AAA Vinyl

Jamaican-born pianist Monty Alexander still tours at age seventy two. He was but thirty two when this live album was recorded at The Montreux Jazz Festival.

The German MPS label has just released five excellent jazz albums originally released in the early 1970s under the supervision of noted German audio journalist and record producer Dirk Sommer. All have been mastered AAA from the original master tapes by mastering engineer Christoph Stickel, who was responsible for the Oscar Peterson box set Exclusively For My Friends.

Joe Jackson's "angry young man" stance came late in the cycle and so at the time was less than fully convincing. Elvis and Graham had already been there and done that. The picture of Jackson on the back cover of his debut Look Sharp just wasn't convincing.

1971's Jack Johnson is Miles Davis making as close to a rock record as he's made.

If you go into this ambitious acoustic Led Zeppelin covers project hard wired for Robert Plant and Jimmy Page you’re probably bound for disappointment but if you just relax into it, you might be pleasantly surprised by what you see in your mind’s eye. You’ll surely like what the production brings to your ears.

At this point in his life and career, Eric Clapton has nothing to prove to anyone but himself. He’s gone from being called God on now famous graffiti that embarrassed him but others found justified, to later being called a snooze during a stretch of less than inspiring records and perhaps overexposure.