Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Remembering Muddy Waters, born on this day in 1913. —Ed.

Where to start with the music of that sly titan of 20th century music Muddy Waters? Some will advise an inquisitive newbie to invest in an exhaustive multi-disc box set that retails in the neighborhood of a Franklin, while a closet Johnny Winter-aficionado might recommend one of his late-‘70s LPs for the Blue Sky label (and that’s definitely not the place to begin.) However, the most sensible way to commence a journey into the everlasting goodness of McKinley Morganfield is to simply follow the path many thousands have already made, and it leads directly to the doorstep of 1958’s extraordinarily enlightening The Best of Muddy Waters.

While a certifiable embarrassment of great LPs have been made since the format was first introduced in 1948, they don’t all command the same level of historical respect, even from individuals that happen to hold a deep relationship to the sounds those less revered records contain. For instance, after giving the realms of heavy-duty music connoisseurship a good inspection, there is no doubt that the Best of/Greatest Hits LP continues to shoulder something of a bad reputation, with its appeal often denigrated as being directed mostly to dabblers.

These records, awarded to artists who had managed to secure a handful of creative and/or commercial highpoints either in one fast spurt or in some period of sustained longevity, are reliably frowned upon by more intense listeners as essentially being easy primers designed by cash hungry record labels with the intention of giving more casual ears a quick fix and some level of conversance (a sort of career Cliff Notes, if you will) to discographies of considerable distinction.

That’s not necessarily an incorrect assessment. But there are other elements in the scenario, as anyone who ever got turned on to Donovan through their parent’s well-worn copy of his wildly popular Greatest Hits LP can surely understand. And when handed down by older siblings as they slouched off to spend four years in a cramped college dorm, the Best of/Greatest Hits album has surely functioned as a gateway into substantial musical discoveries of all types.

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Guitarist Mike Baggetta, bassist Mike Watt, and drummer Stephen Hodges comprise the trio mssv. Their latest LP is On and On, available now on vinyl in an edition of 500 copies and digital through BIG EGO Records. The digital release offers eight tracks and the LP adds six band-improvised link pieces to the eight selections to create two continuous and sweetly psychedelic album sides. The vividly twisted cover art by John Herndon of Tortoise complements these atmospheres very nicely. mssv is currently touring and play tonight 4/3 in Washington, DC at the Pearl Street Warehouse.

mssv describe themselves as a post-genre power trio. This essentially means they roam around a lot stylistically, which fits given the band’s diversity of background. Baggetta comes from the jazz scene where he’s part of a contemporary guitar renaissance of sorts. Hodges has recorded extensively as a session drummer with recurring credits in the discographies of Tom Waits and Mavis Staples. And Watt is the highest profile member of mssv, having played a crucial role in the Minutemen, fIREHOSE, and the reunited Stooges plus solo work and additional band projects and session gigs of his own.

Naturally, there is some overlap in the backgrounds that’s pertinent to the formation of mssv. Hodges was one third of the band that recorded Watt’s 1997 album Contemplating the Engine Room. Guitarist Nels Cline completed the Engine Room trio; he joined mssv for a 2-song 45 released in 2022. Most importantly, in 2019 Baggetta and Watt cut the Wall of Flowers album with Jim Keltner on drums. Keltner doesn’t tour, so Hodges stepped in for the live shows, which resulted in Live Flowers, a 2019 CD credited to main steam stop valve (or mssv for short).

From there, mssv has cut three studio full-lengths, Main Steam Stop Valve (2020), Human Reaction (2023), and now, On and On. Two additional 45s, “Media Kittens” b/w “When the Hoarding Has Ended” (2020) and “The Scott Aicher EP” (2021) complete the mssv discography. Baggetta, Keltner, and Watt also released a second album, Everywhen You Go (2022).

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On April 4, veteran UK post-punkers The Nightingales, led as ever by vocalist Robert Lloyd, return with The Awful Truth, an appropriately bent reaction to the sorry state of the world. It’s available on red vinyl and compact disc from Fire Records. Joining Lloyd in The Nightingales are Andreas Schmid on bass, Fliss Kitson on drums, and James Smith on guitar.

Formed in 1979, The Nightingales rose from the ashes of The Prefects, an exquisitely amateurish first wave punk outfit noted for their inclusion on the White Riot tour of The Clash and for playing with UK punk heavyweights Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Fall, and The Slits. The Prefects didn’t get a record out until after they’d broken up, but The Nightingales managed three full-lengths, three EPs, and seven singles during the first stretch of their existence, which lasted until 1987 amid a slew of personnel changes. Recommencing activity in 2004, the sole constant has been vocalist Robert Lloyd.

