Alice Coltrane, Ptah, the El Daoud and the Coltrane Home Studio (Part I) Alice Coltrane’s Ptah, the El Daoud, has an inner luminosity that transcends its performances and composition; it is the rare album that captures not just brief moments of brilliance, but entire passages that transport the listener. The album is all the more remarkable for being out of print on vinyl since 1974. It was recorded in a studio built by the Coltranes in their Dix Hills home that was slated for demolition until a group of preservationists and family members stepped in to rescue it. This is the story of an... Read More

 Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records By Neil Antin Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records by Neil Antin applies processes and methodologies developed by the U.S. Navy for precision cleaning of critical systems—such as oxygen systems on submarines—to the much more prosaic task of cleaning vinyl LPs. Mr. Antin’s work, documented in the paper attached here as a download, is not presented as some extraordinary way to clean an LP that will render all other cleaning methods obsolete; to the contrary, Neil details a very basic, economical manual cleaning process and takes... Read More

 In the Court- Steve Wilson’s 50th Anniversary Remix on Vinyl  In the Court of the Crimson King was not just foundational to the emergence of “prog rock” but has endured long after many other influential and important early bands who tapped that vein fell into disfavor. I’ve had a number of copies of this record over the years, and settled on an early UK pink label (A3/B3) and a somewhat later UK pink rim (4u). The 2010 reissue of In the Court on vinyl, which drew from newly discovered source material was fine as far as it went but sounded a little clinical to my ears compared... Read More

El Donut Shoppe— “Inspirational” Rare Jazz Records Rare jazz records have gotten pricey. I’ve patronized a number of dealers in the last few years, but there are a few that stand out. One is Uncle Tony’s El Donut Shoppe. It is not your “normal” record shop—think of it as a place of first or last resort when looking for hard to source, offbeat and rare jazz records: private or small label records and other rarities that seldom show up for sale in the marketplace (either at record stores or on the Internet) but are highly sought after by those looking for something a... Read More

Milt Ward and Virgo Spectrum- Obscure Grail  This album, with Milt Ward as band leader and featuring Carlos Garnett on tenor sax and Cecil McBee on bass is fairly rare- it comes up occasionally for sale, but it took me time to get a copy. Released in 1977 (according to the copyright notices on the labels) on the utterly obscure Twin Quest label, little seems to be known about Ward or the sessions. He did appear as a trumpet player on a few other albums. Given the album’s rep as a “grail” it is surprising how little is known about it, particularly given the line... Read More

Leaf Hound- Growers of Mushroom; Famous Obscurity; Interview with Peter French Some albums develop a mythology based on rarity, the relative lack of commercial impact at the time of release and later recognition as an influence to other, more well known records by other bands. Leaf Hound’s “Growers of Mushroom” is one such album. It’s a famously “obscure” album, with original copies easily fetching well over $3,000 US. Apart from its desirability as a collectible, it’s actually a great hard rock album, its members drawn from Black Cat Bones,... Read More

Muriel Grossmann and The Golden Rule There is something very alluring about the sounds Muriel Grossmann evokes on Golden Rule, her latest album, the first she has released on vinyl, and the third in a trilogy with a band consisting of Gina Schwarz on bass, Uros Stamenkovic on drums, and Radomir Milojkovic on guitar. Grossmann, born in Paris but living in Ibiza, has been able to capture the melodic style of, say, a Lester Young with the more ethereal sounds of Coltrane, who is often credited as an originator of the “spiritual jazz” movement.  What you hear is a muscular tenor... Read More

AIR-AIR Revisited: Comparison of Be With Records Vinyl Reissue to Original Embryo Pressing; Interview with Tom Coppola Tom Coppola, Googie Coppola and Dave Johnson (photo by Fred Ahlert, courtesy Tom Coppola) When I reviewed the 2016 Be With Records reissue of AIR on vinyl,  I promised to compare it to an original pressing; I thought the reissue was quite good, even though derived from a digital transfer. The original, on the Embryo label, although not exactly rare, does command a price these days.   I borrowed a copy of the original... Read More