Home South Africa December 2016

"Last Time I Saw Him" is a 1973 album released by American singer Diana Ross on the Motown Records. It reached #52 in the USA (#12 R&B) and sold over 200,000 copies. It also helped Ross win the 1974 American Music Award for Favorite R&B Female. The arrangements were by Gene Page, Michael Omartian, Tom Baird, David Blumberg, Bob Gaudio, James Carmichael and Paul Riser. Harry Langdon was credited with the cover photography. The album yielded the title track single "Last Time I Saw Him", a multi-format hit that reached #1 (for three weeks) on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary, #14 on the Hot 100, and #15 on the Hot Soul singles. It peaked at #9 Pop on the Top 100 lists for both Cashbox and Record World, as well as #10 in Radio & Records. It also reached #35 in the United Kingdom.

Some of London-based electronic songwriter Ryan Lee West’s most recognised work to date comes in the shape of spontaneous EP or so-called mini album releases— clocking in just under the 40-minute mark, keeping their contents urgent, immediate and to the point.

Sun Ra and the Arkestra played a week of eleven concerts at the Detroit Jazz Center. The shows were organized and soundboard recorded by Rick Steiger (a collaborator of John Sinclair). On New Year's Eve the Arkestra performed nearly a hundred Sun Ra compositions in three different sets. Remastered from the original cassette soundboard recordings by Christopher Eddy. Limited edition of 500 copies, originally a 28 cd-r set from 2007 in an edition of 400.

It seems that record labels will go to extremes to release "new" recordings by jazz legends who aren't around to contest them. The two-CD compilation The Katanga Concert, released in 2000, combines a previously unreleased concert from 1960 by Louis Armstrong in Katanga, Africa, with 17 tracks that were previously issued on one of two earlier Milan CDs, Blueberry Hill and What a Wonderful World: The Elizabethtown Concert. While Armstrong is his usual charming self, the recording quality of all three concerts ranges from barely acceptable to abysmal, with the master tapes full of wow, having occasional dropouts, and not being particularly well recorded in the first place.