Monthly Archives: March 2022

VIA PRESS RELEASE | James Brown had the Apollo. Jimi Hendrix had Monterey Pop. And Prince had Syracuse, New York’s Carrier Dome—the March 30, 1985 Purple Rain Tour stop that was beamed to millions live via satellite and captured for posterity in the Grammy Award-nominated concert film Prince and The Revolution: Live, and which has since gone down in history as one of the most iconic live recordings in pop and rock history.

For the first time, this powerful performance by Prince and The Revolution has been remixed from the original 2” multitrack master reels and the film has been digitally enhanced onto Blu-ray video with selectable stereo, 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos sound. Prince’s late-career and Grammy-nominated recording engineer, Chris James, remixed the recently discovered source audio, which had remained archived in Prince’s legendary Paisley Park vault for over three decades. The new release of Prince and The Revolution: Live will be available June 3, 2022, and marks the first time that the concert will be available on vinyl (as a 3-LP set) and on CD (as a 2-CD/Blu-ray set).

In conjunction with the physical formats, Prince and The Revolution: Live is also the first Prince release to be made available to supporting digital streaming platforms in spatial audio, as it will be delivered in Dolby Atmos. The first preview track, the jaw-dropping show opener “Let’s Go Crazy,” was made available today. Pre-order Prince and The Revolution: Live and hear “Let’s Go Crazy” here.

Additionally, a limited run Collector’s Edition of the iconic performance will be available exclusively from the official Prince Store. Housed in a luxe foil box, the set includes the remixed and remastered audio pressed onto 3 colored LPs (purple, red, and gold vinyl), 2 CDs, the Blu-ray video, an expansive 44-page book complete with never-before-seen photos of the Purple Rain Tour, new liner notes highlighting stories and memories from all five members of The Revolution, and a limited run 24 x 36 poster. The Collector’s Edition was designed by Grammy-nominated artist Mathieu Bitton and Grammy-nominated creative director and Prince associate Trevor Guy.

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Fans of The Beatles have no shortage of excellent new books related to the group to read these days. A slew of tomes that cover a wide variety of topics have come out lately and all are not to be missed.

Bruce Spizer continues to write and publish some of the best books on the Beatles. Along with Mark Lewisohn, he is one of the foremost experts on the group in the world. Spizer started out by writing and publishing several books that dissected the history of the group, primarily through the volumes he wrote on the record labels that released the group’s music, with an emphasis on Vee-Jay, Parlophone, Capitol, and Apple.

His books about Apple Records also covered solo recordings from members of The Beatles. These oversized editions were sturdy, hardcover books, with slick color art, heavy on detail, and truly definitive works. They are not just for the serious reader of books on The Beatles, but also for those who love beautiful books filled with a myriad of images related to the group’s recorded output. For several years now, Spizer has changed direction and is writing and publishing books that focus on individual albums and are in a more compact 9 x 9 format.

The latest book in this Albums Series is The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine (498 Productions). Like the previous editions in the series, the text gives an informed look at the music and times, with additional contributions from Spizer’s regular collaborators and fan recollections.

The books make wonderful companions to the deluxe reissue packages on the music of The Beatles that have come out since Sgt. Pepper, although this latest book works better in tandem with the respective film reissue packages. Serious fans of The Beatles will want to have all of the books Spizer has written and published on the group and keep them close to their collection of the music and films of the group.

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Having emerged as part of New York City’s avant-garde spiritual jazz loft scene of the 1970s, saxophonist and flautist Alan Braufman is still active, having cut an LP in 2020 and with another on the way. Alongside these fresh excursions sits a handful of choice reissues and archival releases, with the latest, Live in New York City, February 9, 1975 available April 8 as a 3LP/ 2CD/ digital set on the Valley of Search label. Documenting a recently unearthed 94-minute concert originally broadcast over radio shortly after Braufman’s first album was recorded but before its release, it features an inspired band that includes bassist William Parker and multi-instrumentalist Cooper-Moore.

In late June of 2018, the Valley of Search label reissued the Valley of Search LP, Alan Braufman’s debut, originally put in the racks by the India Navigation imprint in 1975 with a lineup of Braufman on sax, Cooper-Moore (then known as Gene Ashton) on piano, dulcimer, and recitation, Cecil McBee on bass, David Lee on drums, and Ralph Williams on percussion.

The return to widespread availability of Braufman’s debut was a sweet and surprising turn of events, throwing a vivid spotlight on an exceptional improvising unit and with an underheard contributor to the ’70s NYC avant-garde experience as the organizational catalyst. Just as unexpected and equally as cool was the arrival of Live at WKCR May 22, 1972 in 2019, offering nearly 18 minutes of scorch and rumble from Braufman on sax and Cooper-Moore on piano on a one-sided LP in a limited edition of 250 (with copies still available via Bandcamp).

