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Album Reviews
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(166 reviews)
Date: Jun 1, 1972 – Jun 6, 1972 (recording)
Release: Columbia/Legacy #63980
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An electrified and multidimensional burst of ass-shaking funk straight from the master himself. If Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix took a space ship to India together, they very well might have come up with something approximating On The Corner.
This utterly unique and unprecedented recording was savaged by a lot of the critics of its day. They blasted Miles for creating a new “anti-jazz” that fundamentally violated the genre’s integrity. Reviled as the jazz anti-Christ, his playing on this recording was indeed demonic. His trumpet spits out wah-wah distorted licks of fire and nastiness, and he grinds on the organ like it was a cheap date. He masterfully tangles and intertwines the varied sounds of the sitar, conga, electric guitar, tabla, organ, and electric bass to create thickly-layered rhythms of dazzling complexity. He throws in some heavy licks on top of it all, hitting hard with quick and punchy bursts from his horn that make the groove throb.
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Date: Feb 6, 1970 – Dec 19, 1970 (recording)
Release: Columbia/Legacy #65135
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There’s something about the way this music hits me. It’s not as if I haven’t been exposed to lots of hard, loud music – in fact, compared to some of the stuff that now gets called “fusion,” Miles Davis’ version can often seem quaint on the surface. At the time of the shows documented on this 1970 set, he was playing with a new band (something he was doing more often than in any period of his life theretofore), and playing music that, while broached in the previous couple of years by himself and very few others, was rather unheard of to most music listeners of the time, and certainly the canonical jazz guard.
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Date: August 19, 1969 – February 6, 1970
Release: COLUMBIA #65570
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No other musician in the 20th Century explored the possibilities of music as fiercely as trumpeter and bandleader Miles Davis. He frustrated critics and fans alike as he opened himself up to unexpected directions in musical thinking while continuously shaping and refining his remarkable skills on trumpet. Critics tried and tried to squeeze his musical journeys into a box called “jazz,” but Miles would have none of it. And then, in August of 1969, Miles decided he’d put all of us in an impenetrable box and dare us to break out.
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Date: 1968
Release: Columbia/Legacy #65362
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I never waited as impatiently for a boxed set to be released as I did for this one. I assumed that the only thing that could possibly be better than In A Silent Way was The Complete In A Silent Way Sessions, because there would be so much more of it. Now that I have it all to enjoy (!), I’m finally able to appreciate the full magnitude of the original release of In A Silent Way. After withstanding three decades of overplay, In A Silent Way remains a mysterious, urgently necessary, life-affirming masterpiece that stands outside anything Miles or anybody else has ever recorded. When I first got the box, I had the insane expectation that I was about to hear some unreleased music on par with the original album. Looking back, I don’t know how I could even think such a thing was possible. Maybe it’s because I vividly imagine a bunch of record label executives huddled together late at night in smoke filled rooms listening to the best music ever while secretly conspiring to keep it eternally locked in the vaults for their own sinister pleasure. But whether or not such theories hold their water, I have come to accept the old single-disc version of In A Silent Way for what it has always been: COMPLETE.
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Date: 1975
Release: A&M/Horizon #0809
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“In France, and maybe the rest of the world, I am not considered like a real hip-hop DJ–and I don’t want to be considered a real hip-hop DJ, because I love so many different styles of music. My way of working came from the hip-hop, but I try to expand it.”
– DJ Cam
The number of people who ought to concern themselves with the musical innovations of DJ Cam runs into the millions. A former Parisian graffiti artist, Laurent Daumail (aka DJ Cam) has released several undeniably hip-hop records that radically rewrite the rules of the genre. Neglected in his native France, audiences in the US, UK, and Japan have embraced his envelope pushing style of downbeat hip-hop, helping to amplify the global impact of such kindred artists as DJ Shadow and DJ Krush.
