This is a Recording

Or, in full, The Modern Jazz Quartet Plays the Music from Porgy and Bess . Specifically they play seven of Gershwin's numbers, including the perennially popular 'Summertime' and 'It Ain't Necessarily So'. The MJQ attracted a measure of derision from their peers for their formal stage attire & their greater emphasis on composition over improvisation than was the norm (including elements from European classical music). The same traits, meanwhile, won them something of a crossover audience. At over half a century's remove, such controversy amounts to very little, and it's easy to enjoy the music on its own merits, which are considerable. They're on typically tasteful form here, and work with Gershwin's melodies to great effect. The result, though, is by no means merely pleasant: for all their restraint they convey a genuine depth of feeling. Mine is an original 1965 UK vinyl copy - in stereo. I found it 'in the wild' about four years ago

The release of The Damned's version of 'Alone Again Or' would doubtless have prompted someone on the radio to blow the dust off the original & broadcast that too: I don't think I was aware of the song before then. In the same time-frame, I would have read about Forever Changes in a book I never bought (as mentioned a few days ago). My curiosity was piqued. Another couple of years passed, however, before I found and bought a copy of the album on cassette. There are works of art that encompass both the sublime and the ridiculous: I think Forever Changes is just such an opus. On one hand it begins with the singularly lovely 'Alone Again Or' and ends with the glorious 'You Set The Scene'; on the other hand along the way there's the drippy earnestness of 'Andmoreagain' and 'Old Man', not to mention the infamous opening lyrics of 'Live and Let Live'. I don't think I ever owned Forever Changes on CD, so when I received a

Movin' With Nancy is described, on the back of the sleeve as having been "from the Television Special". Wikipedia provides more background: " Movin' with Nancy was a television special featuring Nancy Sinatra in a series of musical vignettes featuring herself and other artists [...] originally broadcast on [...] December 11, 1967". Moreover, it was "unlike most musical programs of its time, with the numbers lip-synced outdoors on locations instead of the usual stage-bound production filmed before a live audience." Nancy's guests include Lee Hazlewood, Dean Martin and "a very close relative", i.e. Frank Sinatra, though he's not named anywhere on the sleeve or labels. Five of the twelve tracks are Hazlewood compositions, and he joins the star on two duets: 'Some Velvet Morning' and 'Jackson'. Nancy & Dean duet on 'Things'. We're not treated to 'Somethin' Stupid' - Frank instead sings 

I nearly walked out of The British Heart Foundation charity shop in Chepstow that day without noticing the box of singles near the checkout, but I'm glad I stopped to look as there were several good things therein, best of which was an original 1980 pressing of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. My copy is one of those on translucent deep purplish-red styrene, rather than black vinyl. On the 33rpm B-side are two tracks: 'These Days' and (uncredited) the earlier and less morose "Pennine" version of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. I was unaware, until reading it on Discogs just now, that the text "For ML" on the A-side label refers to Martha Ladly (of Martha and the Muffins and, later, The Associates) who was apparently designer Pater Saville's then-girlfriend. Would I have heard the song when it was first released? I was eleven at the time so maybe not - but it had a persistent afterlife owing to its status as Ian Curtis' swansong, and I su

Until recently I had little time for late '60s/early '70s British folk-rock: the likes of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Pentangle. The boredom of the lockdown phase of the pandemic gave me time to re-visit & re-assess, and, after a good deal of YouTubery, I had been fully convinced that Pentangle, specifically, were indeed my cup of tea after all. Feeling that a good compilation might give me what I needed of thair music, I ordered a copy of the 2-CD Light Flight: The Anthology from an ebay seller. Having lived with it for a while I think it was the right choice. I love most of it, if not quite all of it, with a preference for the second disc over the first.  Their singular blend of folk and jazz influences seems, on paper, like it oughtn't work at all - but it really does, often beautifully. Highlights for me include their hit single - the titular 'Light Flight', 'Train Song', 'Pentangling' and the live 'No More My Lord', in a

