The Musical Box

"creedence clearwater revival" (1968)

Too often the legacy of a great band, one long since deceased as a performance unit, exists only through compilation recordings. For ages, that has been the case with Creedence Clearwater Revival, which countered the counter-culture of late ‘60s San Francisco pop with swamp psychedelia that sounded like it had been brewed in deep Louisiana rather than the band’s native California.

"bayou country" (1969)

Now the band’s six principal albums - initially released in rapid succession in under 2 ½ years beginning in 1968 - have been scrubbed up for the second time (an inferior remastering was done in 2000) with bonus archival material and re-issued for a rock generation that knows Creedence mostly as classic rock radio staple.

"green river" (1969)

There are hits, of course, on each of these albums. The backwoods boogie of Suzie Q, for instance, stretches out in two versions on the band’s 1968 self-titled debut album, including a newly unearthed 12 minute live take cut at San Francisco’s famed Fillmore West. By the time Have You Ever Seen the Rain, from 1970’s underrated Pendulum, entered charts that December, the band’s cracks were revealed. But the album’s embrace of twilight-hued soul and R&B now sounds beautifully subversive in retrospect.

"willie and the poorboys" (1969)

But what sits alongside masterful radio singles like Proud Mary, Green River, Down on the Corner and Lookin’ Out My Back Door fuels these sublime albums, as does the vision of a young John Fogerty, Creedence’s primary singer, guitarist, writer and producer.

The riverboat classic Proud Mary, from 1969’s Bayou Country, may have viewed the South in regal terms. But for Fogerty, the bayou was more a place of dark mystery. “Been an awful long time since I’ve been home,” he sang in Porterville (from the 1968 debut album). “But you won’t catch me going back down there all alone.”

"cosmo's factory" (1970)

Fogerty led that journey with a singing voice that seemed drenched in North Mississippi blues. It was a vocal sound full of shadows that were either shed in the face of warmer, but still wary reflections (as in Wrote a Song for Everyone, from 1969’s Green River) or boosted for something darkly spiritual (the menacing Effigy, which balanced out the homespun gospel intimacy of The Midnight Special and Cotton Fields on a third 1969 album, Willie and the Poor Boys, which arrived a mere three months after Green River).

But all of Creedence’s magic - the Southern imagery, the post-psychedelic grooves, the root-savvy tradition, the pop reinvention, the killer guitar hooks, the brewing political swagger and that ghostly, indefinable voice - converged on 1970’s Cosmo’s Factory.

"pendulum" (1970)

The album’s hits shifted from the exquisitely forlorn Who’ll Stop the Rain (did any West Coast singer ponder the rain more than Fogerty?) to the jubilation of Up Around the Bend, which outlined a trip to the hereafter with a gospel reverence built on a proudly screaming guitar hook. There was also the re-design of I Heard it Through the Grapevine (already a hit for both Gladys Knight and Marvin Gave) into a downbeat, 11 minute dirge. Ramble Tamble, probably the most politically urgent rocker Creedence ever cut, absolutely screams on the new edition of Cosmo’s Factory, as does a bonus version of Born on the Bayou with Booker T. and the MGs.

A final, disastrous Creedence record, Mardi Gras, was issued in 1972 after rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty exited. It is rightly excluded from these new remasters. The remaining six albums, now more robust and revealing than ever, reaffirm Creedence’s original 30 month chart assault. Seldom has rock ‘n’ roll burned so briefly and brilliantly.

jack bruce: spirit

No one will ever be able to accurately accuse Jack Bruce of modesty. Be it his musicianship (a fire-and-brimstone bass guitarist though an often overwrought vocalist), temperament (he was rumored to have once ripped a sink from a wall in order to hurl it at one-time musical accomplice Graham Bond) and ego (he told Rolling Stone magazine two decades ago he had devised “my own musical language” and more recently claimed to have composed music while in a coma). Onstage and off - sometimes, way, way off - Bruce was a defining, over-the-top rock ‘n’ roll presence from a by-gone generation.

