Alexa Tarantino - Clarity (2020), CD, Posi-Tone PR8211

 

As a sign of how far jazz has fallen in popularity since the 1960s, the top 10 jazz albums in sales for 2020 as compiled by Billboard magazine were all by Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Norah Jones, and Michael Buble. Robert Glasper managed to sneak in at #11, but the rest of the top 20 is more Buble, Sinatra, Norah Jones, as well as Kenny G and Harry Connick, Jr., Vince Guaraldi's Peanuts Christmas Album, and Dave Brubeck's Time Out. In other words, contemporary instrumentalists don't sell. Even landmark labels like Blue Note and Verve release very little contemporary instrumental jazz, and a 2016 CNN article by John Blake, "When Jazz Stopped Being Cool," argues that jazz musicians themselves in the later 1960s and beyond made music for themselves, too esoteric for the general populace, while record company accountants found that rock albums could sell multiples of the most popular jazz titles and began to drop jazz artists as a result. Blake concludes that jazz has gone the way of classical music--still practiced in the conservatory but virtually ignored elsewhere. Yet there are still smaller jazz-focused record labels that continue to churn out albums by contemporary performers on a regular basis, and there is a consistent audience for jazz, though much smaller than in its heyday. One of those current labels is Posi-Tone, based in Los Angeles and run by producer Marc Free and engineer Nick O'Toole. Posi-Tone cranks out an impressive torrent of newly recorded, largely traditionally focused jazz by mostly up-and-coming performers, all of them issued on standard CDs. If you're a fan of 1960s era post-bop, most of the Posi-Tone repertoire fits in that space, and they are to be commended for the number of female performers they feature. Alexa Tarantino is one of those female performers--she plays alto sax, soprano sax, and flute, and Clarity is the second of three albums she has released for the label thus far. Her work has been lauded by Jazziz magazine, The New York Times, and she was nominated as a Rising Star on alto by Downbeat in both 2020 and 2021. The kudos are well-deserved: this album and her 2021 follow-up, Firefly, both display her gifts as a composer and performer on all three instruments.

She opens and closes this album on flute, beginning with her brooding minor-key composition "Through" and closing with Kurt Weill's standard "My Ship" delivered as a slower ballad in which each of her accompanists get to solo after she opens the tune accompanied only by bass. The lone track performed on soprano is a cover of Horace Silver's "Gregory Is Here," given a slightly funky rhythm. She delivers some late-night romance on alto on the Latin-tinged "La Puerta" with drummer Rudy Royston switching to bongos for a lighter touch. And there  are several stand-out faster-paced numbers, particularly her compositions "A Race Against Yourself," "A Unified Front," and "Thank You for Your Silence." Tarantino can execute flashy runs or more pensively spaced solos with the best saxophonists past or present. While her style of jazz and that of every album I've heard from Posi-Tone may not break new ground, there's nothing wrong with continuing a tradition that stimulates and satisfies in equal measure.

Do I Really Need This record?  Supporting current musicians, and particularly female musicians, is always a good move, and because Posi-Tone CDs come housed in a razor-thin cardboard sleeve, storage space is never an issue (a real concern I face regularly). But of course, most important is that the music and playing here are top notch--something I know I will pull out again and again in the years to come. So naturally this CD is another must-have.

 

Jimmy Smith - Back at the Chicken Shack (1963), Blue Note 3579051, Blue Note Classic Series pressing

 

Had you not already seen the cover, you would be forgiven for thinking this was a Stanley Turrentine LP rather than Jimmy Smith, because the young tenor saxiphonist totally dominates the soloing on this classic soul jazz album. Recorded in 1960, the same year Turrentine made his debut as a leader for Blue Note, but not released until 1963, this record is considered by the reviewers at allmusic.com to be the best in Smith's long and extremely prolific career. And yet, he is not really the star here--Turrentine is. Smith, who started recording for Blue Note in 1956 and is considered to be the man who practically defined Hammond B3 soul jazz (Jack McDuff and Jimmy McGriff might disagree with that assessment), doesn't go on many mind-blowing, virtuosic solos as he does on many of his other albums, at least not until the closing cut here, "Messy Bessie." Kenny Burrell is also featured here on guitar, but except for a short solo on the opening title track, he is practically absent until he gets a longer solo to show his skills also on the final track. That means the rest of the solo space is taken up by Turrentine, and that's actually a good thing because he is brilliant, particularly on the Hammerstein & Romburg standard "When I Grow Too Old to Dream," which ends Side 1. So despite its reputation, this is not a quintessential example of organ-based soul jazz, but it is an excellent standard for soul jazz in general.