Say it's 1987 and you're curious to learn more about the classic 'canon' of rock & pop music. The web is still some years off in the future and you're not going to be able to afford to connect to it until 1998 in any case. What you might do is lurk in your local branch of WH Smith and peruse the display copy of a new book (Paul Gambaccini Presents the) Top 100 Albums (a best-of list based on top-tens provided by its 81 contributors), and make some mental notes as to what albums you might acquire next on cassette. I wasn't interested at that point in the book's top three picks: Sgt. Pepper... ; Born To Run ; Blonde On Blonde -  but the write-ups within did guide me in the direction of albums such as Astral Weeks (#9); The Velvet Underground and Nico (#7) and What's Going On (#4). I didn't then (or for a long while afterwards) listen to much soul music, but it was obvious from the first notes that this was a top quality item. I've always l

My introduction to Jane Weaver came in 2014 on hearing the tracks 'Don't Take My Soul' and 'Mission Desire' on the radio, both from this album, The Silver Globe . It was only after I'd acquired her follow-up album Modern Kosmology in late 2017, however, that I came back to buy this one too. It's a record that was inspired in part by the movie On The Silver Globe , the work of Polish director Andrzej Żuławski - a controversial and troubled project begun in the mid-'70s but only released in 1988. I'd been oblivious to Weaver's prior career ( The Silver Globe is her sixth solo album), but it comes across as the work of a confident artist having already hit her stride. Style-wise, one reviewer described it as "krautrock-tinged, synth rock, space-disco pop opera". It is certainly psychedelic, while not too 'far out', being well-grounded with propulsive grooves and catchy melodies. It has more pronounced Anglo-European influences th

The 'For Lovers' CD single is all that remains on my shelves of my otherwise short-lived infatuation with the music of The Libertines and their offshoots. Fifteen years ago I also owned both Libertines albums and a couple of their singles, plus the first Dirty Pretty Things album. I held on to Up The Bracket until a few years ago, but, the last time I listened to it, the thrill had definitely gone, so I let that one go too. My introduction to The Libertines had been via MTV2: on first seeing the video for 'Up The Bracket' in '02 my reaction was "who do they think they are?", but it grew on me a little and, when I saw/heard 'Time For Heroes' a few months later, I was sold. My local small-town Swedish record shop carried their albums, but I think I ordered 'For Lovers' from Amazon. It's a sweet ballad that I still enjoy. The 'B-side' on the disc is 'Back From The Dead' - a more upbeat number which isn't bad but which

I've only owned Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star (and its companion-piece Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines ) for a couple of months, and have only listened to them a half a dozen times apiece and am still getting to know them, so I don't have well-formed opinions to express about them except that I love the sleeve art for the former (the work of London-based artist Isvald Klingels ). Both albums were CDs bought very cheaply from an ebay seller. My ears perked up to the sound of the track 'Moon Whip Quäz' when it came on the radio back in 2017, its melody line very reminiscent of that of Kraftwerk's 'Das Model'. From there I checked out more of their music on YouTube (including the remarkable video for ' Shine a Light ' - also on the album), but I didn't follow through and spend a little money on the music until this year. I've seldom connected with rap or hip-hop, despite it having been part of the cultural background for forty-odd years. Am

On the strength of an inspiringly effusive review in a magazine, I bought Laura Nyro's album New York Tendaberry on cassette in 1988. It was neither the first nor the last time I'd acquired a record without having heard a note of it, but it was one of the most disappointing of those purchases: I hated it, and didn't spare Nyro another thought for decades thereafter. In 2018 or so I heard her song 'Stoned Soul Picnic' on the radio and began to realise I'd been too hasty to dismiss her music just based on that single unhappy experience. Some YouTube searches ensued, and, fortuitously, not much later, a copy of her 1980 compilation LP Impressions fell into my hands at St. Mary's St. Collectables in Chepstow.  I'm still not overly fond of 'Save The Country' or 'Captain Saint Lucifer' (the two tracks on the LP from New York Tendaberry ) but like pretty much everything else on it. I'm especially partial to the opening run of songs on Side

