Phish

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phishin.com says: the Siket Disc is a set of chilled-out, instrumental, improvised jams that Phish recorded around the time of the Story of the Ghost sessions. It is nothing like any other Phish material. This spaced-out, ambient, experimental, improvised set would be enjoyed by Phish folks and the non-believers alike.

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Wilco

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phishin.com says: “Impossible Germany” and especially “Side with Seeds” is the jamming-est thing Wilco has done. Great stuff.

“Sky Blue Sky” has hints of early-seventies Southern California folk-rock sweetness in the harmonies. The album is filled with brash guitar solos that take songs like “You Are My Face” and “Shake It Off” in unexpected directions.

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Phish

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This double-disc firestorm was the first official live release from Vermont’s favorite jam band, and it is both a roaring celebration of and, in many ways, a fitting conclusion to Phish’s first decade of genre-bending, head-popping rock. Recorded in 1994, A Live One finds Phish wringing everything they can out of every song (four clock in at more than 10 minutes, another at more than 20, and a sixth, “Tweezer,” at more than 30), whipping themselves (and the audience) into a frenzy with a high-octane attack long on instrumental pyrotechnics and short on subtlety. By 1996 they had taken this no-holds-barred approach as far as they could, and they would begin to temper their frenetic energy with a mellower, airier, and funkier approach. But this collection remains a vital snapshot of the band at its initial peak, a time when no studio could have hoped to capture the densely packed Phish experience. –Marc Greilsamer

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Jerry Garcia

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phishin.com says: Probably one of my favorite Grateful Dead studio records and it is not even really a Grateful Dead record, it is just Jerry with a lot of help from his Dead bandmates! Includes Dead classics “The Wheel”, “Loser”, “Sugaree”, “Deal”, “Bird Song” and “To Lay Me Down”. Awesome.

Garcia, his revered 1972 solo debut, exclusively features cowrites by Jerry, Dead percussionist Bill Kreutzmann, and famed Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, including “Sugaree,” “To Lay Me Down,” and “The Wheel.” Now expanded with eight previously unreleased outtakes from the original sessions, including “Study for Eep Hour” and a “Dealin’ From the Bottom” studio jam.

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North Mississippi Allstars

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With their third album, this blues-rock outfit from the Mississippi hills further transcends their mimicry of the Allman Brothers and home-turf heroes Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and Fred McDowell to forge a distinct sound. Sure, the guitars ring even more like the Allmans’ with the addition of Burnside’s son Duwayne, who harmonizes his six-string with Luther Dickinson’s on plenty of tunes. But improved vocal performances and pop-savvy arrangements make numbers like “Eyes,” “Kids These Daze,” “One to Grow On,” and the hip-hop-informed “Be So Glad” ready for rock radio. Happily, the foursome haven’t sidestepped their deep blues roots. The late cane fife master Othar Turner appears on “Be So Glad,” and they cover Kimbrough’s “Meet Me in the City” with all of its original swing and swagger, plus the warm, joyful tone of Dickinson’s expert slide playing. “The One Thing,” with its roiling acoustic guitar intro and steel-guitar-style string-bending, unfurls like an epic. It evolves from country blues to country rock and then dives into a gently exploratory jazz-blues instrumental passage before returning to its flat-four beat. If this CD gets the attention its well-written songs and fine playing deserve, the Allstars’ smart and solid fusion may well become the foundation for a new school of Southern rock. –Ted Drozdowski

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Miles Davis

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The revolution was recorded: in 1969 Bitches Brew sent a shiver through a country already quaking. It was a recording whose very sound, production methods, album-cover art, and two-LP length all signaled that jazz could never be the same. Over three days anger, confusion, and exhilaration had reigned in the studio, and the sonic themes, scraps, grooves, and sheer will and emotion that resulted were percolated and edited into an astonishingly organic work. This Miles Davis wasn’t merely presenting a simple hybrid like jazz-rock, but a new way of thinking about improvisation and the studio. And with this two-CD reissue (actually, this set is a reissue of the original set plus one track, perfect for the fan who’s not so overwhelmed as to need the four-CD Complete Bitches Brew box), the murk of the original recording is lifted. The instruments newly defined and brightened, the dark energy of the original comes through as if it were all fresh. Joe Zawinul and Bennie Maupin’s roles in the mix have been especially clarified. With a bonus track of “Feio”–a Wayne Shorter composition recorded five months later that serves both as a warm-down for Bitches Brew and a promise of Weather Report to come–this is crucial listening. –John F. Szwed

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Phish

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phishin.com says: I have to say that this is, hands down, the best of all the Phish live albums released so far. The sound is fantastic, far better than any live Phish recording that I have ever heard. Page’s keys, Mike’s bass and Fish’s drums shine through brilliantly (Trey’s guitar sounds fine too, it’s just that Trey is always high in the mix).

Phish is firing on all cylinders: the song selection, energy and theatrics are top notch. Coming off the heels of the Halloween Quadrophenia and a great fall tour, the end of ‘95 finds Phish, for the first time, peerless in the jam scene after the demise of the Grateful Dead five months earlier. This is Phish fully coming into their own after 10+ years as a band leading up to their ‘97 peak, and it is an exciting time indeed!