But Bruce also possessed a sense of musical daring that regularly crossed genres into jazz to, eventually, back up much of his artistic boasting. On Spirit, a splendid new collection of five BBC performances spread out over three discs - the breadth of Bruce’s career after his tenure in the iconic power trio Cream is fleshed out with often stunning clarity and immediacy.

Two of the BBC sets have been issued before - a September 1971 outing with Bond, the extraordinary British guitarist Chris Spedding, Soft Machine drummer John Marshall and saxophonist Art Themen, as well as a June 1975 set by the then-highly-hyped Jack Bruce Band for the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test.

Those earlier recordings sport dramatically inferior sound quality. In fact, Spirit is worth purchasing just for the warmth and detail that now emerge in keyboardist Carla Bley’s contributions to the ‘75 concert. Cream/Bruce die-hards may go on about the virtues of the initial releases. But as Spirit seems to be designed more for the curious than the completist, the ‘71 and ‘75 recordings are, as presented here, very much new finds.

The ‘71 set finds Bruce working a power trio format within a quintet-size band. The drive of Spedding’s guitar work and the looseness of the compositions (especially the jam-hearty Powerhouse Sod, which Bruce would soon play regularly with ex-Mountain-eers Leslie West and Corky Lang) result in wide-scale, celebratory boogie.

The real surprise is on the ‘75 set, one of the few live documents of the short-lived Jack Bruce Band with Bley and guitarist Mick Taylor, who had just exited the Rolling Stones. Even pop-savvy material like Without a Word reflects a jazz sensibility. But a mixture of denser songs from what remains Bruce’s most overlooked solo album (1974’s Out of the Storm) and the first of two regal treatments of Spirit’s title tune (penned by the late jazz drummer and one-time Bruce boss Tony Williams) defines the band’s brief lifespan.  Spirit is reprised on an April 1977 performance rooted more in pop, fusion and funk.

Finally there are improvisatory excursions with British free-jazz saxophonist John Surman pulled from performances in August 1971 and September 1978. Neither set betrays the times. The interplay between Surman, Bruce and drummer Jon Hiseman, though exhibited in sets cut seven years apart, unravels without a trace of pop. It instead rolls with alert swing that that never stays settled for long.

Bruce’s playing has more of a rubbery, Jaco Pastorius-style bounce on the ‘78 recordings, although one is at odds to say who influenced who here. What remains, though, are unspoiled portraits of progression in how the electric bass bridged rock and jazz. More exactly, Spirit presents an artistic intellect as vast and inventive as the ego that has too often overshadowed it.

Did pop music slip into hibernation during the last third of 2008? It sure seems that way.

In compiling an annual critic’s pick list of the year’s best recordings, an odd statistic emerged. Without realizing it, every entry came from the first eight months of the year. Usually, “best of” lists can’t help but favor more recently released product. If for no other reason, such music is fresher in everyone’s minds. While a few autumn items caught the ear (including albums by Ryan Adams, Kings of Leon and Chrissie Hynde’s ageless Pretenders), all of these Top 10 picks were released by early August. Nine of them came out by the end of June.

Even an unusually lengthy list of runner up albums by Elvis Costello, Adele, Bill Frisell, Vampire Weekend and John Hiatt all surfaced before summer began to fade.

Maybe the keener pop visionaries knew the economy was going to tank. Maybe they were glued to the election. Who knows? But a look at the finer music of the year this time meant sifting further back through the calendar than usual.

From Randy Newman’s vicious Americana postcard to Fleet Foxes’ new generation psychedelia to Tift Merritt’s country music from a foreign shore, the year’s richest recordings surfaced before 2008 went South.

