VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Latino announces the release of It’s a Good, Good Feeling: The Latin Soul of Fania Records (The Singles), a brand-new collection that showcases Fania’s era-defining output of boogaloo and Latin soul music. Spanning 1965–1975, the box set compiles 89 singles from such best-selling artists as Ray Barretto, Joe Bataan, Bobby Valentín, Ralfi Pagan, and Larry Harlow, plus rarities from 125th Street Candy Store, The Latinaires, The Harvey Averne Band, and Ali Baba, among many others.

Set for release on October 8th and available for pre-order today, It’s a Good, Good Feeling includes four CDs plus a bonus 7-inch single, all housed in a 60-page hardcover book, featuring extensive new liner notes by compilation co-producer and DJ Dean Rudland, as well as photos and ephemera from Fania’s archives.

Helping to set the scene is a 7-inch single, which culls vintage promo tracks for “Symphony” Sid Torin’s radio shows on New York’s WEVD AM and FM. The famed DJ was an early champion of Latin music and helped to popularize the genre in the ’60s. Featuring newly remastered audio by the GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer, Paul Blakemore, It’s a Good, Good Feeling will also be available on digital and streaming platforms, while an abridged, 2-LP vinyl edition of the compilation offers 28 choice cuts and an eight-page booklet. A collectible orange-crush colored pressing (limited to 300 copies) and a commemorative T-shirt can be found exclusively at Fania.com. The first instant grat. single “Gypsy Woman,” Joe Bataan’s 1967 debut hit, is available to stream/download today.

In the ’60s, a unique musical moment was brewing in New York City, as young Latin American artists—many of them second-generation—found themselves split between the traditional music they grew up on and the rising sounds of soul, doo-wop, and R&B. They began experimenting in the clubs, blending Afro-Cuban beats, Latin jazz, and soul with predominantly English lyrics. The result was a delectable new genre with broad appeal that epitomized the cultural melting pot of New York. While boogaloo and Latin soul was a short-lived craze (peaking in the late ’60s and early ’70s), it popularized Latin music in America and established the careers of many internationally beloved artists.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The album title is apt, as this was saxman Rudolph Johnson’s second album for the Black Jazz label (and this reissue marks only the second time this 1973 album has been released on vinyl). But more importantly, the quality of the music it contains renders the more common, messianic meaning of the phrase “the second coming” equally applicable.

Saxman and bandleader Rudolph Johnson never attained the commercial success of some of his contemporaries, but his fans consider him the rightful heir to John Coltrane’s improvisational genius. And with keyboardist Kirk Lightsey in the band for this go-round (we already reissued Johnson’s very fine 1971 Black Jazz album Spring Rain), sparks are gonna fly, starting right off with the cookin’ album opener “The Traveler,” which if you close your eyes will definitely bring to mind Coltrane’s classic quartet circa the early ‘60s.

Indeed, unlike most of the other releases on the Black Jazz label, The Second Coming barely nods to the fusion and soul jazz trends that were sweeping jazz at the time. Instead, this is expressive, free improvisation at its best, beautifully recorded by producer Gene Russell and deserving of a much wider audience than it found the first time.

Newly remastered and annotated and reissued on vinyl for the first time (also available in a orange with black streaks vinyl edition limited to 750 copies and exclusive to independent record stores).

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Showtime® has released a trailer for Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James, directed by Emmy®-nominee Sacha Jenkins. Bitchin’ is an intimate yet propulsive look at Rick James, one of rock, funk and R&B’s most legendary and often underappreciated figures.

Featuring rare footage of James’ incredible live shows, never-before-seen home video, original interviews with legendary artists, collaborators and friends, and a treasure trove of recorded interviews with James (who died in 2004), the documentary presents a full picture of James’ dramatic rise and fall, focusing in on the “Punk-Funk” music he left behind. The film, which screened at the Tribeca Festival® in June, will premiere on Friday, September 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

Best remembered as the creator of hits such as “Superfreak,” “Give It To Me Baby,” and “Mary Jane,” James blazed new trails in American music and global culture in the ’70s and ’80s as a songwriter, performer and producer, collaborating with luminaries such as Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Nile Rodgers, Eddie Murphy, Teena Marie, The Mary Jane Girls and M.C. Hammer.

Bitchin’ presents a full and complete picture of James’ life as told by those who knew him. At the center of it all is the “Punk-Funk” that encompassed a unique swath of 20th-century music history from jazz to soul to R&B to rock and eventually, to hip-hop. Friday, August 6 marks the 17th anniversary of James death.

Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James is a Mass Appeal production for Showtime, directed by Jenkins, produced by Steve Rivo, and written by Jenkins, Rivo and Jason Pollard. The film is executive produced by Peter Bittenbender and Jenkins for Mass Appeal, and Douglas Banker and Ty James.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Keyboardist Walter Bishop, Jr. recorded the second album released by the Black Jazz label, Coral Keys, a masterpiece of Blue Note-style atmospherics infused with ‘70s soul-jazz. But a mere two years later, Bishop, Jr. brought a whole new sound and band into the studio for 1973’s Keeper of My Soul.

Contrary to the album title, the name of the band was not The 4th Cycle; instead, as the liner notes put it, the name reflected “Bishop’s composition and improvisational techniques based on the Cycle of 4ths and his various personal musical cycles as performer, student and teacher.” The album also was imbued with a spirituality owed in part to his studies with yogi Parmahansa Yogananda; little wonder, then, that Keeper of My Soul was a more ambitious, electric, and “out” record than its predecessor.

With the estimable support of flautist/ sax man Hubert Laws, bassist Gerald Brown, and vibraphonist Woody Murray, Bishop explores Keith Jarrett-like free-form passages (“Those Who Chant”), Latin stylings (Kenny Dorham’s “Blue Bossa”), and offers one of the most unusual and funky interpretations of “Summertime” you’ll ever hear.

All in remastered sound with liner notes by Pat Thomas. First-ever vinyl reissue of a long-lost classic (also available in orange with black swirl vinyl, limited to 750 copies and exclusive to indie record stores).

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Omnivore to reissue Songs of the Spires, Walk on Well Lighted Streets, and Welcoming a New Ice Age, all with bonus tracks.

If you listened to L.A.’s World Famous KROQ or the many KROQ-inspired radio stations throughout the nation in the 1980s, you’ve probably heard Gleaming Spires. Their song “Are You Ready for the Sex Girls?” was hard to avoid. On September 17, 2021, Omnivore Recordings will reissue the duo’s three albums, Songs of the Spires, Walk on Well Lighted Streets, and Welcoming a New Ice Age, in expanded editions with bonus tracks, and track-by-track commentary by the band members.

Leslie Bohem and David Kendrick met in the late ’70s when David went to check out Les’ band Bates Motel. Kendrick joined as the band’s drummer. Bates Motel soon entered the studio with musician/producer Andrew Gold, to capture their repertoire on tape.

They garnered a regional following and played gigs up and down the West Coast, but a record contract eluded them. They met Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks in 1980 and invited them to come see the band. But instead of the brothers producing them, they asked Leslie and David to join Sparks. While performing with Sparks, the two began to create music as Gleaming Spires.

Gleaming Spires’ debut album, Songs of the Spires, was issued in 1981 and the follow-up, Walk on Well Lighted Streets, in 1983. Both were produced by Stephen Hauge (New Order, Pet Shop Boys, OMD). Prior to recording their second album, the Spires grew to a quartet with the addition of Bob Haag (Bates Motel, Sparks) and Jim Goodwin (John Cale, Sparks).

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Last year, the New York-based Dot Time label issued The Duo Sessions, which featured privately made tapes of groundbreaking jazz pianist Lennie Tristano in dialogue with fellow pianist Connie Crothers, saxophonist Lenny Popkin, and drummer Roger Mancuso. An enlightening spotlight on an artist who’d effectively disappeared from recording studios and bandstands later in his life, its format was CD only; by extension, the praise the set received in the pages of this website was substantial, but fairly brief. In a sweet development, Dot Time’s vinyl edition, with an accompanying download, is freshly available, its arrival spurring a deeper evaluation of Tristano’s work and his tight but intense sphere of influence.

Born on March 19, 1919, Leonard Joseph Tristano made a strong entrance onto the jazz scene during the bebop era, playing in bands with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie for radio broadcasts and then getting his own group together, first with saxophonist Lee Konitz and a little later adding another saxophonist in Warne Marsh, both horn players inseparable from any worthwhile consideration of the pianist’s life and work (they figure prominently in this review).

Tristano began teaching piano in the 1940s and seems to have never quit, this practice eventually overtaking his interest in studio recording and gigs, though the biggest hunk of his discography is sourced from live performances. By 1978, the year of his death, his body of work was amongst the slimmest of any major jazz figure.

