During the final week of 1971, The Band played four legendary concerts at New York City's Academy Of Music, ushering in the New Year with electrifying performances, including new horn arrangements by Allen Toussaint and a surprise guest appearance by Bob Dylan for a New Year's Eve encore. Select highlights from the concerts were compiled for The Band's classic 1972 double LP, Rock Of Ages, which peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and remains a core album in the trailblazing group's storied Capitol Records catalog.
Step forward the eighth set in Ace's mid-price series of vintage B.B. King recordings based on his albums released on the Crown label. Between 1957 and 1963, the Bihari brothers' dime store label released 12 albums, comprised of singles from their RPM and Kent labels, tracks from the vaults, plus dedicated album sessions. Despite the "cheap and cheerful" production values, the B.B. King Crown albums became collectors' items due to the high quality of B.B.'s recordings and the eye-catching artwork. The LPs were a discographical headache until Ace was able to unravel the details.
Jimmy Giuffre may not have gotten his due with American audiences outside very specific kinds of jazz circles, but he was loved and respected by other musicians and the audiences of Europe and Asia. His reputation among those groups of listeners and players is well deserved for the radical, if quiet and unassuming path he walked throughout his seven-decade career. These sides, recorded between 1956 and 1959 with guitarist Jim Hall, his most symbiotic collaborator and foil, are at the heart of his reputation as a pioneer – even more so than his killer early-'60s sides (à la Free Fall) with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow.
In 1996, art-design maestro Russell Mills assembled the tremendously impressive Undark collective – both Brian and Roger Eno, David Sylvian, Bill Laswell, the Edge, Kevin Shields, Robin Guthrie, Hywel Davies, etc. – for an LP of guitar-damaged beatscapes and textured invisible-soundtracks. Strange Familiar is an astonishing work, ebbing and flowing better than any other album in recent memory. Mills and his crew don't always wait for the next track marker to introduce a new theme, resulting in a work that pays huge dividends over the course of a full listen.
2011 limited edition LP replica release by Phoenix Records. Classic wasted stoner rock from 1971. Joint 1st in Julian Cope’s Top 50 Japanese album chart (along with Flower Traveling Band’s Satori). Speed, Glue & Shinki's landmark debut album, 1971's Eve, is one of the greatest contradictions of its time (maybe all time): a primitive, deranged, and at times downright sloppy mutation of acid blues and proto-metal, akin to the Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills Super Session crashing headlong into earliest Zeppelin and Sabbath records, as performed by musicians whose instrumental chops were actually beyond reproach…but you'd never be able to tell from this!
We're at that season when, imperceptibly, autumn may slip away. As the days shorten and become more cloudy, windy and cold, the richness of this time of year will vanish, the landscape shedding its autumnal tones to reveal those of winter. With its generic fall foliage cover, the vanity release from Kris and Jerry captures these fleeting moments of beauty, when the leaves are turning to gold among a palette of vibrant yellow, russet and remaining green. Here is A Sunny Day, without the harsh glare of summer. Gentle breezes have escorted many leaves to the ground with the last warming rays. The low sun still retains radiance enough to brush the wooded peaks with brilliant light and the air is carrying with it ripe fragrances that tease the senses.
Cardboard sleeve (mini LP) reissue from Azteca featuring the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (compatible with standard CD players) and the latest remastering. Comes with an obi reprint, a new description, and lyrics. Part of a two-album Azteca Blu-spec CD cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring albums "Azteca" and "Pyramid Of The Moon."
Four discs (104 tracks in all) that exhaustively document the Mercury, Roulette, and Old Town output of big-band veteran Buddy Johnson, whose eternally swinging outfit was seductively fronted by his sister Ella (along with several interchangeable male crooners). Buddy's band wasn't as big as it once was during his Mercury tenure (tenor saxman Purvis Henson was at the core of the blazing horn section), but the tightly arranged New York-style sizzle remained.
From Minneapolis, the Litter were one of the finest bands to emerge from the Midwest garage scene. Their debut lp, "Distortions," is considered a classic of the garage/psychedelic movement, with their gloriously fuzzed drenched takes of classics by the Who, Spencer Davis, the Small Faces, and Yardbirds, to name a few. The results gained the Litter exposure, and gave them the confidence to go back to the studio to work on their sophomore effort.
Quartet Records, Gruppo Sugar and Cinevox are proud to present an exclusive four disc box set featuring music from the classics films of Michelangelo Antonioni – featuring music by Giovanni Fusco (L’avventura, L’eclisse, Il deserto rosso) and Giorgio Gaslini (La notte). Antonioni: Suoni del Silenzio includes four CDs for four films from the director’s early Italian masterpieces commonly referred to as the “Lack of Communication Cinema.” The series begins with L’avventura, the harrowing tale about a missing woman whose disappearance leads to a new and conflicted romance between her man and her best friend. The music by Giovanni Fusco is a spirited reflection upon the Southern Italian setting, including the breathtaking final shot at Taormina. The collection includes all the original music used in the film, plus several previously unreleased alternate takes.