In their initial run, The Nightingales pulled off an impressive feat, increasing in competence without softening their sound for the mainstream, instead leaning into a bold strain of post-punk, often with a raw, wild edge, and with nods to indie pop and the UK DIY scene. This made them John Peel favorites. All three of the ’80s full lengths, Pigs on Purpose (1982), Hysterics (1983), and In the Good Old Country Way (1986) have been reissued by Fire subsidiary Call of the Void.

The Nightingales haven’t floundered in their return to action (Lloyd seems to have gotten the misstep out of his system with a 1990 major label solo album Me and My Mouth). And this second stretch of Nightingales action has reinforced similarities to fellow punk-era survivors with an edge The Membranes and The Mekons. Deepening a connection to The Mekons, The Awful Truth’s opener “The New Emperor’s New Clothes” is a spirited stomper with viola in the mix.

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It’s still early, but Guerssen Records’ lovingly assembled collection documenting the obscure Los Gatos, CA-based late 1960s outfit Weird Herald is poised to be one of the major archival discoveries of 2025. Just Yesterday is offered as an 11-song LP accompanied with a download card rounding up 11 more selections; the CD corrals 18 of the tracks. Both sets situate Weird Herald as far more than just another hunk of unearthed gristle thrown to salivating obsessives of ’60s psych rock. Kudos to Guerssen for spotlighting this major lost band and expanding the historical landscape once again.

Of course there’s a booklet loaded with info detailing Weird Heard’s unluckiness as a band and detailing relationships to Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, and the Doobie Brothers. Rather than regurgitate the tale in this review, it suffices to simply relate the band’s formation by guitarists Paul Ziegler and Billy Dean Andrus, the latter a high school friend and playing partner of Alexander “Skip” Spence, noted as a founding member of both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape. For these recordings, bassist Cecil Bollinger and drummer Pat McIntire round out the band.

Weird Herald’s only official release during their existence was a promo single issued by the Onyx label in 1968. The B-side of that 45, a very appealing slice of gentle folk-rock, provides the Guerssen collection with its title. “Just Yesterday” is of a piece with the record’s other track, “Saratoga James,” as both selections thrive on exceptional fingerpicking, although the plug side inches nearer to the then nascent singer-songwriter side of the folk equation.

The single was essentially a managerial decision, with the choice of songs intended to emphasize Weird Herald’s less disruptive side (shortly thereafter they did play a handful of shows opening for the great Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete and his trio), but the band had considerable range, and as Just Yesterday’s highlights “Canyon Women” and “In the Country” make clear, they could lay it down raw and heavy while maintaining a commitment to song form.

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Celebrating Herb Alpert on his 90th birthday. —Ed.

Herb Alpert is often praised as a veteran bigwig of the record industry who possessed a measure of taste alongside his business acumen. He’s even more notable for his trumpet playing and leadership of a crucial if not necessarily hip 1960s outfit; Whipped Cream & Other Delights is the most popular LP from Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass; it’s also their best.

Let’s get it out of the way right up front; nobody in the Tijuana Brass was from Mexico. They were in fact a purely studio concoction at the outset with Alpert overdubbing his trumpet for increased vibrancy. Naturally, these realities have led many to rashly assume the (largely) instrumental venture effectively putting A&M Records (stands for Alpert and Moss, as in executive Jerry Moss) on the map was an exercise in total squaresville.

The theory ain’t necessarily wrong, as the Tijuana Brass albums remain amongst the highest profile artifacts produced in the Easy Listening era. Make no mistake; beginning with 1962’s The Lonely Bull and continuing well into the ‘70s, Herb Alpert strenuously avoided grating upon even a single human nerve. The objective was to sell a ton of records, which he and A&M did by undertaking a generationally inclusive approach and by appropriating a neighboring culture in a manner that, while surely dated today, was far less contemporaneously niche-driven than Alpert’s stylistic relatives in the Exotica field.

But like Les Baxter, Martin Denny and their ilk, there seemed to be a point where the consumers of Alpert’s records arrived at the conclusion that his stuff was either old hat or all of a sudden utterly out of step with their lives. The abovementioned heap of records was unloaded, though not necessarily into the bins of used record stores; instead, the Tijuana Brass was a staple of the antique shop, the consignment store, the Goodwill, the flea market, the yard/garage sale, and the Salvation Army.