Along with many of my generation I watched, transfixed, as Gary Numan made his debut TV appearance performing 'Are "Friends" Electric?' as part of Tubeway Army on Top of the Pops in 1979. To my ten-year-old eyes it seemed thrillingly otherwordly. By rights I should have spent some pocket-money on the single, but it wouldn't be until years later that I felt any need to acquire music of my own. Some forty years afterwards, I picked up a copy of Replicas , the breakthrough Tubeway Army album, and, a little more recently, a copy of the 'Down in the Park' single: both charity shop finds. As I hardly ever listened to the album, I let that one go, and ordered a copy of 'Are "Friends" Electric?' on 7", so I at least had the two stand-out tracks from it should I feel the need to hear them. Both belong to a current in late '70s / early '80s British music with something of a dystopian sci-fi feel (and, more specifically, a strong Ball

Mieczysław Weinberg is oftenest mentioned in connection with his great friend Dmitri Shostakovich. For some Weinberg was little more than his imitator; for others a figure unduly overlooked owing to his proximity to the great man. I'm in no position to contest the apparent consensus that Shostakovich was the better composer of the two, but at least a few of Weinberg's works are wonderful, memorable pieces that, for me, outshine the equivalent works by his more famous contemporary. These include his Piano Quintet and his Cello Concerto, the latter among the two works featured on the present CD. The Cello Concerto was composed in the late '40s but not given a performance until 1957, with the great Mstislav Rostropovich as the soloist. It's a deeply emotive work, and one which very prominently features Jewish themes and influences: the anti-semitic climate of Stalin's last years at least partly accounting for the tardiness of its public debut. The other work on the CD

I was dimly aware of Bob Lind's one big hit 'Elusive Butterfly' - but had probably heard Irish crooner Val Doonican's version rather than Lind's original. Nine or ten years ago I caught Jarvis Cocker interviewing Lind on his radio show. Lind's was a story of brief success in the mid-to-late '60s, followed by years struggling with addiction, and a longer period out of the limelight, including a stint where he worked as a writer for tabloid 'newspapers' in Florida.  At length he returned to music, releasing a live album in 2006 and his first album of new material for decades in 2012. A few years after hearing about him, I found a copy of his debut album Don't Be Cocerned at the 'Serendipity' junk-shop in Chepstow (sadly long-since closed). It's a record very much of its time, doubtless one of many post-Dylan releases by poetically-inclined singer-songwriters. The arrangements and production are courtesy of Jack Nitzsche, who also wrote

When I moved to Karlskrona in late 2000, a junk-shop near my first apartment there had a large stock of records that I'd sometimes idly browse through. In the course of my visits it occurred to me I wouldn't mind getting myself a record player and a stash of old vinyl, and in due course it happened (the following year) that I found a cheap '70s-style turntable plus speakers and headphones and brought them home along with a first few albums. Among the records they had was a classical disc with a rather off-putting picture of the composer Franz Berwald staring sternly from its cover. After I'd bought a variety of other classical LPs from the same place, I thought I'd try actually listening to this one, to see whether its contents matched the cover. I was delighted to find they did not: the two quintets on the album were both charming, vibrant & melodic works, with the closing part of the Quintet No. 2's Allegro Vivace 2nd movement being a particular highlight

Richard Hawley's Coles Corner was the first album I bought after my return to the UK from Sweden in 2009. I became very fond of it, and, not long after, also bought what was then his new release -  Truelove's Gutter . Both were on CD: I didn't have a good vinyl set-up at that time and my record-player wasn't getting much use. Those two records have remained my favourites of his ever since. Truelove's Gutter is a set of evocative nocturnes, much of it quiet and sparse. The opening 'When The Dawn Breaks' is an exercise in restrained, subdued melancholy. 'Open Up Your Door' begins in a similarly quiet mode, but the music subsequently swells as a glorious '60s-style string arrangement kicks in. It's one of the album's highlights for me, along with the poignant 'Don't Get Hung Up in Your Soul'. The songs are all Hawley's own; his guitar work is beautiful; his voice expressive. He co-produced the album too, so is partly-respon

