Album Reviews

Former Image Hi-Fi magazine editor Dirk Sommer and his wife Birgit Hammer-Sommer recorded and produced this solo double bass performance by Dieter Ilg using a purist analog chain direct to ¼” analog audio tape. Compression was neither contemplated nor used, nor was there any filtering or equalization of any kind.

Note: since this review was originally posted February of 2009, we have learned of the existence of a flat transfer made from the now missing master tape. The version reviewed here was almost certainly mastered from a digital transfer done using some analog "work parts" and some digital sources not clearly identified in Capitol's original CD reissue series.

For the most part, the best Art Pepper could do in 1972 when this set was issued was listen to and talk about old performances and old tapes. He recorded only one album during an extended period of inactivity stretching from 1968 to 1975.

This set, recorded May 1959 in Paris during a Jazz at the Philharmonic tour finds Sonny Stitt on the Oscar Peterson guest list mostly playing alto with some tenor thrown in for good measure.

For some reason, this album became a Top 10 hit in America, but the Brits knew better and stayed away. Recorded live at a Toronto rock festival during which Lennon had fallen ill, the album features the Plastic Ono Band of Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman (bass and cover artist for Revolver) and Yes drummer Alan White doing a blah set of covers the Beatles had done better (“Money,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” and Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” plus “Yer Blues”) along with two new Lennon tunes, “Cold Turkey” and “Give Peace a Chance,” the hit single that drove album sales.

Look, if your idea of “jazz-rock” fun is David Clayton Thomas’ edition of “Blood Sweat and Tears, I’m not going to try to change your mind, but if you want the real jazz-rock and psych star of that era, you need to hear this ridiculously neglected Spirit album originally issued on Epic in the fall of 1970 that Sundazed has smartly resurrected.