Sonny Rollins - Volume 2 (1957)

Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 1999 Rudy Van Gelder Edition.

Other than the sequential name and Rollins himself, this album has very little to do with its predecessor. Recorded four months after Volume 1 with different musicians and instrumentation, this album is noteworthy for the variety in material, a mixture of swinging original material, more angular modern jazz compositions from Thelonious Monk, and standards from the Great American Songbook. Monk wrote and plays on two tunes, providing his unusual phrasing and harmonies, while the remaining tunes with Horace Silver are more blues-inflected hard bop.

Something about this album makes me believe a great lineup isn't the same thing as a great album. Volume 2 is certainly not terrible by any means, but these days I prefer Volume One. It just feels more cohesive, swings harder, and takes advantage of more satisfying material. But ask me next month and I may say the exact opposite. That's the beauty of music.

Rollins - tenor saxophone
J.J. Johnson - trombone
Horace Silver - piano
Thelonious Monk - piano
Paul Chambers - bass
Art Blakey - drums

Original liner notes by Robert Levin.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard: "another essential volume for the modernist collector."
• HiFi & Music Review: "most deeply fulfilling"
• Audio: "It is as complete a picture of Rollins, both from his most difficult and his more easily accessible angles, as is likely to be encompassed on one record."
• DownBeat (★★★★★): "something of interest (and quite often genius) on every track, may well be the wailing set of the year."
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ★★★⯪
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★⯪
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★☆

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: Don't miss any of these six tracks, but my top picks are Why Don't I and Poor Butterfly.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Newk's Time (1959)
Volume One (1957)

Sonny Rollins - Volume 1 (1957)

Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 2003 Rudy Van Gelder Edition. The album was originally titled "Sonny Rollins" but the Volume 1 tag was added once Volume 2 was later released.

A straight-ahead hard bop album, combining blues-based themes and driving swing with the exploratory style of Rollins. At 26, Rollins had developed his own jazz vocabulary, Donald Byrd and Wynton Kelly were just starting out, and Max Roach was already an established figure in jazz circles. So you've got three different levels of experience forming a solid quintet. Byrd sounds fantastic and holds his own. It was the debut for Rollins on the Blue Note label, but he was releasing many seminal recordings on several labels at the time, including Saxophone Colossus (Prestige), Way Out West (Contemporary), and the Monk/Rollins recordings on the Prestige and Riverside labels.

Rollins - tenor saxophone
Donald Byrd - trumpet
Wynton Kelly - piano
Gene Ramey - bass
Max Roach - drums

Original liner notes by Leonard Feather. 2003 liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.

Reviews/ratings:

• Billboard: "some of the most vigorous and creative blowing of recent months by the tenorman all the young cats are digging."
• CashBox: "Smooth work.
• DownBeat (★★★★☆): "Recommended"
• Audio: "the most important new voice on the tenor saxophone"
• The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ★★★☆
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★☆
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★☆

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: Four originals by Rollins and a cover of How Are Things In Glocca Morra. Don't skip any.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Newk's Time (1959)

The Beatles - Rubber Soul (2026 Special Edition)

Finally! The 29 track, double disc "Special Edition Deluxe" set with the new stereo mix by Giles Martin. Been waiting for this one since I heard the 2022 Special Edition of Revolver (some of this post is simply copied from that earlier post).

If you're looking for my earlier thoughts on the album plus the usual ads, CD longbox picture, album reviews, chart data, etc., please check out my 2012 post here: The CD Project: Rubber Soul. This post will primarily deal with the new mixes, bonus tracks, and packaging.

Like the other Giles Martin mixes, this stereo mix sounds fantastic. The individual parts are cleaner, separated, much easier to delineate. Back in 1965, the album was first mixed to mono; the stereo mix was an afterthought, which is one reason why many fans prefer those earlier mono versions:

There is an intensity to mono because it was mixed to blast straight into you from that one speaker. By contrast, the stereo separation diffuses the atmosphere in some songs and distracts in others.

So this new mix not only benefits from technological advances, but also from a deliberate, concerted effort to produce the best stereo mix available. Now these cuts can "blast straight into you" in lively, rich stereo. It's a revelation to these ears even though they've heard these songs hundreds of times over the past decades. I mean it as a compliment when I say that I don't notice anything in particular about the demixes/remixes here, just that these familiar songs now sound even better.

If you prefer the mono mix, then by all means keep listening to it; it's not going anywhere. But if, like me, you grew up spinning an inferior stereo mix (first on vinyl then the original 1987 CD release), check out these new mixes; I count 10 different physical format options for you to choose from. FWIW, I like the mono mixes, too, and they'll be appearing here at some point in the future.

The 40 page booklet that came with the 2 CD set includes a foreword from John Lennon ("We finally took over the studio"), an introduction from Paul McCartney ("a very exciting album to make"), an essay by Beatles historian/former BBC radio producer Kevin Howlett, and lots of photos. Good stuff and all welcome in this house.

