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Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live At The Hollywood Bowl – August 18, 1967
by Doug Collette
The archiving of Jimi Hendrix' vault has apparently reached the point where what happens on a given release is less important than when it happened. So it is with Live At The Hollywood Bowl--August 18, 1967, the setlist for which is similar to that of his ground-breaking June '67 performance at Monterey Pop, one the late rock icon would soon come to rue as he continued live appearances beyond a short stint in July '67 opening for the ...
read moreM. E. B.: That You Not Dare To Forget
by Doug Collette
With all due respect to Lettuce's A Tribute to Miles Davis--Witches Stew (Self Produced, 2017) and the all-star ensemble dubbed Bitches Brew Revisited, M.E.B. (formerly known as Miles Electric Band) is an inordinately creative homage to Miles Davis. And given the continually experimental path The Man With The Horn" chose to follow throughout his career, it is no doubt one of which he would approve. That You Not Dare To Forget is a slightly less than half-hour audio ...
read moreBob Dylan: Springtime in New York 1980-1985: The Bootleg Series, Volume 16 (5CD)
by Doug Collette
Generally speaking, revelations abound within the various installments of The Bootleg Series, Bob Dylan's ongoing archive initiative, and Volume 16 is no exception. But in listening to Springtime in New York, 1980- 1985, the epiphanies come in slow bursts, flashing over the course of the five CDs to generate a cumulative momentum that reaches a flash-point with the content taken from the much-maligned Empire Burlesque (Columbia, 1985). And that outcome in itself is a truly Dylanesque curve ball: pre-release anticipation ...
read moreMiles Davis: Music From And Inspired By Birth Of The Cool, A Film by Stanley Nelson
by Doug Collette
The most devout fans of the late Miles Davis will likely hear the selections on this album as touchstones of their collections of the jazz icon's work. More casual fans and dilettantes can listen and learn to the same cuts as guideposts to assemble their own. Neither approach undermines the value of the title as a worthwhile companion piece to Stanley Nelson's film. It's been said a formidable jazz library might be built from works by musicians with ...
read moreThe Later Years: 1987-2019
by John Kelman
On January 10, 1994, Pink Floyd announced its upcoming North American tour in support of what would be its second studio album following the 1984 departure of bassist and band co-founder Roger Waters, The Division Bell (Columbia/EMI), a little more than two months before its release on March 28 of the same year. The first of two 196 foot-long, 67-foot high, 7,000 pound (without the helium) painted airships made a record-breaking, three-week trip from North Carolina to Los Angeles, with ...
read moreBob Dylan: The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings
by Doug Collette
In contrast to most of the massive archival projects exhumed from Bob Dylan's vault, The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings is not accompanied by a smaller, condensed package of similar content. But that only makes sense: the third installment of The Bootleg Series was issued in 2002 in the form of a two-cd set devoted to a cross-section of such content. Preserving the rarity of that now discontinued release, every one of those very same recordings reappears in ...
read moreVan Morrison: The Healing Game (Deluxe Edition)
by Doug Collette
As enigmatic as Van Morrison is, the archiving of his vault reveals some logic with the reissue of The Healing Game in expanded form. Following on the heels of It's Too Late to Stop Now... Volumes II, III, IV (Legacy Recordings, 2016) and The Authorized Bang Collection (Legacy Recordings, 2017), this three-CD package of one of his better latter-day albums reaffirms an underlying theme of those previously-released titles--Morrison's predilection for spontaneity. The Healing Game is one of most ...
read moreMiles Davis: Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6
by Doug Collette
It's a measure of Miles Davis' great respect for John Coltrane that the well-established jazz icon would ask the jazz icon in-the-making to do one more tour (of Europe) as the final component of latter's second stint in a quartet led by the man with the horn. The closure had begun with Coltrane's prior resignation, as noted in Ashley Kahn's scrupulously-detailed liner notes, which may account for both the familiarity of the chosen repertoire here as well as the sense ...
read moreJimi Hendrix: Both Sides Of The Sky
by Sacha O'Grady
13 to the universe by studio dreamweaver and sonic soundscaper Jimi Hendrix remains arguably one of the greatest electric guitarists that ever lived, someone whose genius has often been likened to that of Robert Johnson and Miles Davis. Upon his untimely passing in 1970, he left behind an enormous wealth of previously unheard studio recordings which, according to those in the know, had the potential to offer new and compelling insights into one of the 20th Century's ultimate ...
read moreMiles Davis: Miles Davis & John Coltrane - The Final Tour: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6
by Mike Jurkovic
As discussed at length in the liners by Ashley Kahn, the general consensus at the time (and a theory Miles' held strongly too) was that his landmark Quintet --Miles Davis, John Coltrane, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb and flight fingered pianist Wynton Kelly--was on its last leg, and you could cut the personal and creative tension with a dull knife. But Kahn also argues that one can look at conflict of any kind as 1) a PR move to ...
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