Holding Adib Sin

"Big Brother & the Holding Company," is an early recording by Big Brother and the Holding Company, a psychedelic blues rock San Francisco-based band during the late 1960's. The record survives largely because of their great, great chick singer, Janis Joplin, of course, who joined them on a Chicago gig. Although Joplin fans will know that she did not, unfortunately, survive the 1970's, as she passed on October 4, 1970 (aged 27), in Los Angeles, California. But in her brief career, despite her troubled life, she left behind a stunning, gutsy repertory of work that has long since floated free of, and outlived, Big Brother. This record, however, was laid down about six months before she (and they) achieved lasting blazing stardom at the 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival.

It’s difficult to talk about Exotic Sin, the duo of Naima Karlsson and Kenichi Iwasa, without discussing Karlsson’s prestigious musical bloodline. Her father, Bruce Smith, drummed for The Pop Group, the Slits, and Public Image Ltd; her mother is Swedish singer Neneh Cherry. The spare and spontaneous music on their debut album, Customer’s Copy, on the other hand, draws upon the legacy of her grandparents, Don and Moki Cherry. Don Cherry first made his name in jazz circles alongside Ornette Coleman, but he soon struck out for a rapturous mixture well outside of the tradition. Combining free improvisation, folk, traditional music, and drone, Cherry and his wife pulled from all corners of the globe to make and live their art. That the duo first performed together at a performance celebrating the Cherrys’ unique amalgam of art and music is fitting.

Judas Priest's major-label debut Sin After Sin marks their only recording with then-teenage session drummer Simon Phillips, whose technical prowess helps push the band's burgeoning aggression into overdrive. For their part, K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton employ a great deal more of the driving, palm-muted power-chord picking that would provide the basic rhythmic foundation of all but the most extreme heavy metal from here on out. Sin After Sin finds Priest still experimenting with their range, and thus ends up as perhaps their most varied outing. Yet despite the undeniably tremendous peaks here, the overall package doesn't cohere quite as well as on Sad Wings of Destiny, simply because the heavy moments are so recognizable as the metal we know today that the detours stick out as greater interruptions of the album's flow.

With 1990's near-fatal boating accident now well behind him, Nestor Torres offered up this package of Latin-accented, hip-hop-tinged smooth jazz, assembling 11 tracks with several producers and production teams. In contrast to his previous album, My Latin Soul, a collection of Latin standards, most of the material here comes from Torres in league with his production staff. The two numbers that are not originals are "Contigo Apprendi," where Torres' flute dances particularly playfully at the close, and the Alejandro Sanz Latin hit "Regálame la Silla Donde Te Espere."

Billed as a "companion" to the 2016 posthumous collection Heal My Soul, Holding On combines a full live concert from 1999 with five additional studio outtakes. According to Roger Costa, the compilation's producer, these five songs were left off of Heal My Soul "primarily because they didn't quite fit into the flow" and "they were too good not to share." They had been shared once before, on a limited-edition vinyl called Heal My Soul: Bonus Sessions, but the digital release is welcome because they're solid songs, highlighted by the charging "Love Takes Time," the hooky "Every Other Guy," and "All That I Believe," which feels a bit like a conscious re-write of Hootie & the Blowfish. All are nice additions to the Healey catalog and the concert is solid, too – perhaps a little too pristine and polished, but still worthy for Healey heads.

Sonny Rollins - Holding The Stage - Road Shows, Volume 4 (2016) {Doxy Records 88875192752}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 493 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 172 Mb
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© 2016 Doxy Records / OKeh / Sony Music | 88875192752
Jazz / Post Bop / Saxophone

The day may come when the well runs dry, but that day is not upon us. The fourth installment of Sonny Rollins' Road Shows series has arrived, bringing more beauties from the archives to light while bearing out that the genius of the Saxophone Colossus is best demonstrated on the stage. That's where the magic has always happened for him, and that's why these offerings have been so well-received. The first three volumes are already considered to be indispensable items in the storied Rollins canon, and this one stands to join them.