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Here's another vote for Chapter Three, prog jazz at its best. Mike Hugg's voice is exceptional too


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTi7Bykg7L0

Squaring The Circle is on Netflix in the UK and is well worth watching. (Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but a brief search couldn't find anything.)

It does look like Svettie is back and, IMO, I think his return should be welcomed. Admittedly his over-posting of video clips is irritating but he has a lot of knowledge and provides many interesting...

Yes, very interesting. I see Jerry Goodman is there but I wonder who else from the original line-up is returning. Some of the live stuff I have heard from the band performing back in the day was...

Excellent playlist. I love that period when Christensen played with Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal and Arild Andersen under the guidance of George Russell. You have ‘Trip to Prillarguri’ but have missed...

I must admit that the post-Soon Over Babaluma period is my least favourite of the various Can iterations and I very rarely play any of their studio albums from that time (except for the thunderous...

It’s a bit like the bus. You wait a year for one to arrive and then three come in short order. Apparently there are two more live Can releases planned for this year, both recorded in the UK in March...

^^ A good review from the FT (copied here as they have a paywall), echoing your view of Suzuki:

Can: Live in Paris 1973 album review — vivid tribute to one of rock’s best improvisational groups
...

Just listened to 'Live in Paris 1973' and it is great, the best of the Live series so far. The sound level is consistent throughout, not ‘live-in-the-studio’ clear but all the instruments come...

If you are referring to the album 'Paris 1970' then the artwork is the best thing about London Calling's release. The same concert in better sound can be found on Facelift, released by Cuneiform. The...

Good point. Apparently Damo's death was mentioned in a BBC Radio 4 news bulletin. I suspect that not more than 5 per cent of the listeners would have heard him (with a perhaps a lot more having heard...

The Guardian newspaper has run three articles following Damo’s death, two very bland. But this one seems to capture the essence of what made the vocalist stand out.

...

A legend. And he features in the next Can Live release that arrives in a week or two. Spoon, from the Tago Mago 40th anniversary set, will be played tonight

...

Any excuse to play this great track again.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSNEiJ48T9U



I hadn’t noticed this before. The ‘vocal obbligato’ first emerged as far as I can see on the version...

Here's an obit that ran recently.


https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/02/wayne-kramer-co-founder-of-rock-band-mc5-dies-aged-75




I agree, but I am often surprised by some of the...

Well done and well deserved Stephen. All the albums that you and Ben have remixed and remastered over the years have been transformed.

Guy Evans is IMO one of the great unsung rock drummers (along with Pierre Moerlen). If you want a treat just listen to him on Lemmings from Pawn Hearts. (If you access the track via the Charisma...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9rF87XYmwQ

Great to watch live but IMO the studio version tops this

Search for James Walsh Gypsy Band and when you get to his site drop down to the section 'Fans also like...' and Gypsy is the first band in that list (at least it is in the UK). Or else search for the...

The first two albums from Minnesota's Gypsy (Spotify has them under James Walsh Gypsy Band)

When Live in Lyon was released on vinyl last year there was some comment on it here at PE. The whole set is due to be included in the boxset due to come out at some time in the future.
...

:up A beautiful version of a great song. Largo looks like a good album. I will investigate it further

Rock Bottom is an amazing album and, although it is a cliche, there really is nothing else like it in popular music. My go-to Wyatt solo album, though, remains Ruth is Stranger Than Richard. This is...

Nick Mason was quite an accomplished, if not particularly prolific, producer. Apart from a lot of the Floyd stuff and Rock Bottom he also worked on Shamal, which has a beautiful sound, and Steve...

This writer also seems sure it is the May show but he could just be making assumptions. Labelling each track with a number rather than a song title seems to be the pattern in this series of live...

At last. It has been more than a year since the Cuxhaven release. Amazon UK hasn't yet listed the CD or vinyl versions on its site but its digital release, which is only available from February 23,...

Just seen that Tony Oxley died on December 26. He was a great drummer, with perhaps his best-known work being Extrapolation with John McLaughlin, John Surman and Brian Odgers. This obit gives an...

Great blog. Thanks. I am very tempted to get this edition but I already have the 2001 deluxe set and so would essentially be paying £20 plus for a single live disc (I note what you say about the...

:up Excellent.

Thanks for the clarification. I assume it will be a four-CD set, but perhaps not so many vinyl discs, as was the case with 2022's Facelift (France & Holland).

