If you’re looking for the soul-stirring genius of John Coltrane’s peak years, you’re not going to find it anywhere on Prestige’s five-disc box set, Side Steps. As an insight into Trane’s early development, however, this is exactly the place to start – and end – your search. The set chronicles the tenor legend’s brief period as a hired gun for established players like pianists Red Garland, Mal Waldron and Tad Dameron, fellow tenor player Gene Ammons (for whom Coltrane provided his services on alto instead), and even Sonny Rollins. No, none of those brilliant 1950s Miles Davis sessions for Prestige are here (Trane was a regular member of Miles’ band, as opposed to a freelancer), and as Miles had him under his regular employ, those recordings don’t fit the theme. But there’s plenty of prime hard bop to be enjoyed here, all recorded during the years 1956 and 1957, packaged with illuminating essays, detailed discographical information and plenty of photos. Newbies to Trane will want to start with his Atlantic Recordings, but working backwards from that point, Side Steps goes one further to complete his recorded history with class and style. (Prestige 2009)
RIYL: Beck, early ’70s Miles Davis, pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd
It would be far too easy to call the Flaming Lips’ new album Embryonic “trippy.” Any of the albums they’ve released over the past decade could fit that description. But as it stands, the 18-track double disc affair is in fact pretty far out, even for the Lips. Drawing from the sound palettes of early ‘70s Miles Davis (the instrumental “Scorpio Sword” is particularly reminiscent of the edge-of-insanity performances that marked the days when Chick Corea and Tony Williams pushed Miles into serious avant garde territory) and pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd (think of Floyd’s soundtrack work on More), Wayne Coyne and crew have woven a heavy, dynamic soundscape that works best as a piece.
Indeed, few songs stand out from the whole, one of the exceptions being the typically novel “I Can Be a Frog,” which is impossible to hear without thinking of its accompanying video. And while Wayne’s voice has taken a beating over the years, he sings to his strengths and lets the fuzzed-out guitars and vintage electric piano sounds take center stage throughout the disc. In fact, in most cases vocals are mixed about equally with the rest of the instruments, avoiding pop melodies and song structure altogether.
This very well could be the greatest album the Flaming Lips have concocted to date, though there’s so much happening here that it might take a few years to sink in. The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots can retain popular favor in the meantime, but Embryonic is bound to fascinate and confound for years to come. (Warner Bros. 2009)
Posted by Christopher Glotfelty (08/21/2009 @ 3:02 pm)
Apparently, the “Prince of Darkness” recorded 52 albums, and that was just for Columbia Records! Dude also made other albums for Prestige, Blue Note, and Warner Bros. Records. Nevertheless, the Columbia years were his creative peak. During that time, Davis released Kind of Blues and Bitches Brew, which not only classics of the jazz genre, but American music as a whole. On November 10th, Columbia and Legacy will release a ridiculous 71-disc box set entitled The Complete Columbia Album Collection. This Sisyphian task is guaranteed to consume at least a year of your life. To buy this, you must really love jazz — that goes without saying. Unfortunately, if you buy this set, with the innocent intention of listening to the entire thing, you must admit to yourself that you find Miles Davis more enticing than, say, earning a living.
The box will include (seriously) 70 CDs and one DVD, and somehow it’s that one DVD that makes the whole thing look like overkill.
The DVD is Live in Europe ‘67, which will be on DVD for the first time ever with this set. The set will also include a previously unreleased live recording of Davis’s performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival.
According to Legacy, the CDs will all come in “Japanese-styled mini LP jackets”, which sounds cool. The CDs will include bonus tracks that have been tacked on to Davis reissues over the years. There will also be a 250-page book.
Recorded live at Tokyo’s Blue Note Jazz Club, Duet continues Chick Corea’s streak of exceptional albums with unimaginative titles. Chick hasn’t released a piano duet album since his 1978 live double album with fellow Miles Davis alumnus Herbie Hancock, and while that record was a meeting of two peers, Chick’s partner on Duet, Japanese pianist Hiromi, was a year away from birth when Chick dueled with Herbie in ’78. As one might expect, Hiromi’s youthful exuberance matches – and sometimes surpasses – what was going down 30 years ago. Just one listen to the pair’s wildly playful take on Chick’s “Humpty Dumpty” and Monk’s “Bolivar Blues” may be enough to make it feel like this is the first and best time the dual piano format has been explored, not to mention the tension that Chick cleverly builds with his trademark percussive smacking of the keys during a neat take on the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill.” (Concord 2009)
If you’re looking for the soul-stirring genius of John Coltrane’s peak years, you’re not going to find it anywhere on Prestige’s five-disc box set, Side Steps. As an insight into Trane’s early development, however, this is exactly the place to start – and end – your search. The set chronicles the tenor legend’s brief period as a hired gun for established players like pianists Red Garland, Mal Waldron and Tad Dameron, fellow tenor player Gene Ammons (for whom Coltrane provided his services on alto instead), and even Sonny Rollins. No, none of those brilliant 1950s Miles Davis sessions for Prestige are here (Trane was a regular member of Miles’ band, as opposed to a freelancer), and as Miles had him under his regular employ, those recordings don’t fit the theme. But there’s plenty of prime hard bop to be enjoyed here, all recorded during the years 1956 and 1957, packaged with illuminating essays, detailed discographical information and plenty of photos. Newbies to Trane will want to start with his Atlantic Recordings, but working backwards from that point, Side Steps goes one further to complete his recorded history with class and style. (Prestige 2009)
