Ring out the old, ring in the new:
Bob Dylan ‘More Greatest Hits’ - the first Dylan album I ever owned remains a quality listen despite its non-chronological structure;
Buzzcocks ‘Love Bites’ - which I’ve let a couple of dud tracks make me too long consider this a substandard LP. This truly enlivened a depressing end of year morning;
George Harrison ‘Dark Horse’ - which is now, unbelievably, fifty years old. It’s patchy, a bit self-pitying, but there’s enough good music going down here to make me think ‘Dark Horse’ isn’t quite the turkey it’s often held out to be;
Ringo Starr ‘It Don’t Come Easy’, ‘Back Off Boogaloo’ & ‘Photograph’ 45s - and even older are these 7” gems that George’s old marra unleashed upon a surprised public. And you know what - their quality sustains;
Echo and the Bunnymen ‘Heaven Up Here’ - playing this while walking along Seaburn sea front at dusk, I swear I visioned the sleeve of this wonderful album. Then I went home and played it again - twice. 43 years old? Naaahhh. Just a reminder of how great music was in the early Eighties. As is
Magazine ‘The Correct Use Of Soap’ - not quite up to the level of ‘Secondhand Daylight’ methinks, but still a damn fine record;
Wishbone Ash ‘Bona Fide’ - like all of Wishbone’s 21st century albums this suffers from the lack of a decent lead vocalist, but the songwriting and playing remain excellent;
REO Speedwagon ‘Hi-Infidelity’ - it takes an exceptional album to transcend a genre in which you have no interest to the extent that you love it anyway. This is mine. Pure pleasure from first note to last, yet I bloody hate soft rock;
David Sylvian & Holger Czukay ‘Plight & Premonition’ - MOR avant garderie, and that’s not meant as a criticism, rather than a feeling that this is improvised music at its least demanding;
U2 ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’ (from ‘Rattle & Hum’) - very little U2 moves me but my, this surely does. Edge’s slide makes me wriggle like a snake;
David Bowie ‘Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles 1974)’ - so superior is this belated set to ‘David Live’, I wonder why the latter was ever considered for release. The closing ‘John I’m Only Dancing (Again)’ is a particular hoot. I’ll never consider this Bowie’s best era, but this record captures his white soul phase better than any other;
Mal Waldron ‘The Call’ - one of ECM’s headier releases, chosen to launch their much missed JAPO imprint in 1971. As radical in its own way as anything else recorded in Germany at the time;
Maynard Ferguson ‘Live At Jimmy’s’ - jazz’ most thrilling trumpeter blowing up a storm back in ‘74. Test your tweeters with this mother;
Joe Loss Orchestra ‘Joe Loss Plays Glenn Miller’ - one of my Dad’s old LPs that still shines over fifty years later. Classy big band music, occasionally enhanced by the creamy vocals of Elvis Costello’s old man Ross McManus;
Bach: Prelude & Fugue in C, BWV 545 (Peter Hurford, Helmut Walcha 1950, Helmut Walcha 1970, Ton Koopman, Hans Fagius, Bernard Foccroulle, Andrea Marcon) - it’s oddly instructive to hear the same piece played by different players on different organs. Each has its own pros and cons, but Hans Fagius comes nearest to my ideal;
Brahms: Symphony no.2 (BBC SO/Arturo Toscanini) - pre-war studio take not released until the 90s. Quite excellent, despite crumbly sound;
Beethoven: Symphony no.7 (Philharmonia/Otto Klemperer) - 1957 live performance with a notable edge lacking from Klemperer’s (still fine) studio recordings;
Sibelius: Symphony no.6 (Moscow RSO/Gennady Rozhdestvensky) - occasionally scrawny strings, but this is an unusually distinctive interpretation, heavy on atmosphere - and brass;
Suppe: Beautiful Galatea Overture/Bernstein: Chichester Psalms/Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.3 (w. Rudolf Serkin)/Dvorak: Symphony no.7 (all NYPO/Leonard Bernstein) - there’s no such thing as a bland Bernstein recording, and these duly records emote and engage like few others, the only exception being the Beethoven which seemed curiously earthbound;
Haydn: String Quartet in B flat, Op.55 no.3 (Buchberger Quartet) - earthy and vital take on one of Haydn’s many four-stringed masterpieces. What the Buchbergers lack in refinement, they make up for in spirit;
Beethoven: Piano Sonata Op.31 no.1 (Artur Schnabel) - amidst the 78 RPM mush and a few wrong notes lies an interpretation like none since.
Nostalgia for an age yet to come.
Have a good week
Dave x
|
