Album Reviews

You’ll just have to get over the squashed, harmonically truncated and bleached sound that infects much of this musically outstanding album from 2002 (they’ve released more albums since) from this 15 member Canadian collective if you have any hope of enjoying it.

The first time I recall hearing a vibraphone was on a record at E.J. Korvette's. I was perusing the vinyl back in 1960 something or other when the store clerk put on a copy of Terry Gibb's That Swing Thing (Verve V6-8447), cuing up Bobby Timmon's catchy as the flu "Moanin'" which this clueless suburban adolescent had never heard.

Take Coheed and Cambria vocals (only far more harsh and severe), some of At the Drive-In’s experimental noise, and a bit of Rancid’s edgy speed and you’ll get an idea of what the Blood Brothers sound like.

Well, is the uber-buzz justified? Fastest-selling debut album; Greatest band since the Beatles, number 287 in a series (collect ‘em all)?

Yes, Clapton, Bruce and Baker have gotten older. Face it, they’ve gotten old as have those of us who’ve been Cream fans since they were called “The Cream” on the first album jacket. And face it, youth be served, they haven’t the raw power they once had.

Compilations are an ugly concept on vinyl. Either analog copy tapes have been strung together to create a cutting master or digital copies of masters are electronically assembled to produce the same cutting master. Once in a black and blue moon, original masters are removed from their reels and strung together to produce cutting masters made from original master tapes, but those are few and few between and almost impossible to make. They’re rare because few companies allow precious masters to be cut up and because unless the tunes were recorded in the same studio on the same impeccably maintained recorder, it’s very difficult if not impossible to cut a lacquer where the record/playback head’s azimuth changes from track to track.

True to the label’s intentions and name, Zane Musa is a muscular-toned, “straight ahead” alto sax bopper, accompanied on this superb sounding disc by like-minded Southern California jazz musicians on a set of well worn but always comfortable jazz standards.