KRS-One– KRS One vs. MC Shan: The Battle for Rap Supremacy – Cold Chillin’, 1986-1988.
🎤📝 🗝️:
1985, I recall my friend Kevin playing the keyboard part to “The Bridge is Over” on my piano. After Run-DMC videos, my first exposure to Rap was through my friends, on a school bus field trip, they rhymed “Ladi Dadi” word for word. Kevin also drop loose rhymes, and disses, into random conversations. I knew that “Scott La Roc had them all, he’s a super ho” before I heard it on the recording. It was a new thing and the language of my youth! MC Shan sounds good, but back then he had already lost the war as far as I knew. “The Bridge is Over”
Overall = 5.2 (10) – I would have rathered a song for song split, this was probably a Side A/Side B split. New appreciation for MC ShanGet it!$$$
& KRS-One – KRS One – Jive, 1995.
🎤📝 🗝️:
A lot of posturing here, it must have been a comeback “I’m still relevant” in KRS-One’s second decade of his career. He is, but I’m not sure this recording was. I love most his street corner story telling, slower tempos and flowing rhymes, it’s a great combination. He also has a great combination of hardness and consciousness – “Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone”. This album was pretty successful and KRS-One has released 15 albums since, but I’m unsure what registers as a successful Hip Hop album release over the last decade? This is a solid, not incredible, effort that seems concerned with telling people who don’t know that KRS-One is (still) the Boss. “MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know”
Overall = 3.6 (10) – Ts’alright. Get it!
Desmond Decker – The Best of Desmond Decker: Rockin’ Steady – Rhino, 1992.
🇯🇲:
One of the earliest successful Jamaican artists to crossover into international fame. Mr. Decker is known for his Ska and Rock Steady styles and these songs are happy, dance pieces, with horns skanking throughout. Decker also contributed a song to The Harder They Come O.S.T.R., “Shanty Town”. His early bonafides helped to spread Jamaican music around the World. “Fu Manchu”
Overall = 6.6 (10) – A nice collection.Get it!
Johnny Cash & Willie Nelson – VH1 Storytellers – American, 1998.
🇺🇸📣 🎟️🐴 ✪ 🗝️ 📝:
This was a smartly designed performance and recording. It’s 2 old friends, composers and collaborators being real and telling their stories in song. Johnny Cash’s final years were a perfect design for how to celebrate an artist, documenting them, creating well conceived events and finding exciting new ways to present their iconic style. It’s also rare to have 2 masters share a stage as equals, it is in fact difficult to find equals for these 2 icons except themselves. “Funny How Time Slips Away”
Overall = 6.8 (10) – A modern country classic, and a celebration of their works.Get it!
Dave Burrell & Leena Conquest – Plays His Songs, Featuring Leena Conquest – Tracce, 2010.
🗣️🎺⎄🎹 🧫 📝 :
An interesting collection of Mr. Burrell’s songs which span some Standard-like vocal pieces, a few reaches back into his interest in early 20th Century piano music like Rags & Blues and then moments that spring into his more Modern styles with some strange vocal pieces. He governs quite an expanse of repertoire and I’m not sure the one CD here can contain enough to feel complete.
I performed a few times with him in the early aughts, usually with Odean Pope, but there was an opportunity to work on his Jelly Roll Morton interpretations that never fully manifested. He is a piano player that can handle the challenges of Rags, Stride and Blues while also having a maverick streak of avant garde intensity that he employed initially in his career in the late 60’s. He can fully explode, I’ve witnessed that on stage before and it was awe inspiring. He was also hysterical telling stories, and lying, in the dressing room.
Burrell’s compositional world is personal and it reflects his varied tastes,.Leena Conquest interprets the songs well and the lyrics were written by his wife Monica Larson. If you are looking for the explosive side of Dave Burrell, look for that elsewhere, this is more in the tradition. “Teardrops for Jimmy” (for Jimmy Lyons)
Overall = 4.9 (10) – This is great for filling out the complete picture of an artist, but might not meet the tastes of some of his fans – particularly if they are looking for certain elements of his style.Get it!$
Dinu Lipatti – Bach – Mozart – Scarlatti – Schubert – EMI Classics, 1950, 1951 & 1957.
🎼🇷🇴🇩🇪🎹 🎻 ✪ ⎄:
These Bach pieces are very serene. Apparently Mr. Lipatti passed at a young age, 33, but was renowned as a pianist in his day. I filed this in my Bach section, but there is an interesting array of composers featured on the disc and Lipatti apparently has only a few recordings, so these are critical. It’s beautiful music and I love the containment within the piano sound world, it suggests so much, yet holds you in close as the story unfolds. He apparently pal’d with Nadia Boulanger early in his career. These recordings are from the mid to late portion of his career. “Bach/Busoni Chorale Prelude “Nun komm’, der Heiden Heiland” BWV 599”
Overall = 6.1 (10) – A wonderfully group of fluid piano performances. Get it!
Canadian Brass – Bach: Art of the Fugue – CBS Masterworks, 1988.
