What are you listening to?

[garbon]

Mary J. Blige - Family Affair

[The Minsky Moment]

Ray Baretto - Acid (1968).   

Wonder who did the recording work in the studio, the sound is gritty, almost harsh with some distortion in the vocals.  I assume intentional effort to give it a "street" sound.

[mongers]

ELO - 'Time' this album just makes me smile. 

I love the melancholic 'Ticket to the Moon'

[PDH]

ELO - 'Time' this album just makes me smile. 

I love the melancholic 'Ticket to the Moon'

I always thought that, while not their best, it is a damn good album.  Far better than "Secret Messages" that followed it.  The song "Here is the news" was prescient.

[mongers]

ELO - 'Time' this album just makes me smile. 

I love the melancholic 'Ticket to the Moon'

I always thought that, while not their best, it is a damn good album.  Far better than "Secret Messages" that followed it.  The song "Here is the news" was prescient.

Too true. 

[Savonarola]

Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg (2020)

If you were too cool for school in the late 80s/pre-Nevermind 90s you'll probably like this.  You can hear the influence of the "Alternative" rock bands throughout, most especially Sonic Youth.  The vocalist doesn't even bother singing; she just makes wry observations and non-sequiturs throughout much like Kim Gordon.  Consequently the songs don't have a typical verse-chorus structure, they're more akin to jams.  I enjoyed it; nothing will ever replace "Daydream Nation," but this was still fun.

[Josephus]

King Crimson ... Islands.(1971)

A new album and a new lineup again, although this one featured the touring band of the previous album Lizard. Mel Collins's saxophone really stands out on this, perhaps their most jazz-influenced album, especially on the title track. Highlights include the funky Ladies of the Road and the haunting The Letters.
As with previous Crim albums, the band would break up after the recording; although this time it was supposed to be permanent. At least for now.

[Savonarola]

Pharaoh Sanders - Floating Points (2021)

At my age I've found that it's sometimes hard to shake the feeling that I've heard it all before.  This album is a new one on me; it sounds like a jam session between Pharaoh Sanders and the Elves of Rivendell.  It's a musical conversation between Pharaoh Sanders and The London Symphony Orchestra, only the LSO is playing all this trippy ethereal music and Pharaoh Sanders is playing his usual sax.  It's not bad, it's just kind of strange.  I am glad to see that the Pharaoh is still soldiering on; I think he just turned eighty.

[PDH]

Jethro Tull - Stormwatch (Remixed and expanded)  A well done remix, with the original album followed by other pieces from the era.  The last "70's Tull" album, before Ian Anderson broke up the mix and reformed a mostly new lineup for the next album ("A").  Stormwatch is one of my favorite Tull albums, and I love the two instrumental pieces.

Dun Ringill is one of my all time favorite pieces by them.

[Josephus]

Jethro Tull - Stormwatch (Remixed and expanded)  A well done remix, with the original album followed by other pieces from the era.  The last "70's Tull" album, before Ian Anderson broke up the mix and reformed a mostly new lineup for the next album ("A").  Stormwatch is one of my favorite Tull albums, and I love the two instrumental pieces.

Dun Ringill is one of my all time favorite pieces by them.

Yeah, I have the four disc version. One of the only ones I bought (Got Heavy Horses too). Stormwatch is one of my faves, but never gets rated as highly as, say, Brick or Aqualung

[Savonarola]

Did anyone else hear the lines in "Divers License" by Olivia Rodrigo:

Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me
'Cause you said forever now I drive alone past your street

And immediately think, "Well Forever Changes" 

Love got the title for their album from a sentiment like that.  According to Wikipedia:

The title of the album came from a story that Lee had heard about a friend-of-a-friend who had broken up with his girlfriend. She exclaimed, "You said you would love me forever!" and he replied, "Well, forever changes."

[Eddie Teach]

Forever ever?

[Savonarola]

Aretha Franklin – Soul '69 (1969)

Way more jazz and pop than soul; this album has a number of excellent covers by the Queen, but it's hard to overlook the closing track "The Bright Elusive Butterfly of Love."  Aretha could make the song her own, but even she still couldn't make it good.

[Syt]

Liquid Tension Experiment (a prog group with John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy and Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater and Tony Levin from King Crimson) have released a new album which includes a fantastic interpretation of Gershwin's Rhypsody in Blue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_Tension_Experiment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkrZhQLD92Y

[The Minsky Moment]

Lee Morgan-Wayne Shorter Vee Jay Sessions (1960)

Vee Jay was an R&B/Blues/Gospel label out of Chicago, a rival to Chess in the 1950s and 60s, but African-American owned.  They are probably most famous for acquiring rights to the first US album release of an obscure north English band called the "Beatles" and the legal hijinks that ensued when EMI-Capitol began to realize the scale of potential American interest and played hardball to get the rights back. Vee Jay went bankrupt shortly after that but they got the last laugh on Chess - while the Chess master tapes all went up in smoke in the Universal fire, at least some of the Vee Jay master tapes are still intact.

This was before all that. Chess started up a jazz focused label on the side in the mid-1950s - Argo - and had a big hit with Ahmad Jamal at the Pershing.  Vee Jay noticed and came up with a pretty clever idea of its own.  In addition to focusing on midwest-based acts like Argo did, they went to the side players in the most popular New York based acts like Miles Davis and Art Blakey's Jazz Messenger and gave then a chance to record as leaders. That included big talents like Morgan - then the hottest trumpet player around - and Shorter who despite his young years was the musical director of the Messenger and would later supply much of the material used by Davis' 60s era second quintet.

Almost all these recordings are available to stream under their original album titles: Here's Lee Morgan, Expoopident, The Young Lions, Introducing Wayne Shorter, Second Genesis, and Wayning Moments.