Read more here: magically takes the listener through musical caverns that want to be explored again with repeated spins. The uptempo blues of 'Mood Indigo' drops quietly into 'Don't Smoke in Bed' and the even deeper blues of 'He Needs Me.' One can hear Billie Holiday's influence pushing Simone on her own musical path. Captured here are moments of intrigue, as Simone Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart classic 'Little Girl Blue' (the alternate title of the album stamped on the label of the vinyl as well as on the back cover) is a gorgeous work of art, Simone Janis Joplin Simone gives insight into the recording of this masterpiece, an album that sets different tones with each melodic adventure. Nina Simone's first official album, 1958's Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club, is pure perfection, an amazing accomplishment for a 24-year-old pianist arranging and singing studio renditions of songs from her live set. Starting with the Monkees' 'I'm a Believer' all the way to a version of Ketty Lester's lovely 'Love Letters' read more here:ĥ)NINA SIMONE: Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club (Charly UK) Instead, listeners have Pearson and his collaborator, producer/director John Schroeder, playing it safe and delivering a pleasant run-through of familiar 1960s Top 40 standards that run the gamut.

Johnny Pearson's piano pauses and hesitations that made for great and eerie pop music - the Sounds Orchestral version of 'Louie, Louie' is just one example of their unique approach, another being their most famous, the number one adult contemporary hit 'Cast Your Fate to the Wind' - are audio treats that are 'sounds missing' from this exercise. The healthy 20 tracks on this compilation maintain the elegance it's just that the mystery is missing. Sounds Chartbound is a strange record for the mysteriously eloquent Sounds Orchestral. It's music as performance art all rolled into one - read more here:Ĥ) SOUNDS ORCHESTRAL The Easy Project, Volume 7 With Phillips' left hand on the strings, his right hand works over the body of the instrument in addition to strumming and plucking. To say that it is captivating underscores the genius at work. The audience begins to chuckle at his Zappa-esque explorations of the instrument, the timing keeping it musical while the mind of the maestro goes into some meditative swim through the possibilities of a stringed instrument as an extension of a man's mind. This wonderful DVD of Barre Phillips performing live on February 19, 2005, at Porgy & Bess in Vienna gives new meaning to 'space age bachelor pad music.' Phillips takes the bow and plucks at his bass with percussive slaps that sound like an ultrasound machine in search of the lost tracks from Jerry Goldsmith 's landmark Planet of the Apes soundtrack score. Read more from MusicMatch here:ģ)BARRE PHILLIPS 'LIVE IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA'

Yes, this is adult contemporary, but in the same vein as Esquivel, the Latin Pianos album taking sounds from south of the border and mixing them up with percussion and well-timed piano attacks, maneuvers Billy Joel and Elton John should study for their performances together. Read more here:įerrante & Teicher's Latin Pianos, with an orchestra conducted by Don Costa, is not your standard 1960s middle-of-the-road fare, though the duo was undeservedly lumped in with Ray Conniff and other purveyors of soft music from that era. The verdict: See It in Sound is a vibrant and tremendously creative artistic achievement. In order to be objective one has to take oneself away from the cult who adore Esquivel's work and just hear this magical adventure away from the rhetoric and judge it on its own merits. Sam Wick's dense four pages of liner notes to Esquivel's See It in Sound album provide a window to this fascinating kaleidoscope of intonation which, shockingly, RCA Records refused to release after it was recorded in Hollywood in May of 1960. You can send your comments to joe by e mailing website: įor more 'Space Age Bachelor Pad' sounds try Joe Viglione's Film Reviews Please note that this is a work in progress and some of the albums will change rankings as new ones get added.

Space age bachelor pad