🎼🎺🇨🇦🇩🇪 🎻⎄:
Luminous Brass Fugues by the master. They do immerse you in a sound of repetition that when hearing several in succession they start to blend and blur. The Baroque language, highly ornate and repetitious already, blending with the repetitious nature of the fugue (Think “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, and staggered entrances that create a cascading effect). The resonance of the brass and reverb (echo) further gloss the sound. It can blend together in a somewhat magical way, despite losing distinction between pieces. “Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080 (Arr. A. Frackenpohl for Brass Quintet) : Contrapunctus VI”
Overall = 5.4 (10) – This is a great blurry time, for the right mood. Get it!
VA – O.S.R. – The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns – Elektra, 1990.
🎥 ✺ 🧀:
A narrative style of score, with some themes created by using versions of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The Battle Cry of Freedom”. Everything is created to sound authentic and transportive, but in truth ii probably is more about what we might imagine it to sound like then. And this recording was designed, and constrained, for the narrative of the film. There is a threat of innocence in the music, which like a sepia toned film scene, is meant for us to think of an earlier, more innocent time. I believe that to be a confection in regards to how these songs may have been performed, designed to inspire a sense of nostalgia. I think lamentations and songs of war sound different when performed without the retrospective ear. I do think you can listen to this without the film, but I wouldn’t consider it to be indicative of the music of the era, instead think of it as Ken Burn’s impressions of the music of the era. I’d have to watch it again to decide if Mr. Burn’s actually used the songs as a historical resource rather than authenticity generators. Also, there is a suspicious lack of Banjo. “Palmyra Schottische” by the New American Brass Band.
Overall = 4.4 (10) – Perfectly produced, but kind of an odd choice to ever listen to for historical reference which is what I probably picked it up for originally. Get it!
Boogie Down Productions – Criminal Minded – M.I.L., 1987/1997.
🎤⌛️📝 🗝️🎗️:
An all time classic Rap album. I knew the songs first from friends mouths, before actually hearing the recordings, because of course, these records were not in my family’s collections. I even knew the lore associated with each group. Where they were from and the stories that described what their lives were like. B.D.P. was from the Bronx and yet those tales were affirmed because all the kids adopted the language, the look and the lore. B.D.P. brought Jamaican influences to their Rap, so it may have been the first place I got into Dancehall Reggae too. “Criminal Minded”
Overall = 9.2 (10) – One of my favorite Rap albums. Get it!$$$
The Ethiopians – Owner Fe De Yard – Heartbeat, 1994.
🇯🇲:
This is probably a fair example of The Ethiopians in 1994, and it is nice, easy Rock Steady style of Reggae. I think the Ethiopians earlier works are probably a level above this recording. There is also a calmness throughout the recording which creates an unhurried emotional tone, I am maybe listening for a little intensity that doesn’t arrive and instead the music generally lulls me into my own thoughts. I find my attention returns to the music after I become lost in what I’m doing. “Incessantly” This song is really powerful though, but still sneaky gentle.
Overall = 4.3 (10) – Nice, perhaps too chill for me. Get it!
Mily Clemente – Madagascar – Playasound, 1999.
🌎🇲🇬🫧🧀:
Mr. Clemente is a popular originator of Salegy, a traditional style of music in Madagascar. He really didn’t release recordings Internationally and only maintained a popular status in his own country. This recording does seem to be aimed at international release and it bears some studio, keyboard and electric guitar scars. The musical style is natural for AfroPop, but my guess is the Pop elements were more designed from the studio and added to Clemente’s mix after the fact. There are nice airy grooves throughout, so it is an easy listen and soaks up the Pop Cheese elements into the sauce. Really those elements seem to steal moments of instrumental brilliance that normally would fill the space, instead they use modern timbral fills to cover those holes. The faster pieces are the best, but the cheesy synth programs attract me despite being an ill fit in the songs. “Akron Aly”
Overall = 3.8 (10) – I like this recording, but there is a deeper Funk element that I usually search for in AfroPop and this is more of the Light 80’s Digital – instead of the Funk I am usually looking for. Oop!
VA – Buena Vista Social Club – World Circuit/Nonesuch, 1997.
🌎🇨🇺🎥 🦋:
This documentary, and the music recorded, was revelatory when it arrived in 1997. Cuban/U.S. relations, at that point, felt like they didn’t exist and then this music (then newly recorded) was like a missing link to so many ears, presented in a way that for young people it sounded new and fresh and older people nostalgic. Temple University had a strong World Music curriculum and I recall research trips being organized to Cuba, which was rare at the time, and probably facilitated by the music here.
The film & music popularized some legendary Cuban musicians, got them recorded and the World could hear the songs that offered some roots to Salsa and Afro-Cuban Music. Ry Cooder was one of the organizing forces on the project. He looms large in making international music accessible and finding ways to record it properly. The musicians all continued to perform internationally and many recorded solo albums. The film/recording was an example of how to make historic music popularly successful. “El Cuarto De Tula” & “ El Carretero”
Overall = 6.9 (10) – This transports you to a different time and place. Get it!
Bloque – Bloque – Luana Bop/Warner Brothers, 1998.