There was side one of Crosscurrents, cut in ’49 for Capitol but unreleased until ’72 (alongside unrelated recordings by Buddy DeFranco and Bill Harris), Tristano and The New Tristano, both for Atlantic, from ’56 and ’61 respectively, and the fairly obscure but fascinating Descent Into the Maelstrom, first released in Japan by East Wind in 1976 and in the US two years later by Inner City. Without a bunch of live recordings dating from ’49-’65 (and it’s worthy of note that Tristano and Maelstrom are partly comprised of performances), the man’s shelf would be meager, indeed.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | To mark the 50th anniversary of the 1970 concept double album, Jesus Christ Superstar, it has today been announced that a variety of special anniversary edition albums will be released September 17. This landmark release, which includes full cooperation from the creators Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, features an array of exclusive demos, commentaries, interviews and much more.

In 1970, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber released Jesus Christ Superstar as a concept double album. It became a massive global best-seller, topping the US Billboard Top LPs chart in both February and May 1971, as well as ranking at number one in the year-end chart. By 1983, the album had sold over 7 million copies worldwide.

However, the journey to international success was far from straightforward. As unknown names in musical theatre, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber were unable to find a producer willing to stage their ambitious idea for a religious-themed rock opera. Eventually, they persuaded MCA records to let them record the score first. Using a full orchestra, and with the outstanding talents of Ian Gillan, Murray Head, Yvonne Elliman and The Grease Band, they created a masterpiece that revolutionized the form of musical theatre.

Within a year of its chart success, stage productions of Jesus Christ Superstar began to appear all over the world, leading to record-breaking runs in the West End, a hit Hollywood film, Tony nominations and Olivier Awards. Its influence and impact have not diminished: in 2018 the NBC live production of the show, starring John Legend and Sara Bareilles, resulted in Emmy Award wins for Rice and Lloyd Webber (thereby making them two of the 16 people in history to have won an Emmy®, a Grammy®, an Oscar® and a Tony®).

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“There is nothing more distinctive than listening to a recording on vinyl. The feel, the one of a kind sound, the obsession it can lead to. For a long time I was picking up a few records a month, rather than a streaming service subscription. I figured it helps the bands out way more, and I get to own something that I will really appreciate having in my collection.”

“I would say I am a modest collector compared to some of my friends, and that my collection really has come from an urge to support artists I love, more than necessarily wearing down the needle with play after play. Whenever I see a new band that I really love putting out their music this way I try my best to pick it up. I don’t want more MP3s or burned CDs around the house; they sound exactly the same on the internet. A record is unique, and I absolutely want to indulge in that.

The past year has been a little slower, but I have managed to pick up a few of The Wonder Years and Frightened Rabbit albums that I’ve been chasing for a while. I am really proud to finally own those, as well as some pals’ bands like October Drift and Wrest’s debut albums.

The best way I have found to experience a band’s work comes from putting on a record, sitting back and taking it all in—listening to a body of work exactly how it was intended, from start to finish. No skips, no bloody adverts—you’re just in it until the end—it’s absolute magic.

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Stumbling onto the indie-pop stylings of The Umbrellas could easily lead to assumptions that they reside in Merry Old England, but no; the map to their digs leads west to San Francisco, USA. Flush with chiming and distorted strings, urgent rhythms, sweet harmonies, and alternating guy-gal lead vocals, the band’s full-length debut is out August 6 on limited edition Coke bottle green vinyl, compact disc, and digital download. Dishing a dozen songs in 38 minutes, the album hits all the marks, and is another treat in a long string of delights from the ever-reliable Slumberland label.

The Umbrellas are Morgan Stanley on vocals and guitar, Matt Ferrara on vocals, guitar and keyboards, Keith Frerichs on 12-string acoustic guitar, drums, and vocals, and Nick Oka on bass. Their sole prior release is the “Maritime E.P.,” which came out just a smidge over one year ago on 33 1/3 rpm 7-inch vinyl and cassette.

Three of the four songs on the 7-inch are also featured on the LP, but in distinctively different versions, with the EP recorded in Ferrara’s apartment and the album at Cidra Studios. Additionally, the rhythms heard on the EP were solely sourced from (or at least only credited to) a drum machine. While said apparatus hasn’t exited The Umbrellas’ scene, the sound of an honest-to-goodness drum kit can’t help but deepen the band’s indie-pop bona fides.

While on the subject of the legit, the cassette version of the “Maritime E.P.” offers an extra track, a nifty cover of “Dance” by the ’80s UK outfit Strawberry Switchblade. If you dig that band but don’t know that song, that’s likely because its only recording was a David Jensen radio session in October of ’82. “Dance” did morph into Strawberry Switchblade’s “Since Yesterday,” the opening track and first single from their eponymous debut album in ’84, but the revamping denoted a stylistic move toward synth-pop and new wave.

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