Tracks: I'm still blown away by the fact the whole album was written and recorded in just 4 weeks, October 12 through November 15, 1965. Makes me think I haven't done much lately. While all of these stellar tracks benefit from the remixes to varying degrees, my favorite new mixes are Drive My Car, Norwegian Wood, Michelle, and If I Needed Someone. And I hope to have In My Life played at my funeral. No hurry.

Bonus tracks: CD 2 is 41 minutes, 16 tracks. Mostly demos, alternate takes, instrumental backing tracks, and studio chatter; none of which interests me much. Still, I'm glad I got the 2 disc set, if only for the 2023 mixes of Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Nothing and everything. "Everybody's born knowing all the Beatles lyrics instinctively. They're passed into the fetus subconsciously along with all the amniotic stuff." - from the 1998 movie, Sliding Doors.

Previously revisited for the blog:

Now And Then (2023)	Yellow Submarine (1969)
Love (2006)	The Beatles (1968)
Let It Be... Naked (2003)	Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Anthology 2 (1996)	Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Anthology 1 (1995)	Revolver (1966) & (2022)
Free As A Bird (1995)	Rubber Soul (1965)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1977)	Help! (1965)
1967-1970 (1973)	A Hard Day's Night (1964)
1962-1966 (1973)	Please Please Me (1963)
Abbey Road (1969) & (2019)

Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything? (1972)

Japanese import

Multi-LP sets usually have me immediately considering what tracks I would include in a single album edit (see Out Of The Blue, for example). The temptation to do such an edit with this set was strong until I finally came to the conclusion that what we've got here is a brilliant single album surrounded by an very interesting second album. In other words, I'd like to simply forget about the tracks in which Rundgren wants everyone to know he's the best musician/smartest person in the room, but there's something inherently fascinating about those tracks. When it's good (which is most of the time, to be honest), it's '70s soft rock and power pop at its finest with lots of 7^th chords and vocal harmonies that would make Brian Wilson proud.

Rundgren played every instrument and did all the vocals on the first 3 sides of the original LPs. At his best, that sort of control produces remarkably economical pop: melodic and immediately accessible without being simplistic. The album is less successful when Rundgren’s fascination with the recording studio begins to compete with the songs themselves. Some of the experiments are genuinely inventive while others seem included primarily because he could include them. For what was side 4, Rundgren kinda sorta throws together another album side with various bands recorded at various studios and calls it "Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots (A Pop Operetta)." Certainly ambitious but Rundgren certainly possesses the talent to pull it off. If I were editing it for listening pleasure, I'd probably go to the trouble of making a single LP edit. But since I'm hopelessly trying to assess Rundgren's artistic vision as a whole, I guess I'll keep the double album, even track 7, Intro.

Press of the time:

• Robert Christgau (A-): "this has the feel of a pop masterpiece"
• Rolling Stone: "Rundgren may produce the masterpiece he has in him, but Something/Anything? most decidedly is not."
• CashBox: "Something very musical and hitbound."
• Record World: "an outstanding achievement"
• Billboard: "The most important thing about this album is that he seems to have had a great time recording it and it is enormous fun to listen to."

On Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Something/Anything? was ranked at #173 on the 2003 & 2012 lists, dropping to #396 in the 2020 edition. It was also included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, where it was called "Rundgren's most compelling work" and "an album that stands as Rundgren's zenith both commercially and critically."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #29
• CashBox: #37

Tracks: They certainly picked some of the strongest tracks for single release: Hello It's Me (#5 pop, #17 AC), I Saw The Light (#16 pop), and Couldn't I Just Tell You (#93 pop). Track 3, the Motown homage titled Wolfman Jack, was later released in 1974 and bubbled under the Hot 100 at 105. The whole thing starts off with softrocktastic songs on what was side 1 (tracks 1-6 here) that Rundgren correctly dubbed "A Bouquet of Ear-catching Melodies." Side 2 (tracks 7-13) contain much of the production gimmicks mentioned above, but even the novelty songs, The Night The Carousel Burned Down and Song Of The Viking have hooks galore. And with Side 3 (tracks 1-5 on the second disc) Rundgren helps define the sound of the power pop genre. Aside from Hello It's Me, side 4 isn't my favorite, but even then something will catch my ear from time to time.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Riding around in an early '70s Ford Country Squire station wagon and hearing Hello It's Me on the car's AM radio.

