The Other Side of Japan is a compilation album by the British band Japan, released in 1991 by Receiver Records…
The last album with Rob Dean, Gentlemen Take Polaroids was also unquestionably the album in which Japan truly found its own unique voice and aesthetic approach. The glam influences still hung heavy, particularly from Roxy Music, but now the band found itself starting to affect others in turn…
Partially growing out of their success in the country they were named after, as well as growing friendship and affiliation with such bands as Yellow Magic Orchestra, Japan made their most unique, challenging, and striking album in Tin Drum…
The final Japan release was sold and marketed as a live album, though actually it's a bit of a catchall – it is indeed mostly from concerts, but also includes a variety of studio instrumentals and a re-recorded version of "Nightporter" mixed in to sound like it's part of the show…
The 1981 compilation Assemblage gives a skewed, incomplete picture of Japan's early career; this is not necessarily a bad thing, as Japan's early career frankly wasn't very good, and it certainly had little to do with the mature, studied art-pop of their later albums…
Ian Gillan was one of the foremost vocalists of the heavy metal style of rock that emerged in the 1970s, earning his greatest renown as a member of Deep Purple, though he also led bands named after himself…
Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. Released in 1963, this is a pair of traditional dixieland jazz performances recorded at the historic Preservation Hall in New Orleans - very distinctly New Orleans sound. Nathan "Jim" or "Big Jim" Robinson was a very reliable New Orleans trombonist who was much more consistent than most of the musicians he performed with, never seeming to have an off day. A jazz pioneer, Robinson played guitar as a child and started playing trombone in 1917, while stationed in France during World War I; he was already 24.
Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. This is the music that will be playing when you die and go to heaven. Excellent original style Dixieland, George's clarinet is heaven! I don't know if any record can do justice to the live experience of the original giants of jazz creating this stuff. But the George Lewis tracks on this record come pretty close! For this alone this CD is well worth buying.
Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. Great work by this legendary hard swinging band – an early 60s American album issued on Atlantic Records, in the years before the Clark Boland Band's legendary run on MPS! Despite the early date, the album's got all the core elements of the band's sound in place – soaring rhythms, sharp-edged frontlines, and some great solo work by players who include Benny Bailey, Derek Humble, Jimmy Woode, Shahib Shihab, Idrees Sulieman, and Fats Sadi – coming together in a brilliant trans-Atlantic meeting of jazz talents! Tracks include "Long Note Blues", "Speedy Reeds", "Sonor", and "Om Mani Padme Hum".
Most folks know Manfred Mann from his '60s hits, but too few have ever heard the brilliant Manfred Mann's Earth Band album. Exploring arty and progressive directions, the Earth Band was a wholly different group from Mann's earlier lineup…