Here’s the list:

randy newman: harps and angels

1. Randy Newman: Harps and Angels (August) - On a brilliant but frightening return to pop duty, Newman offered a sadly hysterical testament of the times - a saga full of warped patriotism, bloated self-worth and ways those demons designed an ugly world vision.

fleet foxes: fleet foxes

2. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes (June) - While not a debut record, Fleet Foxes nonetheless introduced the Seattle band’s modern view of pop psychedelia - an atmospheric, spiritual, folk-based sound that referenced The Beach Boys, Fairport Convention, My Morning Jacket and more.

tift merritt: another country

3. Tift Merritt: Another Country (February) - The best country album of 2008 that country radio never touched. Merritt’s third studio outing was more appealing, emotive and lyrical than any modern Nashville fare, but was inspired by the singer’s recent pilgrimage to Paris.

marcin wasilewski trio: january

4. Marcin Wasilewski Trio: January (May) - As Tord Gustavsen did last year on Being There, Polish pianist Wasilewski created an ECM record of understated instrumental grace that is jazz by definition more than execution. I’ve listened to no other 2008 album more than this one.

marc ribot's ceramic dog: party intellectuals

5. Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog: Party Intellectuals (June) - Aided by a fearless new electric trio, New York avant-garde guitarslinger Ribot cranked up the volume and emerged with a dance album for the apocalypse. Rich in distortion, dissonance and radical groove.

teddy thompson: a piece of what you need

6. Teddy Thompson: A Piece of What You Need (June) - The sleeper pop treat of the year, A Piece of What You Need came packed with vintage Merseybeat melodies, twilight cool, articulate storylines and a seasoned sense of musical adventure and fun.

james mcmurtry: just us kids

7. James McMurtry: Just Us Kids (April) - “I like to pretend I’m just a visitor here,” sings a crackhead heroine in one of Just Us Kids‘ murkier tales from the on-the-edge outskirts. Such songs reaffirmed McMurtry as a master spinner of dark, rural Americana yarns.

dr. john and the lower 911: city that care forgot

8. Dr. John and the Lower 911: City That Care Forgot (June) - Lamenting his native New Orleans, Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack fashioned eulogies for the past, protests for the present and prayers for the future with the celebratory soul/funk spiritualism of his homeland.

jenny scheinman: crossing the field

9. Jenny Scheinman: Crossing the Field (April) - The second of two recent albums by the New York violinist (the first was a vocal effort) mapped out a panoramic instrumental journey of animated jazz, classical and folk terrains as well as the wonderfully indefinable locales in-between.

marah: angels of destruction!

10. Marah: Angels of Destruction! (January) - The Philly-turned-Brooklyn rockers designed a pop tabernacle of joyous pub-style righteousness. Banjos and bagpipes along with hints of minstrel music and vaudeville fueled Marah’s infectious rock ‘n’ roll revival.

neil young: sugar mountain, live at canterbury house 1968

Among the many pop recordings released in November 1968 to be eclipsed by the Goliath that was The Beatles’ “white album” was the self-titled solo debut LP of Neil Young. Fresh from the wreckage of the Buffalo Springfield, Young’s record revealed a primitive, isolated innocence. Its romantic echoes were invariably troubled, sharing greatly with the poetics of another Canadian-turned-Californian that had also issued an intial album in 1968: Joni Mitchell.

Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 is an amazingly unblemished and fresh sounding archival concert recording cut in Ann Arbor a mere two days before Neil Young hit stores to start solo a career than remains remarkably vital today.

The nostalgic allure of such a recording is outlined in an accompanying audio DVD, which, in its few fleeting video backdrops, highlights two advertisements for the Nov. 9 and 10 performances. One says the shows will include “free eats.” The other reveals the ticket price of $1.50. An outrageous $2 was charged at the door. By the way, tickets for Young’s just completed North American tour topped out at $250.

So what was once a bargain is now pure gold. Sugar Mountain presents a youthful, unusually chatty Young in a solo acoustic performance that mixes tunes from Neil Young, a few Buffalo Springfield favorites and, as has always been Young’s way, a handful of then-new tunes that wouldn’t surface on an album for years.

