Album Reviews

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Marcelle Meyer Plays Debussy Is French Record Company’s Superb AAA Debut
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 04, 2019
The French Record Company’s first release is a limited to 200 copies edition of a “never before released but should have been” 1958 recording of pianist Marcelle Meyer playing a Debussy program recorded for the Les Discophiles Francais label (DF 211-212).

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Grant Green's sunday mornin'—A Blue Note That Got Away!
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 15, 2019
Single-line guitarist Grant Green's fourth Blue Note album released in 1962 is as easy to listen to and relaxing as the title suggests. Kenny Drew is on piano with Ben Tucker, bass and Ben Dixon on drums in a set of six tunes with inspiration and/or vaguely religious themes, three of which are Green originals.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Dire Straits Debut Delivered as a 45rpm Sonic Spectacular
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 16, 2019
When first released in America in 1978 Dire Straits’ debut was an immediate sensation, though cautious record labels at first rejected signing the group until Warner Brothers bit. The original Vertigo release hit the U.K. earlier. Eventually, propelled by the catchy single “Sultans of Swing”, the album was Top Ten throughout Europe and much of the world.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Craft Recordings' 5 LP Chet Baker Box Sure to Please Fans
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 05, 2020
For every reason, from mastering to pressing to packaging and annotation—and pricing, Craft’s 5 LP Chet Baker Riverside box scores the highest marks.

The recent RSD mono release of It Could Happen to You—Chet Baker Sings signaled what this set might and turned out to be. For those fans who might have some of these albums on original or OJC reissues, you can be sure the audio here soundly beats those.

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Album Reviews
With "Brass In Pocket" Chrissie Hynde Delivers a Jazz Album
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 20, 2020
It takes a rocker with "brass in pocket" to deliver a jazz album. It takes more than that to produce a great one, which is what Hynde does on Valve Bone Woe, the title of which was her trombonist brother's "beatnik haiku" response to hearing about the passing of Bob Brookmeyer. Hynde here is no jazz pretender.

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Album Reviews
Alexis Zoumbas's Nearly 100 Year Old Fiddling Draws New Fans
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 22, 2020
R. Crumb’s cover illustration first drew me to this record, which recently arrived with others sent by Third Man Records. It opened to a triple gatefold that provided a fairly complete backgrounder on the folk violinist Alexis Zoumbas who was born in Ioannina, the capital of Epirus the Northern Greece region adjacent to Albania between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea. The notes by producer Christopher King suggest listening to the opening track “Epirotiko Mirologi” with undivided attention, which means stopping reading the extensive annotation.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Jerome Sabbagh & Greg Tuohey's Slow Simmering No Filter Isn't Brickwall Filtered!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 29, 2020
Tenor saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh's follow up to The Turn, a duet album with guitarist Greg Tuohey arrived quite some time ago. I've been playing it repeatedly trying to get a grasp.

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Album Reviews
Charles Lloyd 8: Kindred Spirits, Live From the Lobero Box Set
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 14, 2020
Charles Lloyd turns 82 tomorrow (March 15th). Two years ago, to celebrate his 80th, Dorothy Darr, his wife/manager and herself an artist, threw a year-long party for him and as a present made him work.

Lloyd and his group toured, with each stop a celebration. On his birthday the entourage pulled into his hometown of Santa Barbara, California and performed at the 150 year old Lobero Theater.

The annotation notes that Lloyd has played there more often than any other venue and more often than any other performer, so it was a true homecoming celebration with “kindred spirits” on-stage and in the audience.

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Album Reviews
Mandy Moore's Silver Landings
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 17, 2020
I didn’t know who Mandy Moore was when the press blurb arrived in my inbox. Incredible Boomer ignorance. What my eyes latched onto was the blurb’s “laid down to tape” line. A web search quickly informed my Boomer/pop culture cluelessness! I should be embarrassed, but I don’t embarrass easily.
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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
AudioNautes Reissues Chesky Classic O Magnum Mysterium
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2020
What better time than now for the all-analog resurrection of this Chesky classic? Easter is three weeks away (though “Oh Great Mystery” is really about Christmas) and home lock down in a dreary time is here now.

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Album Reviews
Run Out Groove and APO Fill the Swamp With Tony Joe and Warren Storm
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 25, 2020
These two releases, one culled from a 2006 Rhino Tony Joe White compilation and the other a new one from APO (an Analogue Productions label) are naturals for a linked review.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
A Dream of a One Step Monk's Dream  From Mo-Fi
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 30, 2020
If you're saying Monk's creative juices had begun to dry up by the time he signed with Columbia Records and released this 1963 label debut album you'll get no argument from me. But Monk, all of 46 when this was recorded, had a secret weapon: his rock'n'roll band of the hard-blowing Charlie Rouse on tenor sax, John Ore on bass and Frankie Dunlop on drums.

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Album Reviews
Big Thief's U.F.O.F. Steals a Page From '60s era Psych-Folk Rockers
Jeff Flaim  |  Mar 31, 2020
Brooklyn- based quartet Big Thief formed after all four of its members— Adrianne Lenker (guitar, vocals), Buck Meek (guitar, backing vocals), Max Oleartchik (bass), and James Krivchenia (drums)— had graduated from the Berklee College Of Music.

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Album Reviews
Lori Lieberman’s Exquisite Album of Loss and Regret
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 23, 2020
Cushioned by the Netherlands-based Matangi String Quartet, plus bass drums, percussion and occasional guitar, singer/songwriter/pianist Lori Lieberman delivers a tender, occasionally excruciatingly intimate song cycle replete with regret, heartache, abandonment, longing and loss.

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Album Reviews
Drake’s Dark Lane Demo Tapes Is Exactly What You Expected
Malachi Lui  |  May 05, 2020
Drake is now a walking corporation. Actually, he’s an entire industry. As he enters his career’s second decade, he’s invincible in a way unseen since Michael Jackson (to whom Drake frequently compares himself). He escapes every scandal unscathed: a secret kid with a porn star, accusations of sexual harassment, cultural appropriation, and using ghostwriters; Pusha T’s brutal diss track, and questions regarding contact with teen celebrities don’t harm the artist born Aubrey Graham. Just one of the above kills or greatly diminishes most stars’ relevance; Drake is so culturally omnipresent that he won’t go away anytime soon. Whenever he drops a somewhat mediocre lead single, I say “he’s struggling for relevance now, his reign is almost over.” And? Said single becomes an inescapable hit. The full-length project drops, and everyone walking the earth stops dead in their tracks to stream it. His music is meant to sound emotionally genuine, yet nowadays Drake and his OVO team carefully calculate his every word.

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