I've been on this Nathan Davis kick lately- aside from that recent issue of previously unreleased material from Paris on Sam Records that Mike Fremer reviewed, some of the albums he recorded once he returned to the US, and took a position as the head of jazz studies at Pitt, are pretty marvelous. "6th Sense in the 11th House" is beautiful and "Makatuka" which was the first album he recorded when he returned to the US (and features a vocal track) really show how adept Davis was at pretty much every style.
There was a guy on e-Bay who had a stash of these old records, still sealed, that he grabbed when the studio went bankrupt. There is a recent issue of Makatuka, but I'm not sure of its provenance. It may be a 'Scorpio'-
Glass Bead Games has been reissued by Pure Pleasure- who is always a little cagey about sources they use, but they tend to sound good. The original Strata-East pressings are now crazy money. I haven't received my copy of this latest release but am looking forward to it. A friend has an original and we may do a shoot-out. I can almost predict the outcome-- the original sounds better at X the price. Such is life.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Speakers Corner re-do of Herbie Hancock's Crossings, a kind of funk/spiritual jazz thing that sounded great on Warner green label. The Speakers Corner, which is relatively cheap compared to a time vault original (I had to go thru 3 copies to find a clean player) is punchier, and has more sparkle. Maybe a little less 'organic' sounding, but Kevin Gray's work on this really brings out the sound of the Rhodes.
There was a guy on e-Bay who had a stash of these old records, still sealed, that he grabbed when the studio went bankrupt. There is a recent issue of Makatuka, but I'm not sure of its provenance. It may be a 'Scorpio'-
Glass Bead Games has been reissued by Pure Pleasure- who is always a little cagey about sources they use, but they tend to sound good. The original Strata-East pressings are now crazy money. I haven't received my copy of this latest release but am looking forward to it. A friend has an original and we may do a shoot-out. I can almost predict the outcome-- the original sounds better at X the price. Such is life.
I was pleasantly surprised by the Speakers Corner re-do of Herbie Hancock's Crossings, a kind of funk/spiritual jazz thing that sounded great on Warner green label. The Speakers Corner, which is relatively cheap compared to a time vault original (I had to go thru 3 copies to find a clean player) is punchier, and has more sparkle. Maybe a little less 'organic' sounding, but Kevin Gray's work on this really brings out the sound of the Rhodes.