The solo setting serves the Neil Young tunes especially well. The Loner, for instance, may not pack the electric charge of the finished studio version or even the punkish gallop Young put the tune through in ensuing decades with Crazy Horse. But the solitude suits the song, and not just in obvious ways implied by the title. It brings to the surface a fragility that marks not only the song’s forlorn protagonist but its entire storytelling element. It was designed as a confession, of sorts. And in the stark intimacy of Canterbury House, the song and the character it details are offered no refuge. In fact, the audience quiet that surrounds The Loner is almost as chilling as the music itself.

Ditto for the Springfield relics Expecting to Fly and Broken Arrow as well as the Neil Young masterwork The Old Laughing Lady. To varying degrees, all were infected with intrusive string arrangements and other production excesses. Here, the more elemental deliveries sound quite complete. As with The Loner, the club setting is full of such stirring and complimentary quiet that an audience cough during The Old Laughing Lady sounds like a clap of thunder.

There are over a half-dozen points during Sugar Mountain where Young talks at length to the audience. The most amusing of these comes when he describes how seemingly long the songwriting process for a tune can be (”like an hour-and-half, two hours”). A smattering of chuckles understandably follows. But then Young tells how one song took him a mere five minutes and a single draft to compose (”you’re a radio station; you send out and it comes to you… that must have been what happened”). With that he rips into Mr. Soul, a Springfield classic Young would drag through grunge and electro-pop revisions in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Here, it’s like a youthful protégé to the haggard, sinister blues version on Young’s 1993 Unplugged album. But the sentiments are the same.

“Is it strange I should change? I don’t know,” Young sings. How prophetic, given the changes that would soon mark Young’s brilliant career.

tony bennett:

One comes to us as an iconic pop presence, a singer rooted in a jazz tradition though he sounds fully inventive today in the company of small combos and orchestral settings. His modus operandi this time is swing, though his fine new holiday album is by no means married exclusively to it. Still, the resulting music sounds undeniably American.

The other comes from folk stylists largely unknown in North America that command a Christmas sound of another time and place. By mixing traditional carols, comparatively contemporary songs and narratives that speak both to the traditions of the season as well as to what we might hope to learn from them as we face the new year, a distinctly British - almost Dickensian - air emerges.

In the American corner, is the great Tony Bennett, who has taken stabs at holiday music before. But A Swingin’ Christmas succeeds without the usual celeb-heavy guest list of duet partners invariably unsuited or unqualified to match musical wits with the great Bennett. Instead, we hear the singer’s boundless holiday spirit wrapped up in the swing of the season with 13 horns from the Count Basie Orchestra cheering him on during the album opening I’ll Be Home for Christmas.

There is a spot of age in Bennett’s singing here (at 82, he’s entitled) that blemishes ever so slightly his vocal tone. But if anything, that only adds to the sort of unforced familial feel of the more swing-savvy moments of A Swingin’ Christmas. In fact, the cover portrait says it all about the collaboration, with Bennett and the Basie boys gathered around the dinner table as if they were at a board meeting. But there’s one difference: everybody is grinning to beat the band. Maybe even their own.

Fine as the brassy holiday feast sounds, Bennett is even more arresting when he lets the brass takes a breather. A quartet led by pianist Monty Alexander, who all but channels Basie’s spry piano sound here, provides a more subtle joy on Silver Bells. The music is pared down even further for O Christmas Tree, which provides the light, solo piano of Lee Musiker as Bennett’s only accompaniment. The orchestra charge is a blast, but nothing warms up a room like Bennett relishing the company of a small band setting.

the albion christmas band:

The Albion Christmas Band is the product of Ashley Hutchings, the bassist, singer and folk revivalist who formed the groundbreaking Fairport Convention 41 years ago.

Snow on Snow continues a sound formulated over two previous Albion holiday albums. It integrates British folk-dance instrumentation (specifically, melodeon, fiddle and percussive morris dance melodies accented by bells), traditional folk tunes with a seasonal air (as in the Cherry Tree Carol, which the Albions pump up into a polka) and more modern fare (James Taylor’s Frozen Man, reprised by longtime Fairport-er Simon Nicol, who recorded with it the group in the ‘90s). While the production is a touch safe and slick at times, the old world charm of Snow on Snow is bounteous.

