Roy Haynes

Courtesy of Gobblinz

★★★★

Hip Ensemble

WEWANTSOUNDS. LP

Buried treasure by inspired jazz drummer. Includes bonus track Roy’s Tune from the same ’71 session.

Roxbury, MA’s Roy Haynes was a jazz drumming colossus who rang in the changes as sideman for Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and more. As befits his epoch-bridging CV, this first time vinyl reissue of his 1971 solo LP (originally on the Mainstream label) heralds both his and jazz’s enormous variety, shifting between spiritual jazz, fusion, post-bebop and Afro-Cuban funk with lyrical ease. Recorded with producer Bob Shad and symbiotic trumpet/tenor sax frontline, the tone is set by Tangiers, a here and now tour de force with jousting horns and Icarus-like flying then falling flute over Haynes’s volatile percussive eruptions. Other highs include Satan’s Mysterious Feeling, a thrilling playing-with-abandon funk groove. But it’s an album best consumed whole.

Lois Wilson

Joe Henderson

★★★★

Multiple

CRAFT RECORDINGS. LP

Jazz saxophonist’s cult album from 1973 returns as a vinyl-only release.

Many jazz musicians prefer playing live and often view the recording studio as a necessary evil, but tenor saxophonist Henderson was different, regarding the studio as a vital crucible of invention. “I think that’s where I thrive,” he revealed in 1993. “There’s something about the studio that has a magic about it, that I seem to come alive there.” In 1973, Henderson embraced multitrack recording with his most exploratory album, Multiple, a rarity that regularly sells secondhand for three figures. With its gnarly avant-jazz topography, the album is a close cousin to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew. Supported by Davis alumni, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, Henderson overdubs multiple instruments to create layered soundscapes bristling with creativity. He also lends his voice on two cuts: chanting on the funk-powered Tress-Cun-Deo-La and contributing eerie humming to the haunting Song For Sinners. Mesmerising stuff.

Charles Waring

Gene Clark & Carla Olson

★★★★

So Rebellious A Lover

SUNSET BLVD. CD/DL/LP

1987 duet album that reinvigorated the most tragic Byrd.

So much of Gene Clark’s post-Byrds work is overlooked – or at least overshadowed by 1974’s No Other – but even he must have been surprised by the copper-bottomed quality of So Rebellious A Lover. A chance on-stage meeting with Textones singer Carla Olson reignited the best in Clark after years in the post-addiction wilderness, their voices and writing styles meshing like no one else since Gram and Emmylou. The greatest proof is in Clark’s vocals never sounding more assured than on the jingle-jangle version of Phil Ochs’ Changes, and the album’s cornerstone track, Gypsy Rider, with its aching opening lines, “Crank her over once again/Put your face into the wind”, a masterpiece filled with the inevitable loneliness of forever moving on. Olson’s strident vocals counterpoint Clark’s weariness and her songwriting, too, was seldom stronger. All 19 tracks of the extended 2018 CD are remastered here, and proto-Americana never sounded better.

Andy Fyfe

David Lee Roth

★★★★

The Warner Recordings 1985-1994

RHINO. CD/DL/LP

All of Diamond Dave’s solo work for Warners in a 5-CD box.

With buoyant, high-chartingin-the-US takes on Louis Prima’s Just A Gigolo and The Beach Boys’ California Girls – both perfect fits for Roth’s persona/MTV-boosted antics – DLR’s 1985 EP Crazy From The Heat spelt trouble for Van Halen Mk I and launched a solo career which fizzed for a decade, then fizzled. Roth’s two LPs with Steve Vai, 1986’s Eat ’Em And Smile and 1988’s Skyscraper, were masterclasses in career planning, Vai probably the only Eddie Van Halen-adjacent guitar magus fully equipped to help super-size the joy via Rothian conceits such as Ladies’ Nite In Buffalo? and Just Like Paradise. Later, DD’s 1994 Nile Rodgers-produced Your Filthy Little Mouth spoke of his lifetime love of disco, but quality control was dipping, and that discomfiting rictus smile was kicking in.