Album Reviews

One of the events covered most by the music press in the last few months has been that a “lost” John Coltrane album has been found and finally released. The original session tape vanished when Impulse moved from New York City to Los Angeles, the label having dumped many tapes of unreleased material in the process. The music was thought to be lost forever, but the family of Trane’s first wife, Naima, found the “take home” session copy in 2004. The story of its discovery is sure to captivate many fans, making it the perfect marketing tool for this new archival release.

Englishman Dolby hit double paydirt with a catchy synth-novelty song and an accompanying video just as the pop-synth and music video/ MTV phenomena broke. However, “She Blinded Me With Science” was not his first song, nor does it really reflect what the guy's about. His first album, The Golden Age of Wireless (Harvest ST-12203), was originally issued without “She Blinded Me…”. When the song and video became popular, the album was reconfigured and reissued. Dolby was an instant celeb, and faded just as quickly, though his album Aliens Ate My Buick (EMI Manhattan E-148075) remains a cult fave for both music and sound. Come to think of it The Flat Earth was pretty good as well.

Recorded live in the studio in four days, this collaborative effort produced by singer/songwriter Joe Henry attempts to revive the career of one of the great, though under-appreciated ‘60s soul singers, who has spent the past few decades in church and in relative pop-music obscurity. Back in the 1960’s in the heyday of soul, Burke, who has always straddled the secular/sanctified line, had a series of big hits on Atlantic, including “Cry to Me,” and “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love,” (co-written by Burke and producer Bert Berns) both of which were covered by The Rolling Stones.

Lou Donaldson playfully skids into a few bars of David Rose’s “Holiday For Strings” mid-solo during a cover of the Kelmar/Ruby standard “Three Little Words,” indulging himself in a bit of shtick popular back when jazz could be lighthearted, studious and physical. Sonny Rollins was and is a deft practitioner of the off-handed musical quote as are and were many of the other jazz greats of a bygone era. It’s rarely done today. Jazz is more serious and cerebral, unless it gets goofy as the drummer Matt Wilson sometimes can get.