listings for at least two Bobby Hutcherson BN CD reissues (SAN FRANCISCO and PATTERNS) are all messed up.
2. On Bob Brookmeyer's TRADITIONALISM REVISITED, in the short-lived West Coast Classics series, the first run had on the tray card no times listed for the songs, just placeholders that looked like this where the times should have been:
(xx:xx)
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Leeway Posted on Oct 2 2003, 06:30 PM
I am not familiar at all with the Charlie Rouse Conn, "Bossa Nova Bacchanal." Can anyone enlighten me on this one? I'm not a big bossa nova fan, but I dig Rouse's work on Monk albums. Is it worth straining the budget for this one?
Well, hard for me to tell you what to buy, but - I dig BOSSA NOVA BACCHANAL. Not a "five star" disc for me, but highly enjoyable. Rouse does the material justice, he seemed to have delved deeper into the grooves and feel of the music than many who slapped the "bossa" appellation onto whatever they happened to be doing when the craze hit. His rather idiosyncratic approach just seems to jibe well with the rhythms for some reason.
To "anchor" this date to what may be a familiar reference point to you, BOSSA NOVA BACCHANAL strikes me as being at least as successful as Ike Quebec's SOUL SAMBA, perhaps more so. Ike's tone was well-suited to that type of music, and I enjoy that one for what it is, but I don't think Quebec was as intrinsically comfortable with (or as genuinely creative within) the genre as Rouse sounds to have been.
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I just discovered that Red Nichols did a whole series of recordings for Capitol in the 50's, with a "new" Five Pennies that had a rotating line-up (including some good, under-recorded players like Jackie Coon on mellophone). The AMG lists the following LPs, recorded between 1955-63:
IN LOVE WITH RED
HOT PENNIES
ALL-TIME HITS OF RED NICHOLS
RED NICHOLS AND THE FIVE PENNIES AT MARINELAND (!?!)
PARADE OF THE PENNIES
DIXIELAND DINNER DANCE
BLUES AND OLD TIME RAGS
I wonder if anyone has these and could comment on them...generally favorable reviews in AMG, if not ecstatic. And are there any other Capitol LPs? Might make for a nice Mosaic, along the lines of the Krupa/James and Teagarden Capitol sets (which captured these greats in the latter days of their careers, maybe past their "innovative" phases but in full maturity and in very good recorded sound).
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I happen to agree with you on that, SS. Short of a "complete" set, I also feel it would have made a lot more sense to focus on one portion of his career with BN - and my vote would definitely have been the era starting with GOT A GOOD THING GOIN' and moving forward. I certainly like his earlier dates for the label, but Patton was one dude who simply got better and better during his tenure at BN. Those later ones create a constantly innovative and creative yet still funky atmosphere. Why they decided for a mishmash, sampler approach when everything else Mosaic has ever done (Selects included) goes against that slapdash approach is beyond me.
However, I'll be snagging the Select soon, even though I have everything in it (THAT CERTAIN FEELING only on an LP CD-R w/black and white photocopied cover). I am a bit dismayed about the apparent THE WAY I FEEL tape aging problem resulting in some distortion, noted in another thread about this set. I have a feeling I'll be holding onto my TOCJ of that one, and I almost never keep duplicates of any sessions once I have them included in a box. Oh well...
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So far, absolutely LOVE the Ellington. AFRO BOSSA, my first exposure to this music - incredible, some of the best Ellington ever. Love the JAZZ VIOLIN album, too. Remarkably good remastering by Malcom Addey. Still have all the rest to explore this weekend... B)
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So does SAN FRANCISCO, which has one of my favorite Hutch/Land vibes/flute tunes in PRINTS TIE. Hear that one and you'll be humming it for days.
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Well said, Kari S. That is my point precisely. Maybe the title has the words "sonic" and "trance" in it, but when you listen to the actual music, not the promo spin or label promo packet gibberish, there's nothing particularly techno or ambient or even atmospheric about this music. It's wallpaper, and ugly boring wallpaper at that.
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I remember some nice Merrill discussions on the old BN BB. I'm a huge fan. The Emarcy box stuff is great, of course, most people know of that material. The collaborations with Katz - A SHADE OF DIFFERENCE and THE FEELING IS MUTUAL - are giant albums, pillars of vocal jazz that I think ought to be in any collection but are still very under-appreciated I'm sure. Her later Emarcy's are also uniformly wonderful: BROWNIE and CLEAR OUT OF THIS WORLD are particularly good.
Obscure Merrill: there's one track on which she sings - a devastating "Last Night When We Were Young" - on Tommy Flanagan's Inner City piano trio recording PLAYS THE MUSIC OF HAROLD ARLEN, which Merrill produced. Flanagan's trio is in great form, but it's that cut that steals the show.
However, I may be the biggest sucker for JELENA ANA MILCACTIC a.k.a. HELEN MERRILL, a crowning achievement. She's lost a step or two on her voice, but never has she sounded more emotionally direct. The arrangements are just perfect, and Steve Lacy makes some nice craggy comments on soprano. The eastern European folk music touches are totally organic, never crass or contrived.
A wonderful artist. I'm lookin' forward to hearing the John Lewis collaboration too.
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Jim - I am really familiar with Grant's later work, having all the BNs that have come out on CD so far and having heard the CTI date MAIN ATTRACTION...and I still think this was Grant having a really bad day.
His style changed a little in the later years, but in my ears not really that much on most sessions where he has his act together. Check out the live recordings from the era in particular, ALIVE! and the Lighthouse stuff, he's just as fluid and sounds very much like the Grant Green of the early 60's, but the context is different and he has altered his ideas and licks to fit the prevailing mode a bit.
It's of course possible he was playing that way on purpose on the cut on the blindfold disk - either at the leader's direction, or because he wanted to for some reason - can't say he wasn't. But I doubt it. Green had major problems with substances as we all know, and he had already had some pretty mundane days in the studio even in his earlier heydey - I think everyone has heard the sessions where he pretty much just strings together his pet licks, and not even in a particularly inspired way - so I don't think my interpretation would be out of the question. But then again, I could be wrong! -_-
Upcoming RVG's for 2004
in Re-issues
Posted
I am continually amazed at how people react to reissue news. I mean jeez, there may be a few somewhat questionable titles in there (I also raised both eyebrows at SIXTH SENSE) but there's a lot of really great ones as well, including some that people have been asking for forever, literally since the early days of the old BN board (GOIN' WEST, READDY FOR FREDDIE, etc), and a good chunk of these titles are only available in the U.S. in aged remasterings (the Hendersons, Byrds, etc). Not to mention that many have been OOP here for some time...and in case you haven't noticed, SIXTH SENSE is one of those OOP titles - so for people who missed out on it, this will be the way they can hear it.
It's like people actually expect Cuscuna/BN to consult with each of us personally before they dare make a move in deciding what to reissue. Is it that hard to conceive that maybe some other people out there were actually waiting for some of the titles that are being singled out as "questionable" here to be RVG'd?
The unseemly side of my personality wanted to post "get over yourself, get a real life, quit griping, and just deal with it, the world will continue to rotate even though THE GIGOLO will apparently not be in the next batch of RVGs," but that wouldn't have been very nice so my diplomatic side intevened...hey, wait a minute...