And as for the Gong mega boxset, I now enter my third year of expectation. So let's hope 2024 is THE year for what promises to be an amazing set.

Soft Machine have recently added a nearby town to their UK tour in February so I am off to see them there. I caught their last tour, with John Marshall on drums, at a local venue and that was great....

Not much available in southern Africa. In what was then Rhodesia, and is now Zimbabwe, there were virtually no imported records. But records, for 99.99999 percent of the population, were a long way...

Great stuff. I have been listening to Norman Willmore’s Alive and Well at the Muckle Roe Hall album on Bandcamp and enjoying it (no CD unfortunately). It doesn’t look like Willmore is touring though....

The remastered/remixed Space Ritual arrived today (just the two-CD version) and a quick listen shows all the accolades here and elsewhere are justified. As per Van Der Graaf Generator’s Charisma...

That is sad news. He worked with Bob Downes too and can be found on Crossing Borders and New York Suite. He can also be heard on Julie Driscoll's album 1969.

Thanks for the review. I have just bought the 2CD remixed set on the strength of it (£15 at Cherry Red, compared with some chancer on Amazon asking £29 for the same version). This will be the fourth...

Redbone


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAxaTMVW1f0

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/14/my-son-was-like-what-mum-norma-winstone-the-british-jazz-singer-being-sampled-by-drake

Norma Winstone is in the news after one of her songs with...

Imagine those two songs getting the remastering/remixing treatment from Wiseman and Tayler, along the lines of The Charisma Years. Mouth-watering.

Here's a good review of the new album, from the Financial Times. I am copying it out here as the FT has a paywall.

"To be or not to be: the dilemma that perplexed Hamlet has been resolved by...

Pavlov's Dog


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3KSpeiRPTc

What is obscure in this age of YouTube, crate-digging reissue labels and streaming services?

There is almost nothing to investigate when it comes to South African prog, except (IMO) for two...

Really funny video and you make a good point about her humour. Perhaps it first emerged on the Fictitious Sports album


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JADPCcpUbu0

Plus the excellent Rune 90 and Rune 104

Not at all. Thank you for the tips. I need to take a deeper dive into the UK jazz scene and these suggestions look excellent.

The sound of Larry Young’s organ on this is sublime; it underpins the track’s spiritual nature while Santana and McLaughlin fire off their solos. Young’s sound and style on this album seem to be a...

There are 1,696 tracks on the playlist, which would take months to get through. It would be great if the list could be whittled down to about 30 tracks as this is a genre I would really like to...

I have been listening to a couple of albums John Marshall recorded with John Surman, both excellent. ‘Morning Glory’ (recorded live in 1973) is the more rock-based of the two (with Terje Rypdal on...

This needs a thread of its own. John Marshall was one of the key musicians of the British progressive jazz era which stretches from about 1963 to perhaps the mid to late 1970s. He was a co-founder of...

Thanks for the review. The first two albums are my favourites so it will be great to listen to early workings of the songs (before grandiosity began to derail the band, IMO!). While I was looking...

Good review. H to He is my least favourite of the first six VDGG albums (up to Still Life), but perhaps I had been a bit harsh in neglecting it. In the remixed version from the Charisma Years boxset...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK-boH0DkYs

This third album by Jericho (although their first album was under the name The Churchills, and their second under the name Jericho Jones) should have...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC-ekHpbgqE

This is the opening track on the excellent The Going's Easy, the second (and last) album by The Greatest Show on Earth.

Robert Fripp and Toyah tackle Kashmir (apparently with the approval of Robert Plant, who was in the audience)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTd92kv57fM

In January there was a video on Facebook showing engineers working on the "next" release. Speculation was that a 1973 concert in Paris was being lined up. Since then nothing. Perhaps the sales of...

That bloke on camera R2 has the job to die for; being pushed around all day by a lackey while filming the cream of the jazz world playing at the top of their game.

There is an 11-minute track (‘Directions’) from this line-up on Alan Skidmore’s recently released six-CD set ‘A Supreme Love’. The track was recorded in Berlin on September 3, 1971, for...

Jazz in Britain is publishing a Duncan Heining book in October focusing on six British composers: Keith Tippett, Mike Gibbs, Mike Westbrook, Barry Guy, Michael Garrick and John Mayer. The book will...

Love from the Planet Gong is a great boxset, particularly the live stuff. There has not been much news of the planned mega boxset of live Gong material that was due out this year. But the project...