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Celebrating Chuck Portz on his 80th birthday. —Ed.

On the subject of The Turtles, the first thing to cross many people’s minds will be “Happy Together,” their huge hit from 1967. They scored other hit singles, some bigger than others, but they also had some LPs, and the initial four all portray a distinct point in the group’s development. Their 1965 debut It Ain’t Me Babe features a young band striving to find an individual voice while attempting to capitalize on their first hit. It’s a situation that often spells disaster, but in this case it results in a record that while small of scale and not without faults, nonetheless remains a highly pleasurable listen.

I’m unsure if there’s ever been any real consensus over which of The Turtles’ string of original, non-comp albums is their greatest. Indeed, the group doesn’t really get discussed all that often in LP terms, at least in my experience. Instead, they seem to remain in the cultural discourse mainly as an exponent of the mid-‘60s folk-rock boom, one that was able to break free of the substantial Dylan-isms of their early work to score a handful of pop hits that successfully straddled the fence betwixt the youth market and the era’s more “adult” record-buying audience.

Underscoring this is the fact that the only Turtles LP to enter the top twenty of the Billboard Album Chart was a compilation, 1967’s Golden Hits. But release full-length records they did, and the personal favorite of this writer is probably 1968’s ambitious yet refreshingly level-headed concept offering The Turtles Present the Battle of the Bands. That album found them dishing out 12 songs in a diverse range of musical genres and all of it under the guise of different fictitious and humorously-named groups.

But that disc was also a substantial change from what they’d been doing up to that point, in some ways more indicative, mostly in terms of wit, of Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman’s post-Turtles work as Flo & Eddie, a run that began with 1972’s Mothers of Invention-aided and still pretty hep sounding Warner-Reprise-issued The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie. But they didn’t totally break from their past on Battle of the Bands, for it did include two of their biggest hit singles in “Elenore” and “You Showed Me,” both making it to the #6 spot.

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Remembering Ben Webster, born on this day in 1909. —Ed.

As one of the greatest of tenor saxophonists, Ben Webster amassed a sizable discography across a long career. His live performances were also extensive and on occasion, those nights were recorded. Released posthumously in 1985, At the Renaissance is a fine introduction to Webster’s full-bodied, mature style as he stretches out with a sharp band. There are certainly more important albums in Ben Webster’s body of work, but he rarely sounded better than he does right here.

Ben Webster is most renowned for his work with Duke Ellington, who he joined for an extended period in 1940 after playing in numerous bands, including those of Bennie Moten, Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter, and Cab Calloway. Considered one of the “big three” tenor saxophonists of the swing era (the others are Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young), Webster was the first major player on the instrument to have a significant role in Ellington’s band, though by 1943 he’d made his exit for the clubs of 52nd Street.

Webster briefly rejoined Ellington later in the decade (he’d first played with Duke in the mid-’30s), but from the mid-’40s onward his career path is noted for an association with promoter Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic initiative, co-led sessions with Hawkins, pianists Art Tatum and Oscar Pederson and saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, plus plenty of records and club dates as a leader.

At the Renaissance is just one of numerous albums capturing those club dates. Prior to departing for Europe in 1964, Webster gigged frequently at the Los Angeles club the Renaissance, often with Mulligan, but on October 14, 1960 he was leading the band heard here, with Jimmy Rowles on piano, Jim Hall on guitar, Red Mitchell on bass, and Frank Butler on drums.

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Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is considered to be one of the greats in the broad spectrum of 20th-century classical music, and he’s further distinguished as a trailblazer of “holy minimalism.” Befitting a composer of his stature, the discography of Pärt’s recorded works is vast, but from inside that number there resides a smaller group of releases holding particular import. On April 11, Mississippi Records’ Silentium is poised to join the list of essential Pärt recordings. Offering three selections on side one and a long and unique version of the title piece on the flip, the release is available on LP (in black or clear vinyl editions), CD, and digital. A 35”x35” silkscreen poster is also available.

Arvo Pärt came to prominence in his home country in the 1960s with a handful of recordings spanning the decade, but these are formative works that precede a long period of woodshedding after which Pärt reemerged with his tintinnabuli style of composing, a method where he utilizes two distinct voices (i.e. instruments), a tintinnabular voice restricted to the notes of the tonic triad and a melodic voice that can roam around freely.

