In Jack Johnson

Multi-platinum musician Jack Johnson releases a new studio album, Meet The Moonlight. Johnson’s eighth studio album and first full-length release in five years, was produced by Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes, Perfume Genius, Jim James) and recorded both in Los Angeles (at Sound City and EastWest) and The Mango Tree (Johnson’s studio in Hawaii). The creation process marks a major artistic milestone from past work, taking shape from a one-on-one collaboration with Mills (whose contributions included everything from fretless guitar to Moog synth to steel drums) and unveiled an intimate and highly experimental process that involved embedding Johnson’s elegantly stripped-back arrangements with enchanting sonic details.

With his barbed-wire guitar work and hearty vocal on a marathon rendition of "Catfish Blues," Johnson hauls the time-honored Delta tradition into contemporary blues. The entire album is an eminently solid, doggedly down-home affair, though nothing else quite measures up to the powerhouse attack of that one vicious workout.

Miles Davis - The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions (1970) {5CD Box Set, Columbia C5K 86359 rel 2003)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.29 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 881 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 42 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1970, 2003 Columbia / Sony Music | C5K 86359
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Funk / Jazz Rock / Trumpet

Of all the Miles Davis recordings, the 16 weeks of sessions that created a single, two-selection LP produced by Teo Macero called A Tribute to Jack Johnson have been the most apocryphal. While the album itself was a confounding obscurity upon release – due to its closeness in proximity to the nearly simultaneous release of the vastly inferior yet infinitely more label-promoted Live at the Fillmore East – its reputation as the first complete fusion of jazz and rock is cemented. It also garnered a place in the history books for guitarist John McLaughlin, the axis around whose raw, slash-and-burn playing the entire album turns.

Miles Davis - A Tribute To Jack Johnson (1970) {2006 DSD Japan Mini LP Edition Analog Collection SICP 1222}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 338 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 129 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 337 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1970, 2006 Sony Music Japan / Columbia | SICP 1222 | DSD | HQD High Quality Disc
Jazz / Jazz Rock / Jazz Fusion / Trumpet

A masterful tribute from one bad cat to another – and easily one of Miles Davis' greatest electric albums ever! The album's got a powerful, epic sort of feel – a renewed focus after the looser style of Bitches Brew, and the 70s live albums – and one that mixes a deeper funky sound with the raw, exploratory style Davis had let loose a few years before. Michael Henderson's bass is a big part of the power of the record, and John McLaughlin's guitar has never sounded better, or sharper. Teo Macero made the whole thing magic in the studio, and titles include two sidelong funkdafied jams – "Right Off" and "Yesternow".

None of Miles Davis' recordings has been more shrouded in mystery than Jack Johnson, yet none has better fulfilled Davis' promise that he could form the "greatest rock band you ever heard." Containing only two tracks, the album was assembled out of no less than four recording sessions between February 18, 1970 and June 4, 1970, and was patched together by producer Teo Macero. Most of the outtake material ended up on Directions, Big Fun, and elsewhere. The first misconception is the lineup: the credits on the recording are incomplete. For the opener, "Right Off," the band is Davis, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham, Herbie Hancock, Michael Henderson, and Steve Grossman (no piano player!), which reflects the liner notes…