What Are You Listening To? October 2019

Some early morning Nirvana preceded my Century of Music listening
Spun In Utero and Live Unplugged MTV before work today - really woke me up :)
Unfortunately rest of Sinatra's Columbia material is quite mellow - zzzzz. Gotta get up for the rest of the day!
 
Glenn Branca - The Ascension (1981)



Skyline on RYM said:
if i had to be honest: there're a few boring passages on here that make me wonder why i'm not just listening to another one of the million sonic youth records i haven't heard yet, but when it's good, it's like being kissed for 15 minutes straight or seeing daggers of light shoot out of a loved one's body

i keep forgetting this is done with guitars
 
Mitch Miller - European Holiday (1956)


Vinyl Rip Of The Day.

The rarest item in the Mitch Miller canon has to be this advertising 10" LP for SAS. Mitch directed the soon-to-be singalong chorus in a program extolling the virtues of European travel by air. Jill Corey and Jerry Vale play that carefree traveling couple, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, weaving a spoken word narrative among the songs. Jonathan Winters makes an early appearance as their guide, deploying a variety of continental accents and voices. The second side consists of three Scandinavian light orchestral classics sans Mitch.
 
Mavis Staples - We Get By



Edit: I admire Mavis Staples and love to hear a couple of tracks of hers or when she guests on others' works. But I rarely make it through one of her own albums. This one is a real pleasure. I understand it was produced by Ben Harper. Maybe that's the difference.
This 2019 album, as it arrived in the mail yesterday. So good.

As Randy mentioned, Ben Harper did produce this album. What's more is, he wrote (virtually) all the songs.

The front cover photo: "Outside Looking In", Mobile Alabama, 1956.
 
Takuya Kuroda - Zigzagger (2016)

From the title, I'd guess Kuroda wants to be this decade's version of Lee Morgan. I like this, but can easily grasp why not every Lee Morgan fan will be able to grasp any similarities between the two trumpeters. This is simply too ... contemporary, too groove-centric to appeal to all fans of classic Jazz. There's a lot of keyboard, some slick thick electric bass, and a beat that is not swing. Wynton would not approve.

This is a Jazzier version of what Roy Hargrove started with his Rh Factor albums.
 
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