Hutchings sobers things up, though, with a reading of the W.H. Auden poem Well, So That is That. It’s a somewhat scolding narrative that takes us all task: “Once again, as in previous years, we have seen the actual vision and have failed to do more that entertain it as an agreeable possibility.” Christmas cheer colored by humility. Now there’s a switch.

yo-yo ma: songs of joy & peace

You get the sense of what cellist Yo-Yo Ma is up to on Songs of Love & Peace as soon as Jerome Kern’s You Couldn’t Be Cuter kicks into gear. First of all, it’s not a Christmas song, but a spry jazz treat popularized by Ella Fitzgerald. Here, Ma’s “friend” is Diana Krall, who quotes Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on piano just as the tune switches from pastoral reserve to swing. It’s a trim arrangement - just cello, piano and bass, with Krall’s hushed singing serving as the muted star on the holiday tree. But in a manner that is purely effortless, the music takes on an earthy seasonal glow.

Meshing genres to create profound moodpieces in understated terms has been a Ma speciality for years. It didn’t matter if he was introducing his classical audience to Appalachian string music with Mark O’Connor or exploring multi-cultural instrumentation with his Silk Road ensemble. Ma long ago earned the artistic clout to jump stylistic fences. To hear him forge new holiday voices out of music both familiar and foreign is the real joy behind Songs of Joy & Peace.

A quick look at the top tier of the vast guest list - specifically, such mainstream stars as James Taylor, Alison Krauss and Chris Botti - can imply a snoozefest is at hand. But even here there are surprises. For example, there is a presence to Krauss’ whispery singing on The Wexford Carol that is positively ghostly. Of course, with Ma and the extraordinary Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster behind her, an old world string sound emerges to make the song one of the more richly atmospheric moments on the album.

Botti is a trumpeter of sublime tone that is often squandered on stagnant, syrupy smooth jazz recordings. But here he turns My Favorite Things - a pop standard with unbreakable ties to jazz after it was appropriated and redefined by John Coltrane - into a conversation piece between cello and trumpet that builds with quiet but bright wintry colors.

Of the big leaguers, only Taylor disappoints on George Harrison’s Here Comes the Sun. God love him, but sweet baby James simply sounds anesthetized on the tune.

But cut to some of Songs of Joy & Peace’s less obvious guests and Ma’s party really comes alive. Leading the pack is 88 year old piano pioneer Dave Brubeck, who takes Joy to the World out for a cunning stroll as Ma solos around him before Paquito D’Rivera crosscuts the fun on clarinet with the melody from The Christmas Song.

Then there is Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace) , which is repeated like a theme throughout the album. It opens with Ma playing an overdubbed duet with himself and surfaces again with bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile. Their interplay is a mere set-up for the brittle, animated chill of The Wassail Song. Brazilian guitarist siblings Sergio and Odair Assad later improvise on a third Dona Nobis Pacem with Ma before the tune is reprised yet again with Botti. As the final version blends into Auld Lang Syne to end the album, the mood conveys subtle but stately celebration. Once again, the obvious becomes new.

That’s the brilliance of Songs of Joy & Peace. Its emotions are universal, its tone is quiet but expansive and its sense of seasonal spirit is radiant.

bela fleck and the flecktones: jingle all the way

Scrooges beware. You won’t be able to resist smiling at the holiday spirit banjo great Bela Fleck and his Flecktones uncork on Jingle All the Way. In fact, you will be ear-to-ear grinning. And it will start with the album-opening Jingle Bells, no less. Seriously. Jingle Bells, for crying out loud. How can anyone put a distinctive spin on Jingle Bells?

Let’s start with the Alash Ensemble, an extraordinary quartet of Tuvan throat singers that turn the lyrics into Asian munchkin chants. Then comes a groove Fleck designs with bassist Victor Lemonte Wooten that swims upstream against the melody with a boogie sensibility. After that, banjo jumps the fence to create almost tropical simpatico with flutist/sax man Jeff Coffin. No sooner does that fade than the Tuvan chants pick back up. The resulting verse variations, which transform “jingle bells” into something along the lines of “shong alash,” are so infectious that you will be singing along in Tuvan before it’s over. You speak Tuvan? Me neither, but I was joining in the first time I listened to Jingle All the Way.

