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Album Reviews
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(166 reviews)
Date: 1971
Release: Virgin #40641
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“For Francoise Hardy, at the Seine’s edge…”
–Bob Dylan, Another Side Of Bob Dylan
Unlike escargots, beautiful French women are not an acquired taste, especially when they can sing. A melancholy and sensual chanteuse, Francoise Hardy made a name for herself crafting lush love songs of great sophistication. Often characterized as aloof, the quietly self-possessed Hardy never allowed herself to be marketed on her abundant sex appeal. Disregarding her looks, she built a following strictly on the strength of her singing and songwriting talents. Although released in 1971, La Question endures as her most spare and seductive album. “Viens” opens the record with a dramatic flair designed to grab the listener’s attention. The title track follows, establishing the album’s elegant dreamlike mood. On such songs as “Chanson D’O,” “Mer,” and “Doigts,” Francoise’s breathy voice lulls you deeper into a deliciously languid state.
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Date: December 1967
Release: MCA #10894
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An early peak in the painfully short career of the greatest guitarist ever. Axis: Bold as Love was a mind blowing journey through the uncharted sounds and emotions of an artist sharing his pure soul. Love was to be the axis of the new galactic order Jimi envisioned, with his music serving as the otherworldly vehicle designed to take us there at 33 1/3 rpm. Innovative beyond compare, Jimi made extraordinary use of the limited 4-track technology at his finger tips, crafting a complex and pivotal album of enduring brilliance. With “Little Wing,” “Castles Made of Sand,” and “One Rainy Wish,” Jimi showed himself capable of creating gently textured songs of poetry that were no less powerful and compelling than the more jamming tunes like “Spanish Castle Magic.” On the electrifying “If 6 Was 9,” Jimi righteously sets forth the philosophy he lived by: “I’m the one who’s gonna die when it’s time for me to die/So let me live my life, the way I want to…” In the jazzed “Up From the Skies,” Jimi sings of the world from the point of view of an extraterrestrial brother hovering high above the clouds. He brings his inventiveness to bear on the solid rhythm and blues of “Ain’t No Telling,” “You Got Me Floatin’, and “Little Miss Lover,” songs which were shamefully ignored by most R&B radio stations across the United States.
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Date: 1982
Release: Warner Bros.
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The album that demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt why Jimi Hendrix still reigns supreme as the God of Guitar. Jimi takes no vocals on any of the six tracks, preferring instead to let his guitar cry and sing. This is a brilliant example of Jimi’s fluid improvisational genius.
His playing is ratcheted up another notch in the fertile jam-session setting of these astounding recordings, which showcase his creative energy and virtuosity. We are able to hear Hendrix thinking aloud, and he consistently astounds the listener with the force of his ideas.
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Date: October 7, 1997
Release: MCA #11684
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Following the release of First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, the Hendrix estate knew that they had to do something different on the follow up. First Rays was the completion of Jimi’s music up until the time of his death, the final songs that would have been on his next album. Janie, Eddie, John McDermott knew that now was the time to bring forward a new offering for long time Hendrix fans–unreleased music. Thus was born South Saturn Delta. Made up of tracks originally found on the long deleted War Heroes, Loose Ends, Rainbow Bridge, as well as some that had appeared on Crash Landing and Midnight Lightning (original tracks were used though, not the Alan Douglas tampered ones). Plus some unreleased songs, studio ideas, etc. Some really good music, “Pali Gap” from Rainbow Bridge is a great late night tune; “Drifter’s Escape,” the Bob Dylan song is a great rocker.
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Date: November 16, 1970
Release: CTI #ZK 65125
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From the opening bursts of Freddie Hubbard’s trumpet on the title track, Straight Life hits the ground running as an electrifying classic. Recorded in 1970, this album demonstrates why the early years of fusion were really the best, as adventurous jazz musicians (like those assembled here) began incorporating the drive of rock and the fat grooves of funk into their evolving sounds. This is hands-down Freddie Hubbard’s most enjoyable post-’60s date as a leader. His technical prowess is inoffensively put on display, driven as it is by the contagiously high energy level of his all-star group, which includes such luminaries as Joe Henderson on sax, George Benson on guitar, and Herbie Hancock on piano.
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Date: July 15, 2001
Release: Blue Note #28268
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“There’s a lot of those Blue Note albums, if you were to play them right now, they’d sound like there’s no date on them…the sun doesn’t get old…there is no date on the music because it’s just as nature. There is no date on nature.”
Bobby Hutcherson
Someone once said that if Bobby Hutcherson was a horn player, he’d be a household name. The fact is that Hutcherson was a jazz revolutionary who courageously pushed the vibraphone past convention and into uncharted territory. Originally inspired by vibes master Milt Jackson, Hutcherson dramatically expanded the instruments’ emotional vocabulary, playing in a way that has yet to be surpassed.
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Date: 1977
Release: VIRGIN #91343-2
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Hands down, this is Iggy Pop‘s best post-Stooges record as well as one of the hardest rocking pop albums to come out of the 1970s. Along with the legendary live shows of Kiss, Lust For Life rescued American music in 1977 from total disco oblivion. British-born David Bowie was the crucial element here, producing, playing, writing, and singing throughout the record with the drive and delivery of an over-achieving genius.
Still, this is Iggy’s show, as he makes perfectly clear with his classically black-edged vocals on the title track (revived in the heroin-chic film, “Trainspotting”). Drummer Hunt Sales‘ relentless pounding on “Lust For Life” holds a candle to the drumming machine known as John Bonham. Bowie-veteran Carlos Alomar plays a mean guitar that defines much of the album’s sound.
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Date: September 24, 2002 (release)
Release: Sub Pop #600
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Iron and Wine is the obscure name adopted by singer/songwriter Samuel Beam for his self-recorded, back-porch leaning, lo-fi, one-man band. As the story goes, someone with pull at Sub-Pop Records came across a free-CD sampler from a small music magazine featuring one of Beam’s songs. In un-characteristic music exec fashion, the guy fell instantly in love with Beam’s stripped down, lyrically compelling, Southern-folk flavored sound. Beam was soon tracked down in Florida (where he fittingly teaches cinematography at some unnamed university) and offered a record deal. After signing across the dotted line with one of the last great independent labels, Beam dutifully handed over two album’s worth of self-recorded songs.
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Date: 1958
Release: Columbia #53629
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The 1958 Newport Jazz Festival has taken on mythic status. Over those four days in July Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, Gerry Mulligan, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Anita O’Day, George Shearing, Sonny Stitt, Chico Hamilton, and others played. That’s quite extraordinary, as is the fact that the event was so well documented. There were hundreds of feet of film shot, and filmmaker Bert Stern edited all of that down to 84 minutes of performances punctuated by the America’s Cup yacht race, which took place off the coast of Rhode Island at that same time. Plus, we have great CDs from the festival, especially Miles Davis‘s Live at Newport 1958.
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Date: December 12-13, 1972
Release: CTI #ZK 65131
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Preceded by Lionel Hampton and followed by Bobby Hutcherson, Milt Jackson was one of the most significant pioneers of the vibraphone in jazz. While far from being his most classic recording, Sunflower remains one of his most electrifying. He cooks within the context of the early ’70s CTI formula-young high-caliber sidemen, electronic instrumentation, fresh and funky rhythms, and lush arrangements. That this was a recipe for success is apparent on Sunflower’s luxuriously atmospheric opening track, “For Someone I Love,” a stunning Jackson original.
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