Für Alina, first performed in 1976, introduced Pärt’s tintinnabuli style. It was eventually documented on one of numerous recordings made for the ECM label, a group of releases that comprise a significant chunk of his essential discography. The first recording of Pärt’s compositions released by ECM was Tabula Rasa in 1984, the title piece dating from 1977 scored for two solo violins, prepared piano, and string chamber orchestra (consisting of two violins, viola, cello, and contrabass).

The performance and recordings of Tabula Rasa were major successes integral to Pärt’s breakthrough as a composer and specifically as one of the three major pioneers of holy (or mystical) minimalism, alongside composers Henryk Górecki (of Poland) and John Tavener (of England). Holy minimalism is a sacred music of uncommonly deep feeling that’s strikingly devoid of concerns with passing fashions.

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With My Own Dead Love, the Milwaukee, WI-based outfit Sleepersound has just self-released their third full length album, a nine-song set that’s available on translucent green vinyl and digital. The music deftly encompasses elements of post-rock, shoegaze, indie rock, slow-core, dream-pop, and even a few touches of prog along the way. As on their previous efforts, Sleepersound can roll for significant stretches as a fully developed instrumental combo sans vocals, but when the singing does come in, the addition never connects as tacked on, instead adding an extra dimension to an already robust whole.

For this new LP, Sleepersound consist of guitarist-vocalist-keyboardists Dave D’Antonio and Kenny Buesing, bassist-keyboardist Mike Campise, and drummer Dan Niedziejko. So it has been since the beginning, with In Medias Res the band’s 2018 debut and Idle Voices its 2021 follow-up. From 2019–2021 Stephen Vincent Anderson provided a visual component, consisting of original and found footage, to the band’s live performances. Buesing exited the band in 2024, but not before the completion of My Own Dead Love.

On the post-rock side of the spectrum, Sleepersound have on more than one occasion been compared to Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and that’s a fair assessment to make, but it’s also important to pinpoint a lack of severity in their approach, and this is where the dream-pop and shoegaze sensibilities impact the sound and give their records a subtle Anglo feel, like they could’ve been signed to 4AD during that label’s heyday, or for that matter, right now.

For those hearing Sleepersound for the first time with My Own Dead Love, opener “Let’s Play Wolves” could give an initial false impression as it radiates moody indie folk vibes with mild inflections of Radiohead. But then “Tread Down” kicks the record into full-band gear, with chiming guitars, sturdy drumming and soaring vocals. There’s an atmospheric mid-section and then a slow build back up to full energy. It’s the kind of number that’ll go over huge during a live set.

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Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are well-versed as collaborators. Bone Bells, newly released by Pyroclastic Records, is their third recording as a duo. The often stunning set builds upon the fertile dialogue between the Switzerland native and longtime New York City resident Courvoisier’s deft intermingling of chamber music roots and boundary stretching jazz verve and Massachusetts-born and NYC-based Halvorson’s ceaselessly fresh and instantly recognizable approach to the electric jazz guitar. Available on compact disc in a 6-panel gatefold wallet featuring artwork by Joskin Siljan, Bone Bells offers eight pieces and an even compositional split.

With Bone Bells, Mary Halvorson gets the odd numbered tracks and Courvoisier the evens, but it’s striking how seamlessly they fit together. Better said, there is a flow to the set that, when listening blind, essentially undercuts any easy indicators into who wrote what. And once cognizant of the credits, the album’s engaging progression, and indeed Courvoisier’s playing, simultaneously chamber-inclined and jazz-inflected in the opening title track, suggests the two principals were writing with each other in mind, though without explicit detail into the process, this is a speculative observation.

What’s not a hypothetical is the communicative heights Courvoisier and Halvorson attain across Bone Bells. As a recording rooted in composition, the dialogue is more about tone, balance, and the ebb and flow of intensity, rather than the now well-established model of free-from duo exchange, though there are certainly moments, e.g. “Esmeralda” and “Beclouded,” where they do let it fly improvisationally.

But Bone Bells isn’t an abstract bruiser, instead offering beauty moves like the crisp and again very chamber-like “Nags Head Valse” (track four, one of Courvoisier’s). Overall, the set is appealingly relaxing yet consistently assertive and secure in its position at the forefront of contemporary jazz. Of course, the music doesn’t fall back on standard swing notions, so some will question the jazz connection, but those who value the Downtown New York scene’s contribution to jazz’s eternal discourse will understand; both Courvoisier and Halvorson have records in John Zorn’s Book of Angels series.

