Concord US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Record Store Day/Black Friday 2023 keeps on throwing up the goods here with a mono reissue of Gil Evans's Gil Evans & Ten LP. It's a classic recorded originally in 1957 for Prestige Records and for this one has been remastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. It's a soothing dinner jazz album with subtle brass backing the gentle piano playing from Evans, who also composed the one original. The rest of the tracks are standards and this record marked Evans' first as a leader for this label.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight surface marks ***


Art Pepper was regarded as one of the world's greatest alto-sax players by the time of his death in 1982. This album, Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section, is widely regarded as one of his finest works, although legend has it he was only informed about the session the morning of recording and arrived unprepared. He was playing with a strong band - at the time they were Miles Davis' rhythm section no less. Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, and Art Pepper out front giving his all on a sax that was reportedly in bad shape. Such scenes are iconic music made of.

Review: Thirty Seconds To Mars is the band co-founded by Hollywood maverick Jared Leto and his brother Shannon and It's The End Of The World But It's A Beautiful Day is a rather triumphant new album. It features ten tracks which have been whittled down from apparently hundreds that they have written over the last few years and is sintered by the range of emotions and experiences they have had since their breakout and chart-topping last album, America. Each song is short and to the point with straight-from-the-heart vocals, warm acoustic guitars and fuzzy synths with artful standouts including 'World on Fire' and '7:1.'