Ace Records’ ongoing Black America Sings series gets a second helping of classic tunes by Bob Dylan on a new compilation available this week. Highway of Diamonds: Black America Sings Bob Dylan, available January 30 in Ace’s native U.K. (and a week later in America), offers 20 compositions from the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter recast for soul, blues and gospel acts including The Staple Singers, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte, Billy Preston, Natalie Cole, Solomon Burke, Merry Clayton, Sarah Vaughan, Aaron Neville and more. The collection, available on CD or two LPs, includes informative song/track…
Q’s Cues: New ‘Écoutez Le Cinéma’ Box Celebrates the Music of Quincy Jones
When Rhino released Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones – a 4CD, 74-track collection – in 2001, it was a valiant attempt to tell a story that was still being written. The gifted bandleader, composer and producer, who passed away at the age of 91 in 2024, had an enduring way with sound, be it jazz, pop, R&B, rock or even film and television scoring. His decades of work with the 20th century’s greatest luminaries made him a tremendous (if controversial) raconteur, with countless stories to tell and luminaries to work alongside….
The Weekend Stream: April 12, 2025
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. By now, you might have hit your participating local shop for Record Store Day – and happily, we’re kicking off this Saturday’s column to share material from five exclusive vinyl titles that are getting a second life in the streaming and download world too. It’s a great way to check out some titles if you missed them, or weren’t sure if you wanted to add them to your…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
Try to See Things Their Way: Ace Preps ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ Third Collection of Beatles Covers Through a Black Lens
As fans prepare for the release of the new Disney+ documentary Beatles ’64, chronicling The Fab Four’s legendary inaugural trip to America, U.K. label Ace Records has an exciting release coming that same weekend, featuring nearly two dozen Black artists paying tribute to a series of songbooks that owed so much to soul music and rhythm and blues traditions. Here, There and Everywhere: Black America Sings Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, available November 29, is the seventh of Ace’s “Black America Sings” releases, which began with a 2011 entry on Bob Dylan and…
Release Round-Up: Week of September 29
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles available today! The Spinners, Ain’t No Price on Happiness: The Thom Bell Studio Recordings (1972-1979) (SoulMusic/Cherry Red) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Earlier this year, Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music celebrated the extraordinary legacy of The Spinners with the release of The Complete Atlantic Singles: The Thom Bell Productions 1972-1979, collecting a whopping 43 single sides on two CDs. Now, SoulMusic Records and Cherry Red are continuing the Spinners party with a comprehensive box set chronicling that halcyon period with…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
The Weekend Stream: July 30, 2022
Welcome to The Weekend Stream, a relaxing weekly review of notable digital-only catalogue titles. There may be no CD or vinyl, but there’s plenty of great new/old music to discover! This week, we’ve got long-lost pop from a teenaged star, a crop of country classics, cool West Coast jazz, freestyle hits, and more! Nik Kershaw, B-Sides (iTunes / Amazon) and Extended Versions (iTunes / Amazon) (Island) Island brings two compilations from British singer-songwriter Nik Kershaw to digital services today. B-Sides is just that, collecting nine such cuts from Kershaw while Extended Versions…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
A Place for Us: Decca Broadway Celebrates Leonard Bernstein on “Jazz Loves Bernstein”
August 25, 2018 will mark what would have been the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein, and while the maestro passed away in 1990 at the age of 72, he left behind a lifetime of remarkable music in multiple genres. A number of classical releases have been issued for the Bernstein centennial, but a new entry concentrates on the popular side of the composer. The 2-CD anthology Jazz Loves Bernstein, on the Decca Broadway label in association with Verve and UMe, collects 27 examples from the Universal vaults of just how well Bernstein’s…
Sarah Vaughan’s “Live at Rosy’s” Premieres 1978 Concert On CD
“Live from Rosy’s…The Divine One, Sarah Vaughan!” So begins Resonance Records and NPR Music’s new release, Live at Rosy’s. It would take an extraordinary talent to live up to that sobriquet, but throughout her career, Sarah Vaughan certainly did. Live at Rosy’s is the first commercial release of Vaughan’s May 31, 1978 performances at the New Orleans nightspot, recorded for NPR’s Jazz Alive program and presented here as remastered from the original eight multitrack reels. Vaughan was backed by Carl Schroeder on piano, Walter Booker on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums…
Release Round-Up: Week of March 25
Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up! Bob Dylan, The Bootleg Series Vol. 6 – Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall (Audio Fidelity) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada) Bob Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 6 – Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall comes to hybrid 5.0 multichannel SACD for the first time. Audio Fidelity’s release will boast a full booklet (as on the original standard CD release) and is playable in stereo on all CD players. Read more here! Various Artists, Kinked! Kinks Songs and Sessions 1964-1971 (Ace) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon…
Categories:
Formats:
Genres:
A Time In Her Life: Ace Reissues Sarah Vaughan’s Soul-Jazz Classic
By 1971, the expansion of the Great American Songbook was well underway. It became clear to many that the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Jimmy Webb, Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Bob Dylan and their contemporaries were more than just a flash in the pan. The most prescient observers could have realized – and some did – that these songs would one day be sung in programs alongside those of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin and the Gershwins. But…
Lovely Day: Aretha, Sly, Andy, Marvin and Billie Headline “The Brazil Connection”
Well, summer is officially upon us! Already there’s talk about which songs will be anointed the perfect summer jams for 2014 – songs by artists like Ariana Grande, Iggy Azalea and the ubiquitous Pharrell Williams. If those names don’t set your pulse racing, however, Legacy Recordings has an alternative that’s bound to conjure up images of tropical sunsets, refreshing drinks and summer breeze. Studio Rio Presents The Brazil Connection makes over 12 pop classics from the Sony vaults by melding the original vocals with new bossa nova and samba arrangements written and/or…
Starbucks Goes Hip and Jazzy On Venti Release Slate
If you’re looking for a little music to go with your grande toffee nut latte, Starbucks has recently unveiled a number of new audio offerings to kick off 2014. In addition to its annual Sweetheart disc – an anthology of new(ish) artists playing old(ish) love songs including, this year, songs by John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Harry Nilsson – the coffee giant has curated a selection of Music for Little Hipsters, sets dedicated to Women of Jazz and When Jazz Meets Guitar, and an Opus Collection volume for the one and only…
In A Sentimental Mood: Pablo Expands Sarah Vaughan’s “Ellington Songbooks”
Over a long recording career encompassing roughly ten labels and 45 years, “Divine One” Sarah Vaughan (1924-1990) followed her muse wherever it led. That meant she might record an album of poetry by Pope John Paul II one day (1984’s The Planet is Alive…Let It Live!) and bossa nova with Sergio Mendes the nest day (1987’s Brazilian Romance, recently reissued as part of Legacy’s Complete Columbia Albums Collection, or a Beatles anthology (1977’s Songs of the Beatles, belatedly released in 1981) followed by a couple of volumes of The Duke Ellington Song…
Verve Select Offers “Divine” Selection of Sarah Vaughan LPs on CD
The latest from Verve Select, released earlier this week, is a collection of over a half-dozen vintage albums by jazz legend Sarah Vaughan on four discs. Divine: The Jazz Albums encapsulates Vaughan’s first round on the Mercury label, after finding earlier success for the previous decade on first the Musicraft label (where she cut hit versions of “Tenderly” and “Nature Boy”) and later for Columbia Records, a run characterized by contemporary pop balladry. Once signed to Mercury, she was determined to get back to jazz, and thanks to producer Bob Shad and…
Holiday Gift Guide Reviews: Etta James and Sarah Vaughan, “Complete Albums Collections”
Etta James and Sarah Vaughan: by any and all accounts, two formidable women of song. Now, these late legends are both receiving the deluxe treatment from Legacy Recordings on two box sets as part of the Complete Albums series. Though Etta James’ most enduring recordings were made during her sixteen years (1960-1976) at Chess Records, including her oft-imitated but never-topped perennial “At Last,” the former Jamesetta Hawkins recorded for over fifty years in a variety of genres for a variety of labels. Modern, Warner Bros., Elektra, Island, Fantasy, RCA, Verve: tenures with…
Brownie Box, Ruffin Reissue Are Latest from Hip-O Select
Two new releases from Hip-O Select are on the horizon: one closing the book on a trumpeting legend at a beloved jazz label, and one reissue spotlighting one of Motown’s most underrated voices. First, the Motown news: David Ruffin’s self-titled, unreleased LP is coming back to the CD format. David was intended for release in 1971 and featured songwriting and production from the brightest stars on the roster at the time, including Henry Cosby co-writes “Each Day is a Lifetime” and “I Can’t Be Hurt Anymore,” Smokey Robinson-aided composition “Dinah,” and covers of…
From “Sassy” to “The Matriarch of the Blues” and Beyond: PopMarket Offers New Complete Box Sets in August
Though it may be summer vacation for many of us, the folks at Sony’s PopMarket have been too busy to take much of a rest! They’ll be releasing three more Complete Albums boxes from a triumvirate of artists who blurred the lines between jazz, R&B, pop and rock. Box sets for The Brecker Brothers, Etta James and Sarah Vaughan will arrive at general retail as well as at PopMarket.com on August 28. Though most genres have been benefitted from the comprehensive Complete Albums series, jazz fans have been particularly lucky. These three…