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Very Best Of Todd Rundgren (1997)
The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect (1982)
Healing (1981)

Kirsty MacColl - Tropical Brainstorm (2000)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2001 US release, an Enhanced CD with three bonus tracks and a video track. Tropical Brainstorm was released in the UK on March 20, 2000, but the US release was April 24, 2001, after MacColl's tragic death.

from the CD back insert

Songwriting so good that you'd like this album even if you didn't care for Latin-tinged music. But I do indeed appreciate that genre, so I enjoy this thing. But please hold off on the cries of cultural appropriation. To her credit, MacColl didn't try to make an authentic Latin album, saying "I didn't want to try and fail at being the Buena Vista Social Club. I wanted to succeed at being Kirsty MacColl."¹ Instead, she tackles and adds a modern twist to many of the various Latin styles - tango, samba, salsa, bossa, batucada, etc. - much to my delight. Writing for Playboy magazine, Robert Christgau called the album "loose and raunchy" and while the lyrics can get saucy at times, the performances are anything but loose. But the only adjective you really need to describe this album is "outstanding." Grab a fruity drink and enjoy.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone: "highlights her love of Latin music, and the sensual rhythms provide the perfect setting for her tales of romantic wheeling and dealing."
• CMJ: "it's the 'English lass kicks off her shoes' vibe that makes the album such an ironic treat."
• Robert Christgau (A-): "she soars like she never has"
• Billboard: "a stunning testament to MacColl's powerful songwriting and passion for Latin culture."
• Entertainment Weekly (A): "As usual, her songs express endless disappointment in love matched to melodies that won’t quit."

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: It's all good, but for me the cream of this bumper crop is In These Shoes?, which sets itself apart both musically and lyrically. Other favorites include Mambo De La Luna, Nao Esperando/Alegria, and Designer Life. 

Bonus tracks: Unlike many bonus tracks, these three are quite good, which shouldn't surprise me considering they come from MacColl. I'll single out Things Happen.

The bonus MPEG track is the promotional video for Mambo De La Luna.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but if I had discovered this album around the turn of the century when I was going through an Afro-Cuban/Brazilian phase of my own, this would have fit perfectly. File this one under "better late than never."

Previously revisited for the blog:
Kite (1989)

David Sanborn - Inside (1999)

Not the strongest Sanborn collaboration with multi-instrumentalist/writer/producer Marcus Miller, but it certainly has its moments. I think the album tries to cover a bit from all phases of Sanborn's multi-faceted career: '80s instrumental pop, Night Music, R&B/soul Sanborn, and the more straight ahead attempts of the Elektra-era (1991-99). So the album isn't cohesive, especially when four different vocalists appear for tracks with a definite late-'90s adult contemporary sheen.

What ultimately holds it back for me are the scattered choices of material and arrangements. There are some questionable drum programming and looping decisions. However, the musicianship is consistently good, Sanborn sounds like Sanborn, and the album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Performance. Despite multiple nominations, that win was the only one for Sanborn in that particular Grammy category, which was awarded between the years 1992-2011. 

Ratings/reviews:

• Hi-Fi World: "Not half bad at all."
• The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★⯪☆

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• Billboard Contemporary Jazz: #2

Tracks: The highlights for me are the remake of Lisa (originally appeared on Sanborn's 1980 album, Hideaway) and Brother Ray, a tribute to Ray Charles. Skip track 3, Trance. As for the vocal tracks, Cassandra Wilson on a cover of Aretha Franklin's Day Dreaming is a good idea. Lalah Hathaway and Eric Benét on When I'm With You makes musical sense, but it's almost too slick and radio ready. And Sting on a cover of the Bill Withers hit Ain't No Sunshine is... well, that's very 1999.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:

Original Album Series (2010)	A Change of Heart (1987)
Timeagain (2003)	Double Vision (1986)
Love Songs (1995)	Straight To The Heart (1984)
The Best of (1994)	Backstreet (1983)
Hearsay (1994)	As We Speak (1982)
Upfront (1992)	Voyeur (1981)
Another Hand (1991)	Beck & Sanborn (1975)
Close-Up (1988)

Young Gun Silver Fox - West End Coast (2015)

I can't think of anything to add to what I've already written about this wonderful neo-yacht band. The duo's debut album is fantastically smooth; I dig the thing and have for over a decade. If you're of a certain age (born sometime in the 1960s) and listened to pop music in the late '70s (preferably on AM radio), you should check out any music from this duo. But don't take my word for it, let's see what the brain trust over at Amazon has to say about this album:

• "Just like a 70's mix tape but modern!"
• "Close your eyes and you'd swear you are relaxing on a California beach circa 1978 with a record player going in the background"
• "What a blissfully laid-back, summer vibe album"
• "Planning a garden party? Use this as a background sound experience."
• "The music is based on its idols but does not reach the originals."

The bloggers liked it, too:

• Spill Magazine: "Hands down, West End Coast is sonic gold."
• Written In Music (★★★★): "perfectly executed pop"
• Sonic Soul Reviews: "Absolutely fantastic."

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: It's all delightfully derivative and on most tracks they perfectly capture the tones, instrumentation, and production of the era. One can easily listen to any of the ten tracks here and think, "that sounds like [insert name of '70s soft rocker]." For example, if track 4, Distance Between Us, doesn't immediately remind you of the 1977 Player tune Baby Come Back, then you're at the wrong blog. I can't pick any favorites here, just press play.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Pleasure (2025)
Ticket To Shangri-La (2022)
Canyons (2020)
AM Waves (2018)