Album Reviews

The opening wash of gorgeously recorded massed strings might just paralyze you. "Who arranged those? " you might say to yourself but before you could scour the liner notes you hear familiar Sea Change-like guitar strums and you melt.

True Coltrane wasn't yet producing "sheets of sound"—limiting himself maybe to just "pillowcases of sound", but he was still hot to Milt Jackson's cool so this was an interesting experiment—one that succeeded beautifully.

Given a choice of great mastering and pressing or packaging true to the original, which would you choose? Yes, I know, why not produce a definitive reissue that offers great mastering and pressing and the original triple gatefold jacket and the original limited edition booklet? But clearly that wasn't in the cards for whoever was in charge in order to bring this project to market within budget so it could be sold at a particular price point, which in this case is $39.00 for the double LP set.

In a truly just world every Jethro Tull fan would know and appreciate Rahsaan Roland Kirk but as with Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones, these things take time. If you don't know Kirk's music and you're a Tull fan you surely know his "Serenade To A Cuckoo" covered by Ian Anderson on his debut Tull album This Was.

Billed in the blurb accompanying this modestly packaged LP as a new album by an up and coming jazz singer crossing over to classic country after being turned on to Leonard Cohen by Nancy Wilson (the jazz singer not half of Heart) and later falling under the influence of Dolly, Kitty and John Prine, once you hear some of the readily available downloadable tracks from this just released set you'll be hearing another strong influence not cited as one along with Joni Mitchell and Allison Krauss: Norah Jones.

This 1957 Norman Granz-produced jazz version of the George and Ira Gershwin opera (with libretto and key lyrical contributions by DuBose Heyward) starring Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong backed by a string enriched orchestra is a treat for so many reasons.