Mingus Ah Um was the first jazz album I fell in love with, and, for many years, the only one I owned. I found my way to it via a circuitous route. When I was at university, one of my favourite bands was Camper Van Beethoven. Having persuaded a friend of their merits, he bought an LP they had made with avant-garde guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, and then another record that Chadbourne had made with Brian Ritchie and Victor De Lorenzo of Violent Femmes: Corpses Of Foreign War . The latter album included an entertaining version of Mingus's 'Fables of Faubus'. I had meanwhile read some of Lester Bangs' praise of Mingus' music, so, when I picked up a cassette of Mingus Ah Um somewhere in London ca. 1989 and found it contained 'Fables of Faubus', I bought it. As a listener with no previous jazz experience, I was delighted to find it immediately accessible and enjoyable. I didn't have the same instant gratification thereafter with my first tentative forays into

You Forgot It In People was one of those albums from the early years of the century where a growing weight of on-line recommendations eventually piqued my curiosity. Pre-streaming, I don't recall how much of the album I'd actually heard, if anything, before buying. Perhaps I nefariously obtained it in mp3 form first. The re-issued version came out in 2003: I must have purchased my CD copy late that year or early the next. I loved this album at the time and might have loved it even more had I been ten years younger, with its being shot right through with the passions & pretensions of youth. The subdued instrumental opener 'Capture The Flag', I subsequently learned, was akin to the mellow tunes on the band's debut album Feel Good Lost . After that, the sharper-edged 'KC Accidental' kicks in, the first of several twists and turns as the show goes on. David Newfeld's excellent production helps give the songs a vivid presence. With a rotating roster of a

Valve Bone Woe was touted as Chrissie Hynde's jazz album when it was released in 2019, but jazz is only one of its ingredients. There are are some jazz classics (Mingus's 'Meditation on a Pair of Wirecutters' and Coltrane's 'Naima') on which Hynde takes a back-seat, letting the big band behind her take it away; and there are selections from the Great American Songbook like 'I Get Along Without You Very Well' and 'Hello Young Lovers'; but there are also '60s songs such as Brian Wilson's 'Caroline, No' and Nick Drake's 'River Man'. It's located then, somewhere near the junction of jazz, mid-century pop and easy listening. Hynde's voice isn't as strong as most of the old-school jazz-singers', and some of the songs show up its limitations (her take on 'Wild is the Wind', for example), but it's fluid and characterful and generally it sounds great. The excellent arrangements and production a

I didn't buy MGMT's Oracular Spectacular : I liked the singles from it but not so much as to tempt me to part with my money. I did gather together some spare change, however, for Congratulations . I'd heard and loved 'Flash Delirium' and 'It's Working': it was probably seeing the video for the former not long after the album's release in 2010 that prompted me to purchase. I don't love the album as a whole. Apart from the two tracks that first caught my ear I'm more or less lukewarm about much of the rest. 'Song for Dan Treacy' and 'Brian Eno' are pleasant enough; 'Someone's Missing' builds from a nondescript opening to a satisfying conclusion; the 12-minute 'Siberian Breaks' has some good parts and some aimless ones. Despite that, it has so far made the cut every time I've culled my collection to free up some shelf-space. I have it on a CD I would have ordered from Amazon. It's a well-packaged item

Ferdinand Ries is just one among the many talented and once-renowned composers whose legacy has been overlooked due to its being overshadowed by that of his near-contemporary Beethoven. In his case there was a strong connection between the two men: both came from Bonn, and Ries's father was one of LvB's early teachers. This link must have helped him secure a place as one of the great man's very few students, and, later, as his secretary. After the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars had reached Vienna, Ries set off on the road in an effort to make a name for himself, at length finding fame & fortune during a long stint in London. While there's hardly anyone who would put him on the same level as his former teacher, much of his music is delightful - the Cello Sonatas on the present disc included. These stand up well in comparison with Beethoven's own works for cello & piano, and I personally prefer them. This is one of several CDs on the CPO label featuring Ries&