Such is the winter wonderland Fleck, the Flecktones and some all-star compadres summon on the album. True to form, Fleck remains an artist that has never allowed his very natural instrumental virtuosity to smother a playful musical mood. That, along with a sense of imagination as bountiful as the sense of fun, sells Jingle All the Way. After all, isn’t holiday time supposed to be fun? Well, it sure is here.

On Sleigh Ride, Fleck goes into Earl Scruggs mode and rips the tune up with warp speed bluegrass. On Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, brittle notes seem to fall from the banjo neck like icicle chips. And for Silent Night, Fleck traces a path in the snow behind Wooten’s modest funk lead. Coffin follows with a warm, wintry melody on soprano sax.

Fleck avoids original material on Jingle All the Way. But with a holiday album, creating a mood, spirit and respect for tradition that balances familiarity with innovation is far trickier than penning new tunes. Take a two-song medley of Vince Guaraldi music from A Charlie Brown Christmas. The schoolyard swing of Christmas Time is Here is still present, only now it’s propelled by chilled banjo and a percussive Future Man shuffle. That leads into Linus and Lucy, where Guaraldi’s signature boogie woogie piano lines are given to Wooten to bounce around with on bass. It’s all ultra respectful to music that is, in its own way, pretty sacred stuff. But the spin is pure Flecktones.

Even Joni Mitchell’s River, which has become a somewhat over-familiar holiday favorite among pop artists in recent years, is worked up as an unsentimental but still emotive solo piece by Fleck, who underscores his banjo lead with simultaneous chords on piano.

The rest of the guests get some fine licks in, too. O Come All Ye Faithful becomes a chamber-like duet between Fleck and longtime double bass pal Edgar Meyer. Too bad it’s barely two minutes long. Also, mandolin pioneer Andy Statman teams with Coffin on clarinet for the hearty klezmer merriment of The Hanukkah Waltz.

Topping it all off is a literally jam-packed The Twelve Days of Christmas, where styles shift from klezmer to funk to bluegrass to swing to classical within each verse. The Alash Ensemble even offers a chant variation on “five golden rings.”

Like all of Jingle All the Way, the resulting mood is reverential, original and, above all, massive fun. 

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones with the Alash Ensemble perform at 8 p.m. Dec. 6 at the Brown Theatre, 315 W. Broadway in Louisville. Tickets are $28 and $38. Call (800) 775-7777.

genesis: 1970-1975

It seems only fitting that the rock ‘n’ roll book of Genesis ends at the beginning.

After two mammoth 2007 box sets chronicling the band’s evolution from a prog rock beacon into the stadium-filling pop outfit that made Phil Collins a star, we have the roots of when Genesis was, during a five year run, something extraordinary.

1970-1975 isn’t about the Collins-era Genesis, although Collins the drummer is certainly a key player on these recordings. Instead, it rewinds the band back to when a young Peter Gabriel was the focal and vocal point.

A wildly charismatic singer who then wore fox heads, bulbous masks, sunflower headdresses and often frightening layers of theatrical makeup onstage, Gabriel came to define Genesis’ formative years. But despite a faceless debut pop album (From Genesis to Revelation), Genesis - on record, anyway - was a band of equals with keyboardist Tony Banks, guitarists Anthony Phillips and Steve Hackett, bassist Mike Rutherford and, eventually, Collins, adding key colors to a rapidly evolving musical ambience.

The new box set collects everything from 1970’s Trespass (the only album here to feature Phillips) to 1974’s surreal urban opera The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Aside from the intense clarity of the 5.1 remastering - which provides an almost punkish charge to Get ‘Em Out By Friday from 1972’s Foxtrot and new dimension to Kaye’s parachuting keyboard runs on Riding the Scree near the end of The Lamb - 1970-1975 lets us view the thrillseeking Gabriel era of Genesis as an almost complete whole.