🌎🇨🇴🎸:
This group, not to be confused with the Spanish band Bloque (?!), mixes traditional Colombian music with some intense guitar work and Rock leanings (apparently similar to what the Spanish band Bloque also does?! And they possibly share a member?). It’s a pretty incredible mix, it lurches into some cheese here and there, but it is wonderful to sort through the grooves and arrangements. This was a Tom Moon recommendation. “Sin Lagrimas”
Overall = 5.4 (10) – Wild grooves, weirdly melting together.Get it!
The Cabildo’s Three – Yuxtaposicion – Schema, 1972.
🌎🇮🇹 🪄 🧀:
Lounge-y fusion from Italy, well played, but a little difficult to figure out where its coming from. I thought it was a Brazilian trio (it has a Samba on it) playing electric keyboard jazz when I picked it up. What I heard was if Vince Guaraldi did an electric album, played a variety of musical styles superficially and only wrote melodic fragments. It is decently performed and could easily fit well in a hotel lounge setting. The group never explores enough to be psychedelic, it never experiments enough to express any improvisational gifts and it reminds me of playing society gigs, but sneaking contemporary material into mainstream background music. I also don’t think they are well versed in their international excursions, the Samba is slow, the other styles seem superficial. “Two Types of Complexion”
Overall = 2.9 (10) – It’s ok, in certain situations it would be welcome. Get it!
VA – The Fabulous Ellingtonians – Mercury, 1944-1946.
Beyond Category ✺🏌🏿♂️🎺 🪄:
This is a collection of Ellington band member’s side projects that also feature a considerable Ellington influence. The groups featured are Rex Stewart‘s Big Eight June 5, 1944. Billy Taylor‘s Big Eight August 1, 1944. Barney Bigard Quintet February 5, 1945. Juan Tizol and his Orchestra April 7, 1946. The band members are all mostly Ellingtonians too and there are some nice Tab Smith (In his Hodges bag) and Harry Carney moments. The time period is peak Ellington so I assume the recording opportunities were either Ellington adjacent or Ellington designed. “Swamp Mist” by Rex Stewart’s Big Eight, composer credits go to Rex Stewart, but it is a very Ellington influenced song.
Overall = 5.7 (10) – Fun bands, better than average arrangements and an opportunity to hear classic Ellington sidemen doing their own thing.Get it!$
Miles Davis – Ascenseur pour L’échafaud – Fontana, 1957.
Selim Sivad 🇫🇷🎥:🎺 🗝️ ✪ 👁️ 🌃 🤿 🕸️⌛️ 🪄:
A remarkable document, both peak Miles and a moment where he is about to coalesce some of his most brilliant ideas into a legendary conception. And it is also, a fragmented, film score which does not resolve melodies in the typical way. The edition I have further fragments things by adding alternate takes and interrupting the film score’s sequencing. That does create a dreamy, loop-like texture and the music captures beautiful, intense moments, but it doesn’t flow as much as eddy and spin. There are a few burners, but the pace is generally slow and to play at that pace without boredom seeping in is truly a challenge. These mood pieces seem to draw from his work with Gil Evans, but applying the ideas to a small group. They are mostly modal explorations, which lack much song structure (though one improvisation is built from “Sweet Georgia Brown”) – that will be the difference that breaks ground in Kind of Blue, designing modal song forms that offer mood and opportunities for lyricism. “L’assassinat de Carala”
Overall = 7 (10) – All the mood you can handle, but not designed as something to just listen to.Get it!
Prince – 1999 [Box Set] – Warner Records/NPG, 1982/2019.
The Purple Patch – Ƥ𖫪 🫧🦄🫦⏺️ 🎟️ 🏋🏽💰 ⚒️ ♛🕳️ 🗝️ ✪ ⚙︎🎉:
If I haven’t mentioned it, I am saving “The Vault” recordings for another, deeper look I will take into Prince’s music. This particular box set has many live discs and 2 with songs from the Vault. I’m a completist and so these “Ultimate” and “Deluxe” collectibles are for me, but they probably aren’t for the average Prince fan. The album 1999 is a full, length party masterpiece that culminates the ideas of Prince’s initial New Wave Funk period. The following album Purple Rain reaches to new heights and then he goes into a new exploratory journey into Psychedelic Pop. At the end of the 80’s he cycles everything together again creating even more new sounds. It’s a really unprecedented decade of success.
1999 starts with 2 all-time, all-universe party bangers – maybe “THE” party banger of all-time “1999”, followed by an all time sex song “Little Red Corvette”. Then the Funktry (Founktry?) of “Delirious” followed by extended dance jam after extended dance jam – “D.M.S.R.” a Nasty 9 minute Funk Banger, “Automatic” a 9 min New Wave Funk Robots, “Something in the Water” Compute Jam, then slutty beat,“Lady Cab Driver” and socialite trash “All the Critics Love You in New York”. He ends the epic with a “Face in the Pillow” classic “International Lover”. The band is all wearing lingerie, trashy drum machines hump pulsing, everyone is licking stuff and rubbing your face in it. Prince wanted to create an album for his party and his party was legendary. “D.M.S.R.”
Overall = 9.8 (10) – That’s a double album in your ears.Get it!$$$$$$
Found Sounds 