Chicago Blues Reunion: Buried Alive in the Blues
Out of the Box 3016
Format: CD, DVD-Video

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"Born in Chicago," the tune that opened the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s eponymous debut album in 1965, was written by another young white blues musician from Chicago, Nick Gravenites. Butterfield, Gravenites, Mike Bloomfield, and Barry Goldberg were kids in Chicago who loved the blues and ended up playing it in local clubs. At first they were treated like novelties, but after a while other blues musicians and fans in town began to respect their passion and ability. Forty years later, Gravenites and Goldberg are again playing the blues with musicians they’ve known all these years. Harvey Mandel, Tracy Nelson, Corky Siegel, and a crack rhythm section burn through an hour of impassioned music on Buried Alive in the Blues. The live recording has a smoky blues-club ambiance, and the band sounds excited to be playing the music they’ve given their lives to. Siegel sounds terrific, and Gravenites sings like the blues patriarch he is. Nelson is, simply, a knockout -- she sends a charge through each of the four tunes she sings. The accompanying DVD contains footage from the show, along with archival film and recent interviews with the musicians. There are two glimpses of Bloomfield accompanying Muddy Waters; the guitarist’s fans will be fighting back tears….Joseph Taylor

Franck: Three Chorales; Pièce Héroïque; Prélude, Fugue, et Variation
Olivier Latry, organ.
DG 477 541 8
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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The organ at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame has undergone many changes through the years. The liner note accompanying this SACD traces its organ builders back to 1402, where it all began with Fréderic Schambantz. Revisions and rebuilding projects took place in 1610, 1733, 1788, 1868, 1963, and 1992. The most famous was in the 1800s, by Astride Cavaillé-Coll, which gave the instrument its singular "French" sound -- the timbres that César Franck would have known when writing his music. The instrument now has a very reedy sound that projects well into the cavernous acoustic of the immense cathedral. Olivier Latry, the regular organist at Notre-Dame, knows exactly how to play tempo and registration against the otherwise unwieldy spacious acoustic. His tempos might seem broad in another venue, but here they allow passages to be heard clearly without becoming muddy. The engineers have done as good a job as Latry. How thrilling it is to hear the block chords at the end of the Pièce Héroïque, and then the reverberation swirling around the listener and filling the rear channels in the pauses. As the chords decay, the front channels reproduce the sound of the next entrance with overlapping brilliance. It is a realistic and awesome experience….Rad Bennett

Rachmaninoff: Moments Musicaux, Op.16; Morceaux de fantasie, Op.3; Fragments; Prelude, Op. Post.; Zdes’ khorosho, Op.21 No.7; Vocalise
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano.
Decca 475 619 8
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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In 1963, when Vladimir Ashkenazy burst on the Western music scene, the music of Rachmaninoff was one of his predominate calling cards. More than 40 years later, the Russian pianist still features the music of his countryman in his repertory, now playing it as well as anyone but Rachmaninoff himself. Ashkenazy’s playing has tremendous authority, as one would expect from an artistic senior statesman, but it also has plenty of excitement -- one of the factors that brought him to the public’s attention in the first place. This recital features music from Rachmaninoff’s early career, including the famous Prelude in C-sharp Minor. Ashkenazy has completely rethought this durable warhorse, now taking it faster and adding more lyrical expression to achieve a refreshing new take that is moving and makes sense. Another well-known piece, Polichinelle, is played in a good-natured, facile manner, and the rest of the works are performed with total success. In the last five years, Decca has often recorded Ashkenazy in 4.0 channels, dropping the center channel. This one is in 5.0 perfectly balanced channels and sounds warm yet lucid. The 2.0 tracks are fine, but the 5.0 tracks have more presence….Rad Bennett

Carole King: The Living Room Tour
Rockingdale/Concord/Hear RCD2-6200-2
Format: CD

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Not having followed Carole King’s recording career closely since the halcyon days of her blockbuster Tapestry (1971) -- as popular as pop albums get -- I find King’s two-CD The Living Room Tour enjoyable and interesting. The pop songwriting team of King and her first husband, Gerry Goffin, predated the Beatles’ and Bob Dylan’s perform-your-own-songs paradigm. "Take Good Care of My Baby," "I’m Into Something Good," "One Fine Day," and others from the early 1960s make a fine medley at the end of the first disc. A high point on the second disc is the Monkees hit "Pleasant Valley Sunday," with its rhythm and harmony nailed, its "squires" mowing their suburban lawns, and "charcoal burning everywhere" -- probably this decidedly comfortable pop writer’s wittiest social comment. Later favorites, such as "It’s Too Late" and "Sweet Seasons," come off great: good live-recording sound, no string ever out of tune, and exceptionally affecting solo singing by bandmember Gary Burr adding to King’s still-strong, straightforward vocals. On the tour, King and her small band appeared in a modest, furnished onstage "living room." The album richly fulfills the promise of its first track, "Welcome to My Living Room," the warm and not-too-cloying invitation to a friendly musical soirée that opened each show of the tour….David J. Cantor 

Playboy Jazz: Jazz After Dark II
Concord PBD2-7518-2
Format: CD

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Jazz After Dark II presents 26 ballads on two discs from some of the greatest jazz artists. The first disc showcases instrumentals, including such jazz royalty as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane, and is near perfect in its track selection and sequence. Ideal for cocktails or dinner, it is also a jazz history lesson for students of the genre. The second disc focuses on vocal performances from an equally illustrious lineup that includes Tony Bennett, Abby Lincoln, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mel Tormé. It isn’t as cohesive as that on the first disc, but the performances are all standout. The sound is good, and some sound better than the average. Zan Stewart’s notes put each track in its historical context and serve as a good invitation to this music in general. And diehard jazz fans -- this set probably includes some tracks that even you don’t have. With music like this, you’ll want to be relaxing with your special someone in front of the fire, not playing DJ at the stereo….Eric Hetherington