Houndstooth were a band based in Portland, Oregon, who released two albums in 2013 and '14. Ride Out The Dark being the first and the better of the two. Their music, according to a discogs commenter was "somewhere between dream pop and '90s neo-psychedelia, Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies, Neil Young and girl group...but clearly from the 21st Century" which seems as good a characterisation of it as any I could come up with. It's a fairly standard mix of guitars, bass, drums and keyboards, but it's one which comes together beautifully well. The resultant sound is a warm & relaxed one. For me, putting it on is like donning a favourite item of comfortable old clothing: it feels good just to hear them play. The lead instruments are Katie Bernstein's voice (which at times resembles Debbie Harry's) and John Gnorski's wonderfully fluid lead guitar. Credit is due too to drummer Graeme Gibson, who both kept time and produced, doing both with great aplomb

The consensus seems to be that Dinah Washington's mid-'50s records for the EmArcy label are better than the later ones she recorded for Roulette Records. Drinking Again , recorded in 1962 - the year before her untimely death - demonstrates that not all of the latter were without their merits. It's an album themed around "the melacholy air of unrequited love" as the sleeve-notes put it, ploughing a similar furrow to Sinatra's downbeat collections like In The Wee Small Hours and Only the Lonely . My copy of the album is a '60s UK mono pressing which, regrettably, isn't in the best of shape. The musicians aren't credited - only the arranger and conductor Don Costa gets a mention. He and his un-named band do an excellent job variously laying on silky strings, astringent brass & mellow blues as the mood dictates. The bluesy numbers 'I Don't Know You Any More' and 'Baby Won't You Please Come Home' are highlights of the record

I keep crediting the radio with introducing me to this or that artist: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith being another one among a great many. In this particular case I think it was Stuart Maconie who featured some tracks from EARS on his Freak Zone show on BBC 6 Music around the time of its release in 2016. I didn't buy the album at the time, but kept it in mind and at intervals I'd return to look up something or other of hers on YouTube. During one YouTube session I watched a video of a performance she did with veteran knob-twiddler Suzanne Ciani - and loved it enough that I bought their collaborative Sunergy album right away. Soon after that I ordered a copy of EARS via ebay. I slightly prefer the the spacious & semi-improvisational feel of the former album, but find the latter most enjoyable too. Smith coaxes burbling, seemingly-organic textures from her electronic music-boxes, and seamlessly combines those with processed vocals and 'natural' woodwinds (the notes menti

Today was the first time post-pandemic that I was stuck in traffic for an extended period: I spent nearly three frustrating hours in the car. Luckily I had taken some CDs with me, including Sound & Color by Alabama Shakes. I listened to it twice all the way through. It may be seven years old but it's still a relatively new record for me: I bought it last November at the Oxfam in Chepstow. I liked it at first hearing and I like it better the more I play it. Brittany Howard's powerful vocals are the natural focal point, but the band sounds great as a unit, with distinctive guitars and drums brought to the fore with the bass and keyboards providing more of a supporting role. I very much like the recording & production too. There's hardly a weak song on on the disc, though maybe 'Gemini' is a tad over-long and suffers for following the glorious climactic choruses of 'Miss You'. Other favourites of mine are the title-track, 'Future People', '

The Manic Street Preachers are about my age, and grew up some seven or eight miles down the road from where I did. The first time I saw them they were on TV, and I felt an acute - misplaced - embarrassment on their behalf. They were gawkily, earnestly pretentious, gabbling away in their broad valleys accents - the same accent I'd striven to mask and suppress during my student years in London. Their presence showed up the folly of my own pretentions to urbane sophistication. I've always been interested in their career by virtue of the local-boys-made-good angle, but only some of their music has ever grabbed me - I wouldn't quite call myself a fan. I do have a soft spot for  Everything Must Go , however. I bought it on cassette soon after its release in mid-'96, which was a painfully difficult time for me. I was in Rome, ostensibly living the cosmopolitan dream, but felt isolated, stressed & depressed thanks to my awful job.  This album, together with an unwise excess