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Remembering Jon Hassell in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

Originally released in 1981 on Editions EG, Jon Hassell’s Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two was a groundbreaker in its merger of ambient, experimental, and global sounds, but as the decades unfurled it came to be inexplicably overlooked, in part due to a lack of reissues since getting placed on compact disc in the late-’80s. Well, that scenario has changed, as it’s been given a LP and CD release courtesy of Glitterbeat Records’ new sub-label Tak:Til; that its often surreal yet meticulously crafted rewards are back in the bins is a fine circumstance indeed.

Regarding Jon Hassell’s early catalog, 1980’s Fourth World Vol. 1: Possible Musics is much better known, even before it was reissued by Glitterbeat in 2014, largely because it has Brain Eno’s name on the cover. Eno plays on and mixed Vol. Two as well, but co-billing eludes him, specifically due to Hassell’s distress over his partner running with the Fourth World musical ball and spiking it directly into David Byrne’s backyard.

Hassell apparently viewed Talking Heads’ Remain in Light (’80) and the Eno/ Byrne collab My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (’81) as part of “a full-scale appropriation.” This may sound like an atmosphere of hostility, but Hassell actually contributed to Remain in Light, and as said, ol’ Bri wasn’t locked out the studio for Vol. 2; in retrospect, Hassell has said he “probably under-credited him.”

If a bit harsh at the time, Hassell’s caution over the usurping-weakening of the Fourth World, a concept expanded upon by Hassell as “a viewpoint out of which evolves guidelines for finding balances between accumulated knowledge and the conditions created by new technologies,” wasn’t exactly unjustified, as a stated goal was to imagine a musical landscape where assorted global musics, with Hassell citing Javanese, Pygmy, and Aboriginal forms as examples, had been as influential as the Euro-classical tradition.

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Remembering Lee Scratch Perry, born on this date in 1936. —Ed.

Of records, legendary Jamaican producer Lee “Scratch” Perry has released a ton; setting aside the singles and EPs, his non-compilation album total is hovering near 100, and for an artist outside the jazz realm, that’s a considerable achievement. Of course, the number of individuals who own a copy of every one of those full-lengths might fit comfortably into a four-door sedan, a possibility illuminating that Perry’s prolificacy doesn’t equate to his prime. 

When you make as many records as Lee Perry has, they can’t all be brilliant. Hell, the majority of them are unlikely to resonate with more than moderate levels of personal investment. I say unlikely because I’ll confess that haven’t listened to more than half of his output; Discogs lists 87 full-length albums and 97 comps, and I’ve a sneaking suspicion there are scads of releases that haven’t been logged, plus beaucoup stray singles and EPs (to say nothing of the dodgy gray-market stuff).

Succinctly, after hearing a fair portion of Perry’s later material I realized I should cease investigating those more recent progressions and just hang with the canonical stuff. If all this seems poised to besmirch the guy’s rep as a dub innovator-auteur, I will counter that fluctuating personal investment isn’t the same as lacking a recognizable stamp; if the majority of his post-’70s work is far from essential, I’ve never heard anything that faltered into anonymous hackery.

Lee Perry very much fits in with certain cineastes from the early days of auteurism. Specifically, like numerous directors who worked under studio contracts and would begin another film almost immediately after their last one was finished, Perry has created, if not incessantly, then at a clip that has insured a diminishment in his masterpiece percentage, a downward plummet to what some folks might consider journeyman levels had the man’s achievements not been integral to the growth and longevity of Jamaican music.

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Remembering Paul Atkinson, born on this day in 1946. —Ed.

With three enduring hit singles, the last of which derives from a classic album that’s as redolent of its era as any, The Zombies aren’t accurately classified as underrated, but it’s also right to say that the potential of much of their catalog went unfulfilled while they were extant. Since their breakup, subsequent generations have dug into that body of work, which has aged rather well, and right now nearly all of it can be found in Varèse Sarabande’s The Complete Studio Recordings, a 5LP collection released in celebration of the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For anyone cultivating a shelf of ’60s pop-rock vinyl, this collection is a smart acquisition.

