Compiled by Alan Dearling
Joni Mitchell – Jazz (4 CD box set)
“I’m a painter first and I kind of apply painting principles to music.”
So says Joni Mitchell, in her notes from the hardback book that contains this 2025 collection of her music. In addition to the discs, the book includes a number of reproductions of her artworks as accompaniment to her selected jazz tracks. It’s a complicated discography that is included for reference to the sources for the chosen recordings, starting from her first album, ‘Song to a Seagull’ in 1968, and ending with her performance with the Joni Jam (band) at Newport Festival in 2023. Her range of jazz styles and the musicians who accompany her offer many opportunities to experience, to sense and feel her different emotions, as well as her tonalities, vocal phrasing and song-writing. For me, Discs One and Four are the most satisfying. They seem more diverse and risk-taking. There are more unusual features such as Joni performing with Kyle Eastwood on ‘Trouble Man’ and recordings which included her bandmates, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock on the sessions for Joni’s album, ‘Mingus’ in 1979. ‘A Chair in the Sky’ penned by Joni with Charles Mingus is fabulous, particularly Jaco’s bass playing. The other two discs include much more of what I would call ‘lounge jazz’, especially Disc Two, which features a lot of tracks from 2000’s ‘Both Sides Now’ and ‘Taming the Tiger’ from 1998. Throughout, the mastering of the tracks is superlative. But, of course, you need a good sound system to appreciate it! Here’s a video of ‘Both Sides Now’ from Newport Jazz Festival 2022: https://youtu.be/jxiluPSmAF8
Brinsley Schwarz – Shouting at the Moon
Nowadays Brinsley is a solo artist, some distance from his days in the 1970s with the band, Brinsley Schwarz, who were one of the crowd-pleasing cornerstones of the UK’s pub rock scene along with the likes of Rockpile, Nick Lowe and his old mucker, Graham Parker, before the live music scene succumbed to the onslaught of punk. This album provides audiences of a certain age a chance to bathe in a nostalgic weft and weave of Old School soft-rock. It’s mostly easy on the ear, gentle, with much use of Hammond organ from James Hallawell, who also produced the new album for his friend. From the lyrical content, commencing from the first track, ‘Every Day’, Brinsley has lived through and just about survived, many jangled emotional break-ups:
“Where have you gone? What did I do baby, something wrong.”
There’s some nice sax playing from Simon Taylor and Brinsley himself is in good clear voice and his guitar playing shines through on the wah-wah infused, ‘Nothing is what it seems’. Apparently the tracks themselves were composed over a long period of gestation from the 1990s right up until 2025, with ‘It’s been a long year’. This is the label he’s on: https://www.fretsorerecords.com/
Speed of the Stars – While Italy Dreamed…through Summers of Haze
This is an amazing mix of high-end immersive sound recordings. It’s ambient, romantically-inflected, really rather epic in its ambition. It’s the musical creation of Steve Kilbey from the Church and Frank Kearns of Cactus World News. Steve is the voice of Speed of the Stars as well as the bass player. It’s full of wide soundscapes, orchestral and even sing-along on the up-tempo, ‘Now you see it (now you don’t)’. But there’s plenty of diversity, some powerful darkness in ‘Alluvial Groove’ and an almost ‘Riders on the Storm’, Doors’ vibe in ‘Mr Bellini’. ‘Sheol’ is floaty and ambient, ‘Incident in Torino’ is spectral, perhaps a missing soundtrack for an old film noir classic from the 1950s.
The current version of Speed of the Stars also includes drummer, Barton Price from The Models and muso and songwriter, Hugo Race, who also produced the album. It was recorded principally at the Puccini Floating Music Academy studio on a boat on a lake near Pisa. It’s quite a magical, musical adventure. Video for ‘Alluvial Groove’: https://youtu.be/SZN9cHoAEec
Grateful Dead – Ladies and Gentlemen… (4 CD box set) A strange little video for St Stephen: https://youtu.be/L1hooub14kM
I had been searching for the ‘best of the best’ of Live Grateful Dead. This collection maybe is that gem-stone Mother Lode. It seems to have only been issued in the United States. It is to my mind a great discovery, which I made after trawling the almost infinite Grateful Dead sites on-line. All my faves are featured, from ‘Truckin’, through ‘Dark Star’, ‘St Stephen’, ‘Casey Jones’ and ‘Uncle John’s Band’. And they are performed with energy, skill and exemplary talent from one of the best line-ups of the Dead.
