Album Reviews

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Michael Fremer  |  Dec 15, 2017  |  8 comments
You don’t have to be a Blue Note fetishist to know that pianist Sonny Clark made at least one great and enduring album, the 1958 hard bop classic “Cool Struttin’, though the cult of Cool Struttin’ has driven up the price of original pressings to the $4000 range and higher.

Michael Fremer  |  Sep 15, 2010  |  0 comments

How fast was Miles Davis moving in 1970? Listen to the title track on the double LP recorded late summer 1969 and released the next April and then play the version on the bonus live at Tanglewood CD recorded August 1970. 

Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2007  |  0 comments

Last night during the intermission between performances of Brahms’ Third and Fourth Symphonies, I stood on the Avery Fisher Hall balcony talking with a couple I didn’t know who were probably in their mid-sixties and I mentioned that I wrote about “stereo” equipment. They reacted with surprise, with the husband exclaiming, “Stereo. Now that’s an old-fashioned term. I didn’t think anyone used it anymore.”

Michael Fremer  |  Mar 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Editor's note: this review has caused quite a dust-up, in part because of the sonic description and in part because of this, which you'll find further down in the text:

Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2005  |  2 comments

The title track is not twice as good as Desmond's surprise jazz “hit” “Take Five,” immortalized on the Time Out album recorded with his regular band mates in the Brubeck quartet, but it has its own serpentine charm, and having Jim Hall comping on guitar instead of Brubeck on piano gives the track a far different, more delicate texture.

Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2007  |  0 comments

This charming 1978 Harmonia Mundi release was a big audiophile favorite when vinyl was still king for reasons that will become obvious to you should you choose to pick up this Speakers Corner reissue.

Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2011  |  0 comments

This review was but a few words from being finished and a fumbling finger destroyed the whole thing. I hate when that happens! I'm not going to try to reproduce it. Too painful. So let me summarize what I'd written: yes The Four Tops and the other Motown acts were slick and aimed at white America, and the Chess stuff was much hipper, but this was great pop stuff nonetheless.

Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Rare, desirable and expensive when first issued in 1973 as a triple LP set in Japan where it was recorded and available in America only as a hard to get import, Lotus didn’t make it to CD until the earl 1990s.

Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2011  |  1 comments

The concert promoter, tour organizer, record label owner Norman Granz had a knack for assembling groups that produced successful sessions like this. Benny Green's somewhat defensive annotation tells you the story: Webster had been popular during the big band "swing" era as a member of Duke Ellington's band as its first star tenor saxophonist. He was one of the "big three," the others being Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.

Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2009  |  0 comments

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.

Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2006  |  0 comments

Spirit’s 1971 release The 12 Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus (Epic E30267) may be the best Spirit album, and one of the finest albums of the psychedelic and post-psychedelic era, but this, the band’s debut, recorded in 1967, falls not far behind and holds up remarkably well for many reasons.

Malachi Lui  |  Aug 31, 2021  |  5 comments
In February 1991, seminal space rock band Spacemen 3 released their long-delayed swan song, Recurring. During its long recording process, the group’s core members J. Spaceman (Jason Pierce) and Sonic Boom (Peter Kember) constantly fought; instead of composing together, Kember and Pierce had their own stylistically different LP sides. Pierce finished his side (side 2 on the original vinyl) relatively quickly. Kember, meanwhile, for months endlessly toiled away at his mixes until the group’s manager Gerald Palmer confiscated the tapes.

Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2007  |  0 comments

Spoon’s been at it for more than a decade (their first major label CD, the outstanding A Series of Sneaks) was issued by Elektra in 1998, after which the label promptly dropped them), yet after all of this time, when they played New York’s Roseland recently, front man Britt Daniel announced that this relatively small former dance hall, with a capacity of around 3500 (standing room only) was the largest headlining concert the band had played.

Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2006  |  1 comments

These songs will be familiar to you if you attended a “socialist” summer camp during the 1950’s and/or 1960’s. I did. What’s a “socialist” summer camp? It’s roughly defined as one that had an on staff guitar and banjo-playing Pete Seeger following pre-Hippie collegiate or “long hair.”

Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  1 comments

Stars from across the musical universe donated their time and considerable talents to perform with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band on this thoroughly entertaining and superbly recorded double LP set celebrating the Hall’s 50th anniversary.

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