Booker T. & The MG's - The Complete Stax Singles Vol. 1 (1962-1967)
First of all, as the house band of the hallowed Stax label
and studio, The MG's pretty much invented the sound of Southern soul, playing
on records by everybody from Otis Redding to Wilson Pickett to Carla Thomas.
Second, on their own as Booker T & the MG's, they came up with some of the
most indelible instrumental jams of all time, including but by no means limited to! "Green Onions." And, third, each member of
the band was an absolute monster on their instrument, to this day revered and
copied by untold numbers of musicians. Indeed, by the time the mid '60s rolled
around, bands on both sides of the Atlantic wanted to sound like Booker T.
Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Jr, and Lewie Steinberg (replaced about
halfway through this collection by the great Donald "Duck" Dunn). And
what was that sound? Well, a typical MG's tune started from the bottom-up,
resting on the rock-solid drumbeat of Jackson and the in-thepocket bass work of
Steinberg and, later, Dunn, over which keyboardist Jones and guitarist Cropper
traded slinky and/or stinging licks. But these cats weren't just riffhappy
groove masters; Jones basically codified the classic Hammond organ sound and
Cropper's guitar tone remains the Holy Grail of anyone who's ever picked up a
Fender Telecaster. Together, they recorded 49 single sides for Stax under the
name of Booker T. & the MG's, and you'll find the first 29 (yes, 29!) of
'em right here, released on a single CD or double-LP pressed in blue vinyl and
limited to 1000 copies. As for the music, it
pretty much speaks for itself: 29 songs, 15 of which reached the charts,
including, along with "Green Onions," such classics as
"Boot-Leg," "Hip Hug-Her," and "My Sweet Potato."
Get ready to get into the groove and stay there for a nice, long while!
Rob Mazurek - Desert Encrypts Vol 1
A really beautiful record from Rob Mazurek – and one of his
most different recordings in years! The set's a quartet date, recorded live –
and has especially strong input from Kris Davis, who plays both piano and
prepared piano – using the acoustic instrument to inflect the music of Mazurek
in a really different way! Also great is bassist Ingegbrigt Haker Flaten –
always a great presence, but maybe more conventionally swinging at times here
than usual, if that's possible. Although the bass may well be driven strongly
by the drums of Chad Taylor – a longtime partner of Rob's, but also really
showing the growth he's experienced since their more frequent projects from ten
to twenty years back. Mazurek himself is almost understated, but in a way that
lets the whole group work strongly as a whole – and Rob plays piccolo, trumpet,
and modular synth! ~ Dusty Groove
Mats Eilertsen - Reveries And Revelations
"It is a sort of solo album, I guess, but not in the
way I would normally do it", Mats Eilertsen says. "I wanted to do
something that came out of the bass itself. Whereas normally I would record a
lot of tracks and see what I had in the end, but more or less as they were
played, this one is produced, cut, edited and layered from the beginning."
Eilertsen is well-established as one of Norway's most internationally
recognised jazz musicians, as well as one of Europe's leading double bass
players. His new album is an unusually
constructed self-build project whose contents were put together ("arranged
and assembled" is the credit on the sleeve) by Eilertsen using contributions
recorded separately by each of his chosen cast of collaborators. "It's me
fooling around in a way I haven't done myself before, and also playing organ,
some guitar and additional stuff. Then I imagined some musicians that I would
like to have adding their own touch to it."'Reveries & Revelations' presents the listener with an
immersive blend of sound and music that, like the experimental score for some
yet to be realised film - part tense thriller, part Tarkovsy-like art movie,
and, perhaps, part horror film - conjures up a wealth of richly allusive and
atmospheric detail. The sonic events that make up the ten separate tracks of
the album (although the whole sequence can function very successfully as a
continuous suite).
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