The Weekend Stream: February 20, 2021
While The Second Disc prides itself on connecting people to reissues and box sets they can keep on their shelves, it’s no secret that listening audiences are also digital – catalogue music lovers, too – and our passion is connecting people to music from the past that they might adore. So we’re introducing a new Saturday feature: The Weekend Stream, which focuses on hidden gems that recently made it to digital channels that might make your playlists a little brighter!
Rahsaan Roland Kirk, The Case of the 3 Sided Dream in Audio Color (Atlantic/Rhino) (iTunes / Amazon / Spotify)
Part of a monthlong series of digital drops for Black History Month, Rhino has uncovered a fascinating album by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, a killer multi-instrumentalist whose “Black classical” genre-bending style was lauded by Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson and Frank Zappa. This album (nominally three sides, if you don’t count the hidden messages on the mostly blank fourth side), is a melting pot of jazz, blues, R&B, funk, pop and sound collages – a real one-of-a-kind.
Maze feat. Frankie Beverly, The M+M Mixes (iTunes / Amazon / Spotify) / Joy and Pain: The Lifelines Remixes (iTunes / Amazon / Spotify) (Capitol/UMe)
Obviously, Mardi Gras looks a little different in the COVID-19 era, but this was a great week to celebrate Maze featuring Frankie Beverly’s stellar Live in New Orleans album, reissued on vinyl for its 40th anniversary. As an added digital bonus, these EPs collect some rare and unheard mixes of Maze studio cuts by well-known mixer John Morales, plus a cadre of remixes of 1980’s “Joy and Pain” assembled by The Bomb Squad for a 1989 greatest hits album.
Kool Moe Dee, Go See the Doctor (Jive/Legacy) (iTunes / Amazon / Spotify)
Sony Music puts out a fair amount of different “crate digger” interests out as digital titles every week; this week’s highlight might be a replica of rapper Kool Moe Dee’s “Go See the Doctor” 12″. His second single and a minor U.S. and U.K. hit, “Doctor” features the sort of bawdy street humor that made so much of hip-hop’s golden age so fun. Bonus trivia: this was an early production credit for Teddy Riley, who’d later become an architect of New Jack swing.
Watch This
Maybe it’s just us, but concert films and documentaries and documentaries seem to be some of the hardest to come by on streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. But there’s a new service looking to change that: the Coda Collection is a new subscription service that offers a wide breadth of music features through a channel on Amazon Prime Video – plus some great editorial “liner notes” to accompany the works on their web site. Current highlights include features from Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, AC/DC, Miles Davis, Simon & Garfunkel, Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters and more.
Also, this week marked the 35th anniversary of Janet Jackson’s Control – one of the best albums of the ’80s, handily – and UMe’s Urban Legends imprint put together a nice little five-minute retrospective featuring new interviews with writers/producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
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LOVE this new feature, and thanks so much for introducing. I consume music however I can get it – both physically and digitally – and at this point, there seems to be so much digital stuff slipping out there, somewhat under the radar. So thanks for the assist in calling ’em out!