The companion piece to Conversations (recorded at the same mid-1963 sessions with producer Alan Douglas), Iron Man is every bit as essential and strikes a more consistent ambience than its widely varied twin. It also more clearly anticipates the detailed, abstract sound paintings of Dolphy's masterwork Out to Lunch, in large part because this time around the program is weighted toward Dolphy originals. "Iron Man," "Burning Spear," and the shorter "Mandrake" all have pretty outside themes, full of Dolphy's trademark wide interval leaps and playful sense of dissonance.
Howard Roberts was a talented guitarist on the level of a Barney Kessel or Herb Ellis, who spent most of his career playing commercial music in the studios. Shortly after he moved to Los Angeles in 1950, Roberts was firmly established in the studios, although on occasion he recorded jazz (most notably twice for Verve during 1956-1959, a Concord session from 1977, and one for Discovery in 1979); however, most of his other output is of lesser interest.
Color Him Funky (1963). Recorded with organ trio, Howard is slick and soulful. Find this one and you'll smile and tap your foot. The organ sounds a bit dated, but it's part of the charm…
Superlatives are inadequate for the box record company Universal Music recently released. Two hundred hits on ten CDs, hundreds of hits and a lot of TV and news clips on five DVDs and then another book as reference book. It can not be on. The disadvantage of the Testament of the sixties is that for a hundred euros a hefty investment. The advantage that you are now ready to be a hit with your sixties Collection.
Superlatives are inadequate for the box record company Universal Music recently released. Two hundred hits on ten CDs, hundreds of hits and a lot of TV and news clips on five DVDs and then another book as reference book. It can not be on. The disadvantage of the Testament of the sixties is that for a hundred euros a hefty investment. The advantage that you are now ready to be a hit with your sixties Collection.
In May 1965, Lou Reed was a 23-year-old staff songwriter and session musician for Pickwick Records in New York, churning out doo-wop and rock ’n’ roll “soundalike” singles to be sold in drugstores. There he was introduced to his future Velvet Underground bandmate, the Welsh-born John Cale, when the label put the two of them together for a house band called The Primitives. (They would go on to make the jokey novelty song “The Ostrich.”) Reed could write teen pop hits at a rapid clip, but his real creative focus essentially starts with this foundational document, Words & Music, May 1965, which he made with Cale and which includes the first known recordings of some of the Velvets’ most well-known songs. There’s almost nothing thematically linking his former dime-store hits-for-hire and these strands of The Velvet Underground’s underbelly-surveying DNA. But the collection (the first in a series of archival releases) does highlight the songwriting discipline and rigor that would see Reed through countless stylistic changes and a 50-plus-year career as one of America’s most important artists.