The story begins with the wintry warmth of Looking for Someone, the twilight hued, post-psychedelic leadoff track from Trespass. The followup albums, 1971’s Nursery Cryme (which introduced Collins and Hackett), Foxtrot and the 1973 breakthrough Selling England by the Pound elongated song structures dramatically. Foxtrot’s 23 minute Supper’s Ready, for example, isn’t some indulgent jam-fest, but an artful, almost operatic song cycle.

Gabriel was often a madcap host for Genesis’ music, playing town crier in the hysterical The Return of the Giant Hogweed (from Nursery Cryme) and the hapless day laborer in 1973’s I Know What I Like, the closest thing the Gabriel-era roster scored to a hit single.

In other instances there is beautiful but fanciful drama in the way Gabriel finds balance between despondency and elegance against Banks’ myriad keyboard orchestrations on The Musical Box, Watcher of the Skies and The Foundation of Salmacis.

The music was all exquisitely British until Gabriel went underground for The Lamb, Genesis’ epic but almost indecipherable New York street opera. Banks and Gabriel steal the show here, from the beautiful meditative menace conjured on Carpet Crawlers (the song Collins sang at the close of every show on Genesis’ Gabriel-less reunion tour last year) to the echoing, pre-punk urgency of Back in NYC. After The Lamb, Gabriel bolted, changing his life, politics and career - not to mention, Genesis’ music - forever.

There is a ton of bonus DVD and audio material on 1970-1975, including montages of Gabriel’s early stage costumes, concert performances taped for European television (including a fascinating reading of Supper’s Ready) and glimpses into The Lamb’s way, way, way off Broadway stage show.

And there you have it - the remastered beginning of a once audacious band. The later hits were certainly huge, but nothing was ever so glorious as the genesis of Genesis.

sonny rollins: road shows, vol. 1

Saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins and bassist William Parker were born a generation and perhaps even a jazz lifetime apart.

Rollins remains the weary perfectionist, a product of bop tutledge who, at age 78, continues his life long search for the perfect - or, least the most befitting - tenor sax tone he can summon.

Like Rollins, Parker hails from New York. A frequent collaborator with two free jazz greats (David S. Ware and Peter Brotzmann), the bassist has been equally at home working in orchestra sized ensembles, dance projects and smaller combos. There is also a pronounced West African influence in his music. As such, Parker, 56, has developed into one of the bravest jazz journeyman and instrumentalists of recent decades.

On two new and seemingly polarized albums, each adheres to their strengths even as they modestly and briefly muscle into each other’s stylistic turf.

Rollins’ Road Shows, Vol. 1 is a compendium of concert recordings cut over 27 years in seven cities around the globe. Such scrapbook style assembly is unorthodox in most jazz contexts. Yet there is astonishing consistency within the music. With few exceptions, Road Shows sounds like it could have chronicled a single performance.

The commonalities can be traced, to a degree, to the personnel. Guitarist Bobby Broom and trombonist Clifton Anderson are present on over two decades worth of the Road Shows recordings. But it’s the manner in which Rollins interacts with both, especially Anderson (the only other horn player on the album) that is most telling. In their company, for better or worse, Rollins’ playing is tempered. His tone is warm, but still assertive. When a brief, boppish outburst settles into More Than You Know, two tenor sax ages of Rollins’ performance life converge. His playing initially is rustic and a little dangerous in a way that recalls his fabled ‘50s records. But when the band enters, the sound of today’s Rollins - skilled, lyrical but sometimes cautious - enters. The tone simply glows.