The Zombies began cohering as a band around 1961-’62 in St Albans, Hertfordshire UK. By the time they debuted on record in ’64 the lineup had solidified, featuring lead vocalist-guitarist Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent, guitarist Paul Atkinson, bassist Chris White, and drummer Hugh Grundy. That’s how it would remain until their breakup in December of ’67. Rightly considered part of the mid-’60s British Invasion, The Zombies’ stature in the context of this explosion basically rests on the success of two singles, both far more popular in the US than in the band’s home country.

Those hits, “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No,” each made the Billboard Top 10 (the former all the way to No. 2) and respectively open sides one and two of the US version of their first album, a move suggesting confidence on the part of their label Parrot that, as the needle worked its way inward, listeners wouldn’t become dismayed or bored by a drop-off in quality.

That assurance was well-founded. While “She’s Not There” is an utter pop gem, thriving on perfectly-judged instrumental construction (in its original, superior mono version with Grundy’s added drum input) and emotional breadth that’s found it long-eclipsing mere oldies nostalgia, and “Tell Her No” a more relaxed yet crisp follow-up, their talents were established beyond those two songs, even if nothing else on The Zombies quite rises to the same heights of quality.

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Celebrating Bill Frisell on his 74th birthday. —Ed.

Michael Gibbs is a musician of many facets, chalking up credits as a composer, conductor, arranger, producer, and instrumentalist on trombone and keyboard. However, much of his adult life has been devoted to teaching, a role that contributed to a relatively trim discography and a fairly modest profile. Amongst his students was Bill Frisell; subsequently, their association blossomed into friendship and collaboration. For evidence one need look no further than Cuneiform Records’ superb CD, wherein Michael Gibbs & the NDR Bigband Play a Bill Frisell Set List.

Engaging in a discussion over worthwhile contemporary creative guitarists will find the name Bill Frisell rolling off tongues sooner rather than later. But when the talk turns to active composer-arrangers Michael Gibbs could easily get neglected, and as his career in jazz spans over half a century undeservedly so.

Born on September 25th, 1937 in Salisbury Southern Rhodesia, Gibbs moved to Boston in 1959 to attend Berklee College of Music. He studied there with Herb Pomeroy, but just as importantly received a full scholarship to the Lenox School of Jazz in 1960; the short-lived program started by the Modern Jazz Quartet’s John Lewis brought Gibbs into contact with such major compositional figures as Gunther Schuller, George Russell, and J.J. Johnson.

Gibbs’ “Fly Time Fly (Sigh)” turns up on his fellow Berklee alumnus and longtime friend Gary Burton’s second LP for RCA Victor, Who is Gary Burton? By ’64 Gibbs had relocated to London, his talent on the trombone proving very much in demand; an easy point of inspection from this period is Deep Dark Blue Centre by the Graham Collier Septet from ’67 on Deram.

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Remembering Nat King Cole, born on this day in 1919. —Ed.

Nat King Cole’s enduring renown derives from his skill as a vocalist, but he’s also arguably the most underrated of jazz’s great pianists. The seven CDs or ten LPs comprising Hittin’ The Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943) do a stellar job of highlighting Cole’s keyboard prowess while documenting the growth of his superb trio with guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince first, and later Johnny Miller. There are also brief visits from the great saxophonists Lester Young and Dexter Gordon and a ton of singing, though the approach lands solidly in a hot and often vocal group zone. 

Back in 1991, Mosaic Records issued The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, an exhaustive limited-edition set spread across 18 compact discs or 27 vinyl records. It was obviously produced for hardcore jazz nut collectors, the kind of listener who would know that Cole had worked extensively as a musician prior to his career-defining move to Capitol (an association he would maintain throughout his superstardom until the end of his life) but with very few commercial records detailing said period.

Hittin’ The Ramp features jukebox-only discs, private recordings, and a slew of radio transcriptions along with the handful of sessions that resulted in discs that were available for retail purchase, with the vast majority of the selections here officially released for the first time. There is a smidge of overlap with the Mosaic collection, but it doesn’t arrive until LP eight (or CD six) with “Vom, Vim, Veedle” commencing a smattering of cuts for the small Excelsior and Premier labels which were later purchased by Capitol and serve as the kickoff to the Mosaic set.

This repetition isn’t likely to bother owners of The Complete Capitol Recordings one bit, as it’s a miniscule percentage, specifically ten tracks out of Hittin’ The Ramp’s 183. Yes, that’s a lot of music, but slim compared to the behemoth decades-of-discovery scenario presented by Mosaic’s presentation of Capitol’s holdings, though in its vinyl incarnation Resonance’s achievement is also a limited edition.

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