The Forever Story

A 3-CD set, “Looking Through A Glass Onion” assembles these disparate strands into one cohesive package, with the studio day trippers, the cultural pranksters, the genre-benders, the folk club stalwarts and the hair-down-to-his-knees prog-rock brigade all grooving up slowly to the starting line.

Various Artists - The Chess Story: 1947-1975 (2000) {14CD Box Set, MCA–Universal 3805962}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 4.61 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 178 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1947-75, 2000 MCA / Universal | 3805962
Blues / Chicago Blues / Electric Blues / Regional Blues

First the good news, which is really good: the sound on this 340-song set is about as good as one ever fantasized it could be, and that means it runs circles around any prior reissues; from the earliest Aristocrat sides by the Five Blazers and Jump Jackson & His Orchestra right up through Muddy Waters' "Going Down to Main Street," it doesn't get any better than this set. The clarity pays a lot of bonuses, beginning with the impression that it gives of various artists' instrumental prowess. In sharp contrast to the past efforts in this direction by MCA, however, the producers of this set have not emasculated the sound in the course of cleaning it up, as was the case with the Chuck Berry box, in particular.

Gato Barbieri may be one of those saxophonists whose sound is so closely associated with smooth jazz – and has been since the late '70s – that it's hard to imagine he was once the progenitor of a singular kind of jazz fusion: and that's world fusion, not jazz-rock fusion. Barbieri recorded four albums for Impulse! between 1973 and 1975 that should have changed jazz forever, in that he provided an entirely new direction when it was desperately needed. That it didn't catch certainly isn't his fault, but spoke more to the dearth of new ideas that followed after the discoveries of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Miles Davis. Barbieri, a Coltrane disciple, hailed from Argentina and sought to bring the music of Latin America, most specifically its folk forms, into the jazz arena.

Sometimes it seems like the Smithereens' entire career was mistimed. After the relative success of 11, Pat DiNizio and company returned with their most straightforward and mainstream-ready release yet in Blow Up. Produced by Ed Stasium, the mix is arena ready and clean, and DiNizio co-wrote two of the disc's most accessible songs with songwriters Diane Warren and Julian Lennon…

The set was advertised vigourously in the national press from 5th November 1980 through into 1981. This means it was at the forefront right across the period of John's murder, and therefore sales must have been quite good, but as this box set was sold only by mail order the figures did not qualify for chart entry, and consequently are not publicly known.