Spread across five sides of vinyl, Live in New York City, February 9, 1975 is a much more expansive affair, recorded in a church (per Valley of Search’s online trailer) that apparently doubled as radio station WBAI’s Free Music Store, with host Susan Mannheimer announcing two sets (she also contributes liner notes to the release) by Braufman on sax and flute, Cooper-Moore on piano, the ashimba (a self-built 11-note xylophone made from discarded wood) and recitation, William Parker on bass, John Clark on French horn, Jim Schapperoew on drums, and Ralph Williams on percussion.

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The Oscars were telecast on March 27th. Hans Zimmer won best original score for Dune, “No Time To Die” by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell won best original song. Although Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch surprisingly received zero nominations, the film’s original soundtrack album should not be overlooked.

One of the delights of the films of Wes Anderson is the music. It’s no secret that Anderson is a huge fan of the key British bands of the mid-’60s, particularly the mod pop bands of the Swinging London period. This may be partially why many of his soundtracks are released through ABKCO Records, the label that owns the London Records/Decca years catalog of the music of The Rolling Stones that covers all of the group’s 1960s recordings.

There are other sounds Anderson clearly loves, including the kind of sophisticated continental European film soundtrack and pop music sound that wouldn’t be out of place in movies from France or Italy that were made in the ’50s or early ’60s.

These tracks are all wonderful musical touchstones and add greatly to Anderson’s films by either placing appropriate period music in a certain scene, or serve as a counterpoint to contemporary action that adds a gauzy romantic verisimilitude to the film. If all that wasn’t enough, Anderson has employed on five soundtracks the music of French film composer Alexandre Desplat since Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009. Desplat won one of his two Oscars for best-original score for the soundtrack music he provided for Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, both animated Anderson features, garnered Oscar nominations for him.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Blue Velvet is David Lynch’s unforgettable 1986 masterwork, starring Kyle MacLachlan as a curious college student, Isabella Rossellini as a tormented lounge singer, and Dennis Hopper as an emotional gas-sniffing psychopath.

Blue Velvet was Lynch’s first collaboration with his longtime composer and musical partner, Angelo Badalamenti, who channels Lynch’s unique vision with a dark, moody yet melodic score, at turns agitated and violent, soaring with sublime beauty, and hanging cool with ’50s-style jazz. The long-available single LP has been expanded by 60 minutes to a 2-LP Deluxe Edition with the addition of the famous 1963 recording of “Blue Velvet,” performed by Bobby Vinton, as well as previously unreleased film cues, alternates and outtakes entitled “Lumberton Firewood.”

Although Blue Velvet was scored more traditionally than later Lynch projects, the director and composer intended many tracks to be merely “firewood,” their term for raw orchestral sonorities to be edited and manipulated into sound design by the director. The Deluxe Edition packaging features liner notes by Tim Greiving, incorporating new interviews with David Lynch, Angelo Badalamenti, Kyle MacLachlan, and producer Fred Caruso. The cover features the original 1986 Italian movie poster art designed by Enzo Sciotti. Pressed on Marbleized Blue vinyl exclusively for RSD 2022.

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Bursting onto the scene 50 years ago, Roxy Music’s blend of glam rock and art rock proved highly influential while being impossible to imitate, as the music of singer Bryan Ferry, synthesist Brian Eno, saxophonist Andy Mackay, guitarist Phil Manzanera, and drummer Paul Thompson was simply drenched in personality. On April 1, Virgin/UMe’s vinyl reissue program of the band’s eight studio albums begins with debut Roxy Music and its 1973 follow-up For Your Pleasure, both half speed mastered at Abbey Road Studios by the engineer Miles Showell. Bluntly, these four sides of wax are indispensable to any collection of 20th century rock music.

Looking back on it, it feels wholly appropriate to describe Roxy Music as coming out of nowhere in 1972. Their debut LP arrived sans any pre-release singles, with “Virginia Plain” b/w “The Numberer,” the band’s first 45, cut just short of a month after Roxy Music’s release, a short enough span that its hit A-side was added to nearly all later pressings of the album (on the subject, please note that Virgin/UMe’s release retains the sequence of the UK first edition).

The nature of the band’s arrival is nicely encapsulated by Roxy Music’s opening track “Re-make/Re-model.” After a passage of what might be intended as dinner party ambiance (shades of Ferry the pure sophisticate to come), Roxy explodes forth, maximally but methodically, and by song’s end it’s clear that in this particular outfit at this point in time, nobody was taking a back seat (well, except maybe bassist Graham Simpson, who exited after the LP’s release, with Rik Kenton stepping in for “Virginia Plain,” only to be quickly replaced on For Your Pleasure by John Porter).

This is not to suggest that Roxy Music lacked in restraint; “Ladytron” on side one of Roxy Music and “Chance Meeting” on the flip offer solid evidence of such, even amongst flare-ups of experimentation. However, Roxy’s reality during this era was much more inclined toward the audacious. In its own way, Roxy Music is as much a line in the sand as The Stooges’ Funhouse before it or The Ramones after.

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