As with the Sonny Clark LP reviewed earlier on this blog, all the selections in the Blue Note Classic Series are remastered wonderfully by Kevin Gray--Turrentine's horn really jumps out of the speakers here. The Classic Series LPs are pressed at Optimal rather than RTI as on the Tone Poet Series, but I have not had a problem with any of the former--all of them have great audio fidelity and no surface noise. The jackets for the Classic Series are also a notch downward from the Tone Poets, being a standard single-slot cardboard sleeve instead of the heavyweight Stoughton-printed gatefolds used on the Tone Poets. But the price is also lower--$25.98 for the latest releases in the series compared with $35.98 for the Tone Poets. In other words, the Blue Note Classic Series LPs are a bargain that give buyers a chance to own audiophile versions of the most desirable titles in the storied Blue Note catalog at a fraction of what you would have to pay for even a 1970s reissue.

Do I Really Need This record?  Since I didn't already own this album in any other format, it's considered the best in Smith's legendary career, and, as with the Clark LP, I snagged it on sale for 20% off, it would have been negligent not to add this to the collection.

 

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble - In Step (1989), hybrid SACD, Mobile Fidelity UDSACD 2077

 

I've never paid $50 for a CD, or in this case SACD, until now, so this addition to the collection will require a lot of justification. Unfortunately, I didn't acquire my first SACD player until late last year, by which time this limited-edition release had already sold out. As with most Mobile Fidelity releases, whether SACD or vinyl, the price began to climb due to scarcity. I already owned a standard CD release of this album, which is perhaps my favorite of SRV (though I have yet to hear Soul to Soul), so when I saw a used copy come up for sale on Dusty Groove, I pondered. I would never have paid $50 straight up for this or any other SACD, but after checking prices elsewhere and seeing that they were higher, and then selling Dusty Groove a stack of CDs I had already upgraded to audiophile vinyl or SACD, or simply didn't want any more (like the best of Shelley Fabares), I had enough store credit to afford this title. Figuring that I probably would never find this release any cheaper, I used the store credit to add this to a collection that already includes three other SRV Mofi SACDs (Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, and The Sky Is Crying) all of which I was able to purchase at list price. The other SRV SACDs sound leagues better than their standard CD counterparts, and this one is definitely a step or two up, though I don't know if it is as big an improvement as the others. Still, as mentioned above, this is a favorite of mine, Vaughan's last studio record before his tragic early death, with a playlist that has quite a bit of variety--rockers like "The House Is Rockin'" and "Scratch-n-Sniff," traditional blues on "Leave My Girl Alone" and "Love Me Darlin'," and sharp instrumentals like the smoky jazz of "Riviera Paradise" and the virtuoso Lonnie Mack-style picking of "Travis Walk." So I still feel it was worth the somewhat exorbitant cost since it wasn't really money out of pocket.

The only question remaining is, Is this the ultimate version of this album? Perhaps not, since the one included in the Analogue Productions Texas Hurrican box set was remastered by Ryan K. Smith and at least one reviewer on the Acoustic Sounds web site says the AP version beats the Mofi. But that box set sells for $280 for only 6 discs, more than $45 a pop. And though I paid more than that for this one title, I paid far less for the rest. Besides, $280 is a big chunk of change for me to part with in one fell swoop. So I still feel satisfied with this acquisition. Of course, if I win the lottery, that could change.

Do I Really Need This record?  SRV's music is legendary, and as stated before, this is probably my favorite album of his, so I really needed an upgrade from the mediocre audio of the standard CD I already owned. On top of that, my wife really digs his music, so that made the hefty price feel a little less painful.

 

Johnny Hartman - I Just Dropped by to Say Hello (1963), CD, Impulse IMPD-176

 

Known most for the album that preceded this one, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, this is Hartman's second of three LPs for Impulse which finds him continuing to use his beautifully deep and rich baritone on a number of familiar ballad standards mixed with a few lesser-known numbers, such as the coy title track and the three tracks that end the disc. Hartman's remarkable vocals are backed by top-flight jazz accompanists who may not be John Coltrane but are still pretty darn great: Hank Jones on piano, Milt Hinton on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums augmented by guitarists Kenny Burrell on three tracks and Jim Hall on two others. But the real stand-out is tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet, who appears on five tracks, backing Hartman's already sumptuous voice with buttery, decadent accents that give the whole affair a late-night romantic atmosphere. I could quibble with the slightly cheesy choice of leading the set off with the theme from Charade or with the Truman Capote & Harold Arlen standard "A Sleepin' Bee," never a favorite of mine, but it's also hard to complain about anything Hartman sings, especially with such stellar backing. Like Lou Rawls, Hartman's voice gives everything he tackles a touch of class. Despite a career that spanned from the 1940s through the 1970s, Hartman was not a prolific recording artist, his first album not appearing until 1955 and having a 5-year gap before the Coltrane collaboration suddenly made him a hot property. And despite the fact that allmusic.com gives that Coltrane album its highest rating of 5 stars, it picks this one, at 4½ stars, as his career best. But why pick between the two when you can have both?