Grateful Dead in 1971:
Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals; Bill Kreutzmann – drums; Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals; Ron “Pigpen” McKernan – organ, percussion, harmonica, vocals; Bob Weir – rhythm guitar, vocals and a special guest appearance by Tom Constanten – keyboards.
Very unusually, the live recordings from the Fillmore East, New York shows in 1971 (just prior to the venue being closed down by promoter, Bill Graham), ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ were recorded on a 16-track multi-track recorder and were mixed down to stereo just prior to the album’s 2000 release. Most other live recordings are simply two track mixes from the sound board. The album, released in October 2000, was certified Gold by the RIAA on January 6, 2002.
Here’s what Blair Jackson says (he’s author of ‘Garcia: An American Way of Life’):
“The Dead put on a show for the ages…It managed to sum up the Dead’s six year history at the same time it sounded completely fresh and pointed in the new direction..It was a helluva way to say goodbye to a truly magical space.”
It took a bit of effort to get my hands on this box of Dead great goodies. There really are not many copies available to the public in the UK. I am delighted with the ‘find’!
John Armstrong & Friends – Meet on the Edge: Wyrd World Folk
A new folksy album compilation from my local mate, John from the Calderdale Valley in Yorkshire. Lots of his friends are featured. Plenty of violin, djembe drumming, guitars and a selection of John’s favourite songs, with his sometimes frail voice augmented with friends’ vocal support. Old songs fractured, re-imagined, re-cast…New tunes glinting with fragments of gold and hints of sparkling diamonds and emeralds. A lovely guitar solo tune from John entitled ‘Sad Goodbye’. And a strong opener from Beana Jones on her own powerful composition, ‘Love’. And it is well embellished with a trumpet arrangement courtesy of Christopher Fryman. There’s a quirky swing track, ‘Just leave it all behind’, which provides a pleasant change of pace. Later on in the album, Llamo offers some world vocalising on ‘Happy Tibetan New Year. And it all ends with John’s paean to a perhaps long-lost Scottish Borders’ relative, on ‘Ballad of Johnny Armstrang’. A nice example of self-publishing (available from Northzone on Bandcamp and Youtube). https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3aZMyZMjZ0B9jT19DIbPdQ
Twenty One Children
Here’s what it says about this outfit on-line:
“Twenty One Children are a dynamic punk duo from Johannesburg, South Africa, set to redefine the country’s alternative music scene. Consisting of friends Thula and Abdula, the pair blends U.S.-inspired skate culture with their unique Sowetan identity, crafting a sound that’s fresh, defiant, and brimming with energy.”
It looks from a recent photo that there may now be three of them in the band.
They have just released a new EP on Slovenly Records:
It captures their rumbustious gangsta spirit. Full of African anger and energy and they are very obviously a crowd-pleasing live act. Punky as hell! Very much in the tradition of Black Flag.
From ‘Scare Tactics’ (2025): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-rm9-GMsXM
“Dont let ’em scare you with darkness
“These drunkards are harmless
These bastards are hopeless
The robots are processed”
And an older video about the band and ‘Looney Bin’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFjCUEjB5kE&list=RDsFjCUEjB5kE&start_radio=1
The 7″ EP features: 1. Ice Cube/2. Talk Shows/3. Let It Doom/4. Looney Bin
‘Ice Cube’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfLrLJycgpM
Brian Eno + David Byrne – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
I stumbled into this Virgin Records 2006 release by pure happenstance on a stall at the local market. I looked at it, and thought, ‘Hey, why not take a punt?’ it’s much more than a simple re-release. It’s a total re-re-ordering, re-mix with tracks organised in a different sequence and new tracks added and others left off. Because the record utilised many samples, especially vocals, the original 1980 album release was delayed and tracks were left off on that release and on subsequent versions. Here’s what David Byrne says in the sleeve notes:
“Some of the bonus tracks included here were on the original version of the record, some in slightly different forms or mixes. We felt our revised and new material superseded these…In searching for ‘vocalists’ we gravitated towards the passionate , which we found in pretty disparate places: angry radio talk-show hosts, Arabic singers, preachers and radio evangelists.”
It’s an unsettling, sometimes even startling listen in 2025. Back in 1980, it was simply ground-breaking. It’s dark, weird, visceral, emotionally-challenging and really rather wonderful! Worth searching out, methinks. Video link to ‘Regiment’: https://youtu.be/ARmKfoEm6BM
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