Live at Reading

Originally released as a four-song bonus EP with the U.K. edition of Armed Forces, then excerpted with an additional six songs on Rhino’s double-disc expansion of said album in 2002, Live at Hollywood High received a full-blown reissue in 2010, almost 32 years after the June 4, 1978 concert from Elvis Costello & the Attractions. As the second installment of the Costello Show archival series, Live at Hollywood High isn’t as legendary as Live at the El Mocambo, which had the benefit of once being one of Elvis Costello’s rarest records, but it’s a better show, or at least a better indication of the Attractions at their absolute peak.

Originally released as a four-song bonus EP with the U.K. edition of Armed Forces, then excerpted with an additional six songs on Rhino’s double-disc expansion of said album in 2002, Live at Hollywood High received a full-blown reissue in 2010, almost 32 years after the June 4, 1978 concert from Elvis Costello & the Attractions. As the second installment of the Costello Show archival series, Live at Hollywood High isn’t as legendary as Live at the El Mocambo, which had the benefit of once being one of Elvis Costello’s rarest records, but it’s a better show, or at least a better indication of the Attractions at their absolute peak.

Originally released as a four-song bonus EP with the U.K. edition of Armed Forces, then excerpted with an additional six songs on Rhino’s double-disc expansion of said album in 2002, Live at Hollywood High received a full-blown reissue in 2010, almost 32 years after the June 4, 1978 concert from Elvis Costello & the Attractions. As the second installment of the Costello Show archival series, Live at Hollywood High isn’t as legendary as Live at the El Mocambo, which had the benefit of once being one of Elvis Costello’s rarest records, but it’s a better show, or at least a better indication of the Attractions at their absolute peak.

On August 31, 1970, Leonard Cohen was scheduled to play the third Isle of Wight Festival. The conditions were not optimal. While 100,000 or so tickets had been sold, there were nearly 600,000 in attendance. Fans overran the island to see and hear the Who, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, and many others over five days…

This is the kind of series that could last forever pianist Dena DeRose seems to have an endless supply of well- and little-known tunes from the collected songbooks and both the music and performances are timeless. The second set from the same evening that produced Volume One (MAXJAZZ, 2007), this has the same in-the-moment sense of place and, what sounds like a contradiction in terms, a recorded spontaneity.