Sitting at the table writing a letter one Friday evening I heard something on the radio that made me put down my pen and pay close attention. It was 'Love Song' by jaimie branch, one of a few tracks from the album Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise that Iggy Pop, no less, had played on his weekly BBC radio show. After watching some clips of branch and her band on-line I wasted little time ordering a copy of the album on CD. Of all the recent jazz or jazz-infused recordings I've heard, this is the one I like best. Branch plays trumpet, and contributes vocals on two of the tracks. Conventionally enough, her quartet also includes a bassist (Jason Ajemian) and a drummer (Chad Taylor). Much less conventionally, there is also a cellist (Lester St. Louis). Though the group is based in New York, the album was recorded in London.  There is the eerily low-key 'Birds of Paradise'. There are the hypnotic grooves of 'Simple Silver Surfer' and 'Nuevo Roquero Estére

I think it was thanks to Mark Lamarr that I first heard and saw The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Lamarr was an occasional guest on Mark Radcliffe & Marc Riley's Radio 1 show ca. '94/'95 - during one of his spots on it he enthusiastically sang the trio's praises & I heard 'Bellbottoms' for the first time. He was also one of the hosts of The Word on Channel 4, where the JSBX made a notable appearance in '94. I was eager to hear their then-new album Orange , and bought it on cassette. Even on my crappy Hitachi boom-box it sounded fantastic. The sound on the German-produced CD I have now strikes me as a tad lacklustre by comparison. It was never an album I loved from start to finish - between the first-rate opening run of five tracks and the excellent final four, the middle of the running order seemed to me a bit weaker. The CD hasn't had anything like the play that well-worn tape did: now and again I'll put it on in the car. Despite that, the

This 2011 CD brings together two albums O'Day recorded on the Verve label in 1960 and '61: Waiter, Make Mine Blues and Trav'lin' Light . I'd learned about the former in the course of some YouTube expeditions undertaken during the first Covid lockdowns and was keen to hear it in full. Then, on listening to the CD as a whole, I came to understand why Trav'lin' Light was given top billing: it is the stronger album of the two. The 1961 Trav'lin' Light album was a tribute to the then recently-deceased Billie Holiday, with all the songs on it having been mainstays of her repertoire. O'Day's voice can't match the emotive strength of Holiday's, but it does have a damaged, careworn quality that suits the material very well. On half the songs she's backed by a sextet featuring Ben Webster on tenor sax and Barney Kessel on guitar; while Johnny Mandel's orchestra provide the accompaniment on the remainder. On Waiter, Make Mine Blues ,

Quite early on in my vinyl collecting career I found copies of The Songs of Leonard Cohen , Death Of a Ladies Man and I'm Your Man in the wild. But after that, nothing; so, when my sister asked me for Christmas gift suggestions in 2018 or so, I said I wouldn't mind getting Songs From a Room and Songs of Love and Hate to fill part of a gap on my shelves. Thanks to her I now have relatively recent 180-gram-vinyl re-issues of those two. Back in my cassette-player days I'd had seven of Laughing Len's albums: I haven't yet felt compelled to re-acquire New Skin for the Old Ceremony or Various Positions , nor have I sought out any of his records from the '90s or later: I should probably at least give the latter a hearing. Like many a mope before & since I've found great solace in the darkness of his lyrics, and Songs of Love and Hate has some of the darkest of them. My favourite tracks are the first three: an excellent 17 minutes of entertainment. I prefe

Between 2000 and 2012, the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica recorded a series of fascinating albums for the Nonesuch label. I bought six or seven of them and still have a few on my shelves now. Most of these CDs have a theme, and that of De Profundis ('out of the depths'), released in 2010, is, according to Kremer's own booklet notes, to do with composers crying 'out of the depths' with their music for a better world. Additionally, Kremer writes, he was thinking of the business of oil (extracted out if the depths of the earth) which is "used to sustain tyrannical regimes, be it in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Myanmar, or Russia". There is, moreover, a dedication to the erstwhile oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then in a Russian prison. Having said all that, hearing the pieces on the disc in innocence of the booklet notes, one would be hard-pressed, I think, to deduce a unifying theme from them. The two longest pieces in the album