Originally recorded by the legendary Rudy Van Gelder, this CD was remastered by Erick Labson using 20-bit super mapping for this 1995 reissue. While Labson's work has mixed reviews on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, I did not give it a super-close listen but, as mentioned above, the Jacquet solos lept out as particularly rich and rewarding. Knowing that Analogue Productions is preparing an all-analog 180g vinyl reissue of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman remastered by the always great Ryan K. Smith due out on December 10 of this year, it would be nice if they would also add this title to their Verve/Impulse reissue series. I could go for that.

Do I Really Need This record?  The best, or perhaps second-best, album by one of the best male ballad singers of the 20th century? No brainer--I had to add this title to my collection, especially for only $6 used.

 

Lord Huron - Long Lost (2021), CD, Republic B0033477-02

 

It's been a long time since I went out and bought an album after hearing it on the radio, but after hearing this album's latest single, "Mine Forever," I decided to investigate further and decided that I liked the sound of what I heard and thus took the plunge. And I was not disappointed. This is the fourth album by this L.A.-based quartet, and as the many reviews that have been published since its release in May of this year will tell you, front man, vocalist, and songwriter Ben Schneider is originally from Michigan, and thus the group's name is based in part on one of the Great Lakes that surround Michigan, Lake Huron. But the sound on this album will not call to mind either California or Michigan because it is planted firmly in the desert southwest or big sky country--long vistas of loneliness that engulfs each of the proper songs here, with the exception of the Hawaiian/exotica-flavored "At Sea." The rest of the cuts are literally drowning in reverb, big Duane Eddy-style guitar twang, and sometimes a string section that hearkens back to the early 1960s and Roy Orbison's tales of heartache. Schneider is no Orbison when it comes to vocal chops; in fact, one reviewer likened his style to Ricky Nelson, who was not particularly gifted but didn't try to sing beyond his abilities, maintaining an understated minimalist approach that allowed the backing arrangements and instrumentalists provide the heft. There is also a similarity here to early Chris Isaak, an Orbison devotee who specialized in songs of desire and disappointment with lots of reverb. But it all works wonderfully, the high lonesome sound conjures a desolate loneliness borne by lost love, failure, and diminished prospects, particularly explored on the last vocal track "What Do It Mean." The proper songs are interspersed with short audio snippets that attempt to give the effect of hearing the singer introduced at various live events, which didn't really do anything for me, but at least they're short. The same can't be said for the closing, 14-minute instrumental track, "Time's Blur," which honestly I haven't listened to in its entirety yet after reading many unfavorable descriptions about it in the various reviews. The beginning portion I did hear sounded a bit like a Brian Eno ambient soundscape, completely out of left field compared with the rest of the disc. But all of that aside, the main songs here are strong, full of sorrow, and wonderfully arranged and performed.

I bought this release on CD in part because the double vinyl version was long sold out, but even if it were available I probably wouldn't have bought it because my recent experience with current-artist vinyl is not good. Good-sounding vinyl depends on how the music was recorded, who mastered it, and where the vinyl is pressed. It's usually impossible to find out information about recording or vinyl pressing for new releases, and most of the mastering engineers I am not familiar with, so even knowing who they are doesn't help. A few years ago I bought vinyl copies of new releases that I really liked by Nicki Bluhm and Olden Yolk, and in both cases the vinyl was disappointing, certainly not an improvement over the CD. I also considered buying Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour on vinyl, but after reading the many negative reviews about how noisy the vinyl was, I decided against it. The only recent vinyl release that I was satisfied with was Moving Panoramas second album In Two, which was pressed here in Austin at Gold Rush Vinyl. It's the only thing I've heard from Gold Rush, so I don't yet know if their pressings are consistently good, or if Moving Panoramas' shoegaze dream pop hides any deficiencies in the pressing. In any case, I am not in any hurry to rush out and buy vinyl copies from current artists unless I know more about how and where they are sourced.

Do I Really Need This record?  In order to avoid being typecast as an old fogie who only listens to music from his childhood, I have to occasionally add new music to the collection. Fortunately, this release has a very retro sound that pleases my throwback sensibilities, allowing me to give the appearance of being open to the new while still firmly clutching to the old. How could I refuse?