24bit digitally remastered reissue. Comes housed in a cardboard sleeve. This release compiles two wonderful LPs presenting Zoot Sims playing bossa nova songs, as well as jazz standards in a bossa nova mood arranged by Manny Albam and Al Cohn: New Beat Bossa Nova (Colpix SCP435), and its sequel, New Beat Bossa Nova Vol. 2 (Colpix SCP437). Recorded in 1962, these were among the first albums to combine bossa nova and jazz. Both LPs feature the outstanding guitarist Jim Hall as a soloist.
This group from Norway is strongly evocative of King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant along with newer symphonic prog bands like Anglagard and Anekdoten with a dash of Scandinavian folk and classical influences thrown into the mix.
Their albums contain long and complex tracks featuring lush, vintage keyboard sounds, making extensive use of Mellotron, Mini-Moog, Hammond C-3 and harpsichord, along with beautiful electric and acoustic guitar playing, a complex rhythm section along with flutes, recorder, saxophones, mandolins and various other instruments providing a very full, symphonic sound.
Highly recommended for fans of the early progressive greats and symphonic prog music.
Guitarist Leigh Stephens quit Blue Cheer after touring in support of their second album, Outsideinside, but he may have been amused by the fact it took three men to replace him when the band cut their next LP. There are two different and distinct bands at work on New! Improved! Blue Cheer; on the album's first six tunes, founding members Dickie Peterson (bass and vocals) and Paul Whaley (drums) are joined by Bruce Stephens on guitar and Ralph Burns Kellogg on keyboards, and this lineup bears little musical resemblance to the wildly over-amped power trio that cut Vincebus Eruptum less than two years befor…
This group from Norway is strongly evocative of King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant along with newer symphonic prog bands like Anglagard and Anekdoten with a dash of Scandinavian folk and classical influences thrown into the mix.
Their albums contain long and complex tracks featuring lush, vintage keyboard sounds, making extensive use of Mellotron, Mini-Moog, Hammond C-3 and harpsichord, along with beautiful electric and acoustic guitar playing, a complex rhythm section along with flutes, recorder, saxophones, mandolins and various other instruments providing a very full, symphonic sound.
Highly recommended for fans of the early progressive greats and symphonic prog music.
Blue Cheer's debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, was widely and accurately described as "the loudest record ever made" when it first appeared in early 1968, and the band seemingly had the good sense to realize that for sheer brutal impact, there was little chance they could top it. So for their second LP, Outsideinside (which appeared a mere seven months later), rather than aim for something bigger and more decibel intensive, Blue Cheer decided to see how much polish they could add to their formula without blunting the skull-crushing force of their live attack.
Blue Cheer's debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, was widely and accurately described as "the loudest record ever made" when it first appeared in early 1968, and the band seemingly had the good sense to realize that for sheer brutal impact, there was little chance they could top it. So for their second LP, Outsideinside (which appeared a mere seven months later), rather than aim for something bigger and more decibel intensive, Blue Cheer decided to see how much polish they could add to their formula without blunting the skull-crushing force of their live attack.
After working with two monstrously loud guitar heroes, Leigh Stephens and Randy Holden, Blue Cheer wanted to pursue a more subtle musical direction, and on their fourth album, simply titled Blue Cheer, they followed the path of the first half of 1969's New! Improved! Blue Cheer, featuring guitarist Bruce Stephens and keyboard man Ralph Burns Kellogg, instead of the power trio format they pioneered on their first two albums and the second half of New! Improved! with Holden…
Rock & roll had grown louder and wilder by leaps and bounds during the '60s, but when Blue Cheer emerged from San Francisco onto the national rock scene in 1968 with their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, they crossed a line which most musicians and fans hadn't even thought to draw yet. Vincebus Eruptum sounds monolithically loud and primal today, but it must have seemed like some sort of frontal assault upon first release; Blue Cheer are often cited as the first genuine heavy metal band, but that in itself doesn't quite sum up the true impact of this music, which even at a low volume sounds crushingly forceful. Though Blue Cheer's songs were primarily rooted in the blues, what set them apart from blues-rock progenitors such as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds was the massive physical force of their musical attack.
Rock & roll had grown louder and wilder by leaps and bounds during the '60s, but when Blue Cheer emerged from San Francisco onto the national rock scene in 1968 with their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, they crossed a line which most musicians and fans hadn't even thought to draw yet. Vincebus Eruptum sounds monolithically loud and primal today, but it must have seemed like some sort of frontal assault upon first release; Blue Cheer are often cited as the first genuine heavy metal band, but that in itself doesn't quite sum up the true impact of this music, which even at a low volume sounds crushingly forceful. Though Blue Cheer's songs were primarily rooted in the blues, what set them apart from blues-rock progenitors such as the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds was the massive physical force of their musical attack.