But the finale is the real treat - a reading of Some Enchanted Evening from the famed 2007 Carnegie Hall performance Rollins presented with bassist Christian McBride and drummer Roy Haynes. There is still a playfulness to Rollins’ soloing, but McBride seriously nudges Rollins on with sly, rubbery and powerfully soulful support.

william parker: petit oiseau

Now, switch to Malachi’s Mode, a merry requiem for the late bassist Malachi Favors on Parker’s sublime Petit Oiseau. You hear what might just be his closest recorded approximation to Rollins’ music. While trumpeter Lewis Barnes is a vital presence that helps shape the tune’s sunny stride, Parker uses longtime percussionist pal Hamid Drake and a sweet alto sax solo from Rob Brown to design profound yet subtle swing. The communication is just as flexible as what Rollins attains on Some Enchanted Evening.

Petit Oiseau was recorded a mere six months after Double Bass over Neptune, a large scale band and vocal piece that debuted at New York’s Vision Festival. That’s a braver work, though a more difficult listen. Petit Oiseau, with its quartet intimacy and muscular bass foundation, is more welcoming. As is the case with Rollins’ newer music, it might be viewed as a touch safe by longstanding fans. But for ears owing less allegiance to the past, Petit Oiseau is a joyous listen by an underappreciated jazz giant.

harold budd & clive wright: a song for lost blossoms

While wading through Pensive Aphrodite, the hypnotic 32-minute opening suite on A Song for Lost Blossoms, keyboardist and ambient music pioneer Harold Budd along with guitarist Clive Wright (of Cock Robin, the band responsible for the neglected mid ‘80s pop hit, When Your Heart is Weak) unexpectedly peel back the years.

Within Pensive Aphrodite, Budd’s keyboards set up attractive orchestrations that move in ultra-slow motion, just as they have on his albums for the past three decades. Wright’s guitar colors don’t serve as a foil or even a conversation piece. They instead drift in and out the keyboard maze to modestly intensify the mood. In other words, Wright is a welcome visitor to Budd’s ambient plateau - but a visitor, nonetheless.

That we even have this collaboration is something of a wonder. Budd announced his retirement four years ago. So the release of A Song for Lost Blossoms comes as something of a surprise even if the music it contains is often indistinguishable from Budd’s other atmospheric recordings.

fripp & eno: no pussyfooting

But another reference point surfaces when listening to Lost Blossoms. The way Wright’s guitar seems to almost subvert the recording’s meditative stance brings to mind one of the great blueprint albums in progressive instrumental music: 1973’s No Pussyfooting by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. And, what a coincidence, that record and its 1975 followup, Evening Star, have been beautifully remastered and reissued this fall.

One could argue there are links to the revolutionary classicism of John Cage or even the early electronic adventures of Tangerine Dream in No Pussyfooting. But Fripp and Eno - the former then in the thick of his most adventurous ‘70s music with King Crimson while the latter had split from Roxy Music to begin a musical voyage that would team him with Budd in the early ‘80s - mostly design their own template of sound with drone like effects, primitive tape loops and harmony that remains otherworldly to this day.

The opening passage of No Pussyfooting’s The Heavenly Music Corporation, in fact, sounds less like electronic music and more like an elongated chant where guitar, keyboards and tape effects blur. It’s not until the unmistakable tone of Fripp’s guitarwork enters in layers that you get much feel for which instrumentalist is doing what.

Wright’s guitar doesn’t play against anything nearly so confrontational on Lost Blossoms. One of No Pussyfooting’s most arresting traits, after all, remains its sense of dynamics. The ebb and flow of its music is still breathtaking. But the way Wright services and reacts to Budd’s more contemplative backdrops is similar.

Those who have enjoyed No Pussyfooting for years will find big fun in the reissue’s bounteous bonus material. It reconstructs the entire album in reverse (the effect is only slightly less startling than the original recording) and all of Heavenly Music in a half speed exercise where guitar glacially embellishes the music over 41 minutes.

fripp & eno: evening star

There is no such tinkering on the remastered Evening Star, a perhaps less daring but far more approachable work where the compositional links to Budd’s music are stronger. Within the contours of Evensong, Wind on Wind and Evening Star’s title track, is a serene but substantial aural fabric that still serves as a proud forefather to the ambient-minded generations that came in the music’s gloriously understated wake.