If you can only buy one Phish record, live or studio, get this one!

amazon.com says:
Rolling Stone magazine famously called Phish “America’s Greatest Jam Band,” and while Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, and Page McConnell called it quits as a group last year, their legend lives on. Formed at University of Vermont in 1983, Phish quickly became heirs to the jam band tradition, taking the roots of musical improvisation to a new level and beyond. Of all their now-legendary shows, their 1995 New Year’s Eve concert at Madison Square Garden-a masterful blend of composition, theater and improvision-is revered as one of their finest, even by the band themselves. Marking this stellar concert’s 10th anniversary, Rhino’s deluxe 3-CD release presents the Phenomenal Phish at the peak of their powers. Track Listings: Punch You In the Eye, Sloth, Reba, Squirming Coil, Maze, Colonel Forbin’s Ascent, Fly Famous Mockingbird, Shine, Fly Famous Mockingbird, Sparkle, Chalk Dust Torture, Audience Chess Move, Drowned, Lizards, Axilla (Part II), Runaway Jim, Strange Design, Hello My Baby, Mike’s Song, Gamehendge Time Factory, Auld Lang Syne, Weekapaug Groove, Sea and Sand, You Enjoy Myself, Sanity,Frankenstein, Johnny B. Goode.

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My Morning Jacket

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phishin.com says: While not quite as immediately accessible as their previous great record “It Still Moves“, “Z” will reward you as a great record after the third listen. “Z” is one of the best rock records of the past few years!

Two years and a pair of band members have passed since My Morning Jacket’s last album, and the respite seems to have reinvented the Louisville, Ky., band and its leader Jim James. Shelved are the boogie-soaked country and hard-stomping metal of the first three records–assuring that all links to Lynyrd Skynyrd are hereby obsolete–and the sleek maturation of James’s wailing, echoing falsetto may have even nullified the Neil Young comparisons. Using the guitar as a complement more than as a weapon, songwriter James has simplified the sound where keyboards take the lead and choruses play like a ’70s AM radio. While songs like “Anytime” and “What a Wonderful Man” channel the old MMJ sound, they do so with less chaos and more spontaneity. That’s the trend for the record’s best: “Wordless Chorus” and its infectious “aaaah” refrain, the Hawaii Five-O-riffed ska of “Off the Record” and a Stranglers-minded carnival waltz, “Into the Woods.” Serving as a pop-music paradigm that change is good, Z is ambitious, groundbreaking and downright impeccable. –Scott Holter

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Grateful Dead

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phishin.com says: One of my VERY favorite official Dead live releases: a flawless “Help>Slip>Frank”, “Eyes of the World”, “Terrapin Station” and just a great show throughout the entire 2 CD set.

General consensus points to 1977 as being a particularly rewarding year in the Dead’s performance history. Certainly, their musical blend was at its most dynamic–funk, folk, jazz, blues, psychedelia, and even disco seem perfectly balanced and wrapped in rock urgency–and the actual sonic mix was at its clearest and most organic (thanks largely to Keith Godchaux’s piano). This volume comes from a May show in Florida and highlights the band in all its glorious imperfection. “Sugaree,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Morning Dew” are tender, poignant ballads that typify how the Dead would wring all they could out of even the most delicate songs: deathly quiet and pristine at one moment, bursting with fire and intensity the next. “Lazy Lightning”/”Supplication” and “Estimated”/”Eyes” represent the long-winding jam while “Music Never Stopped” and “Dancin’ in the Streets” find them at their grooviest. Also of note is the truncated version (only the end of the suite) of “Terrapin Station,” which would emerge on vinyl two months later. Flubbed notes abound, but so do moments of inspiration. –Marc Greilsamer

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Herbie Hancock

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Release details:
Limited Millennium Edition. Packed in a Heavy Weight Card Wallet that Faithfully Recreates the Original Vinyl Sleeve, Right Down to the Inner Bag. The Wallet Comes in a Plastic Cover.

Amazon.com Editorial Reviews
Keyboardist Herbie Hancock’s remarkable career took a surprising turn with this funk album–one of the first jazz albums to be certified gold. Hancock’s already-storied career had included an extended tenure with Miles Davis as a member of both the classic quintet of the ’60s and the trumpeter’s groundbreaking electric dates. As a leader, the pianist had followed a similar course, cutting both outstanding acoustic dates (Maiden Voyage, Empyrean Isles) and experimental electric sessions (Sextant, Crossings).

Head Hunters, however, was something different: a stripped-down date featuring reedman Bennie Maupin as the only horn player, and a funk-oriented rhythm section made up of Paul Jackson, Harvey Mason, and Bill Summers. Hancock traded in his sophisticated piano performances and complex compositions for simple melodies, slow-burn funk grooves, and light electric keyboard splashes. The results, particularly on the tracks “Chameleon” and “Watermelon Man,” had a profound impact on other musicians, although critics charged Hancock with playing to the galleries. But the album has stood the test of time–something neither the wealth of Hancock’s imitators nor his own subsequent albums in this vein have been able to do. –Fred Goodman

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