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Date: June 11, 1964
Release: West Wind #2063
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Recorded less than 3 weeks before his tragic death at the age of 36, Naima ranks among Eric Dolphy’s greatest creations. Brilliantly opening the album with an unaccompanied statement on bass clarinet, Dolphy stretches out on a lengthy version of John Coltrane’s immortal “Naima.” His spirited playing on Jaki Byard’s “Ode to Charlie Parker” is a prime example of how Dolphy helped transform the flute into a respectable jazz instrument. The 19-minute Dolphy original, “Springtime,” sadly shows us just how much he had left to say, even though his time was set to run out. As was so often the case in his later years, Naima features some of Dolphy’s finest solos recorded with a mostly European band playing well below his level. The fine French rhythm section on Naima prudently handles this mismatching of talents by holding down a restrained African-infused beat behind Dolphy’s soaring runs on flute, alto, and bass clarinet. And while he is joined by trumpeter Donald Byrd and Nathan Davis on tenor, musicians who prove more than capable of keeping up with him, it is Dolphy’s mighty voice that dominates throughout. This tough to find European CD is well worth the search.
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Date: 1968
Release: EPIC #EK 26420
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A memorable album filled with folk-tinged psychedelic pop gems by the man once touted as the British answer to Bob Dylan. While Donovan Leitch lacked the depth of Dylan, he certainly was capable of crafting catchy hits that were both cosmic and clever. Hurdy Gurdy Man is a prime example of Donovan’s creative powers. The title track, an enduring classic of the late ’60s, combines loud-guitars with mystical lyrics to great affect. The album’s second major hit, “Jennifer Juniper,” frolicks along with its flowery arrangements, precious melodies, broken French, and bouncing rhythms. This track begs you to dust off your love beads and skip through the forest with your true love holding hands.
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Date: 1968 (recording)
Release: Island #842915
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Just as our memories of such film stars as James Dean and Marilyn Monroe limit us to experiencing them in the past tense-through their films, through the photographs taken of them at their physical zenith, and before age, slowing careers, or personal hardships diluted their peak intensity — four records are all we can know about Nick Drake. The British folksinger, who died in 1974, has become the object of cult worship since his death: his albums have been boxed, his songs individually analyzed, and his life story told and retold to the point of attaining near-mythology. He has been the subject of a tribute album (Brittle Days, on England’s Imaginary Records, 1992), and even his practice tapes have been studied, analyzed and covered by a guitarist who admired Drake’s instrumental ability (Nine of Swords by Scott Appel, on Kicking Mule, 1988). He is a performer who sold very few albums during his lifetime, whose work never appeared on any album sales chart, but whose influence grows yearly — and isn’t likely to decrease in the future.
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Date: 1972
Release: RYKO HNCD #4436
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On his third and final album, Nick Drake sits alone with his guitar, creating music of haunting purity. Brilliant beyond compare, Pink Moon softly smolders with emotional power. It captures an infinitely talented artist in his most supremely honest moment, stripped of all pretense and orchestration. His songs of loneliness and isolation never sound self-indulgent, but rather innocent and sincere, as he delivers such lines as “Know that I love you/Know I don’t care/Know that I see you/You know I’m not there.” His guitar swirls and chimes in fluid rhythms, building an undercurrent of intensity that perfectly complements his sonorous vocals.
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Date: October 21, 1970
Release: COLUMBIA CK 30290
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A finely crafted album of diverse and heartfelt songs. With New Morning, Dylan discards obscure and impenetrable lyrics for emotionally accessible songs about love and life. The title track sounds like a blueprint of what would become Van Morrison’s trademark semi-acoustic soul sound of the early 70s. In “Sign on the Window,” Dylan sings about the virtues of settling down and starting a family, which is exactly what he tried to do around this time with the birth of his now famous son, Jakob. “The Man In Me” reveals an openly self-critical side to Dylan, who admits that “it takes a woman like you/to get through to the man in me.” Backed by a soulful chorus of female singers, this song is an absolute classic, and was used to great effect in the Coen brother’s “The Big Lebowski.” Other highlights include the spare “Three Angels,” with its atmospheric organ and gospel-tinged chorus, the comic jazz-blues of “If Dogs Run Free,” and the classic Dylan cynicism of “Went to See the Gypsy.”
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