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This wonderful community came through yet again. I could probably write that sentence a zillion times and it would be accurate. This time, as I often do, I eagerly opened a notification from the Album of the Evening topic, to find an album posted by community member Nikhil. The album was Blue Serge by baritonist Serge Chaloff. I hadn’t heard of the artist or album, but I was game to give it a listen. I pulled it up on Qobuz, streamed it through my Aurender > dCS > Vinnie Rossi > Wilson Audio system and I was instantly hooked. Chaloff’s lush baritone saxophone, reaching the bottom of its frequency barrel sparingly but effectively, accompanied by a stellar band firing on all cylinders, what could be better? How about great sound quality from a 1956 monophonic recording? Done and done.

Note: This is a community, members are always encouraged to share CASH album recommendations. Send me an email directly and let me know what albums to listen to next - chris@audiophilestyle.com

Here is a link to the index of all the CASH Albums  (link)

On With The Show

Album Details

Artist: Serge Chaloff

Album: Blue Serge

Availability: Several physical releases (link), including the 2001 Japanese CD used for this article (TOCJ-9315), Qobuz (link), Apple Music (link), Amazon Music (link), not available on Tidal.

Producer - Bill Miller

Recorded at Capitol Studios, Los Angeles on March 14 (#1-3, 5, 6) and March 16 (#4, 7, 8), 1956.

Mastered from the original mono tape using 20-bit Super Bit Mapping by Ron McMaster.

Band

Serge Chaloff - Baritone Sax

Sonny Clark - Piano

"Philly" Joe Jones - Drums

Leroy Vinnegar - Bass

Blue Serge

I’ll start with my favorite track on the album, and the only track with a glitch on streaming services. Stairway to the Stars is a track that transports me from the real world to a musical world where nothing else matters. Chaloff’s baritone is nothing short of superb sounding. Starting delicately, as if he knew I’d have a fresh pot of hot Nepali Golden Black tea next to my listening chair. Chaloff eases back and forth between a slow and warm fireplace glow sound and a few attention grabbing firewood pops.

Handing the reins over to Sonny Clark on piano and later Leroy Vinnegar on bass, Chaloff takes a backseat for the aforementioned musicians to shine, playing appropriately laid-back, to fit the music perfectly.  Stairway to the Stars is an absolute gem.

The album starts with A Handful of Stars, a somewhat familiar but pedestrian groove featuring a few exclamation points, both high and low, from Chaloff and his baritone sax. I encourage everyone to let this one play. As each musician puts his own spin on it, the track is more inviting and the instrument isolation contributes to a wonderful sonic signature. It’s a good track to ease listeners into the album.

Listeners ready to grab a fine beverage, take a seat, and melt into the listening chair, should go strait to track three, Thanks for the Memory. Today is actually my 19th wedding anniversary, and I can imagine sitting down with my wife this evening and listening to this track, while paging through our wedding photos in the book that’s sitting on the dining room table right now.

Thanks for the Memory is classic Serge Chaloff in that it shows his restraint and willingness to play both ends of the baritone sax. Chaloff was noted for playing the upper registers of the instrument frequently, often making it sound like a tenor or alto. He saves the hefty bottom end of the baritone like it’s a thick chocolate mousse dessert to be enjoyed only after the main course, and something fairly rich, in which one shouldn’t overindulge. The seductive sound of his baritone playing leaves me, and I assume many listeners, wanting more.

Picking up the pace a bit more on track four, All the Things You Are, the band shows this album has something for every jazz lover. Chaloff shows his silky smooth mastery of his instrument, but also leaves room for the other musicians to shine. Sonny Clark’s piano solo is every bit as smooth as Chaloff’s playing, with a couple flourishes, leading into my favorite bass solo of the album.

Roughly 3:50 into the track Leroy Vinnegar receives the baton and lays down his own velvety solo, reminding me how much I loved him on the 1957 release Leroy Walks, from the Leroy Vinnegar Sextet. His bass playing on this track temporarily took me out of the somewhat predictable jazz quartet seam, and sounded almost like a superset of the song, elevating above and expanding over the other musicians for an appropriately short period of time. Great stuff.

Current releases of this album include track eight, How About You, which wasn’t on the original LP release in 1956. Of note in this track, is the drum work of "Philly" Joe Jones. I can see why the tack was left on the cutting room floor, but Jones’ adds a terrific touch of spice to it, making the track a much appreciated addition.

Wrap Up

Like so many of our favorite jazz musicians, Serge Chaloff was gone way too soon. Passing away in 1957 at the age of 33 with spinal cancer discovered a year earlier. His body of work as a band leader is minimal at best, and also reissued with several different titles and covers. Focusing on Boston Blow-Up from 1955 and especially Blue Serge from 1956 are great places to start enjoying Serge Chaloff.

Thanks again to community member Nikhil from, “Hyderabad, India, a 400 year old city that was fabled for its diamonds in the ancient world” for recommending Blue Serge. Great music traverses continents, oceans, and cultures like nothing else. Its power to move us and give us so much joy has no boundaries.

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

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My appetite for good music is never satiated. If I had to guess, I’d say I listen to music I know well about 50% of the time, with the other 50% dedicated to discovering good music that’s new to me. In 2025 this is a real problem because the firehose of music that’s available with the tap of a finger is a bit overwhelming, to say the least. Perhaps a better way to describe this is a real first world problem.

One of my goals with the CASH Albums series is to find the gems among the zillions of available albums, and help members of the Audiophile Style community, who don’t have all the time in the world to listen to music, fill their libraries with incredible music that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. CASH Albums is about quality, not quantity.

Note: This is a community, members are always encouraged to share CASH album recommendations. Send me an email directly and let me know what albums to listen to next - chris@audiophilestyle.com

Here is a link to the index of all the CASH Albums  (link)

Let’s dig in to the eighth album in this series.

Album Details

Artist: The Curtis Counce Group

Album: Carl’s Blues

Availability: High Resolution DSD / PCM Tape Transfer (link), Tidal ("low" resolution as identified by Tidal) (link), Qobuz (link), Apple Music (link)

Band

Curtis Counce - Double Bass

Carl Perkins - Piano

Gerald Wilson - Trumpet (Larue, Carl’s Blues)

Jack Sheldon - Trumpet (Nico’s Dream)

Harold Land - Tenor Saxophone

Frank Butler - Drums

Recording Engineer - Roy DuNann

Note: The 24/352.8 PCM version from High Definition Tape Transfers is my go-to, and the version I listened to for this article. It's actually sourced from a Contemporary Original vinyl pressing.

When I first heard the name Curtis Counce, I said “who?” I love jazz, but am by no means a scholar of the genre. I decided to do a little research about Counce, and discovered he played on many albums with artists such as Chet Baker, Art Pepper, and Shelly Manne, among many others. But, he only lead The Curtis Counce group for four albums, before passing away at the age of 37 in 1963.

Readers are much more likely to be familiar with Counce’s album You Get More Bounce with Curtis Counce, released on Contemporary Records and available on streaming services or as a high resolution download from Craft (link). Being unaware of Counce, the man, I was obviously unaware of this terrific album as well.

I heard a snapshot of what sounded like terrific jazz to me, so I took a chance on Counce’s album Carl’s Blues. Recorded between April 1957 and January 1958 for Lester Koenig’s Contemporary Records, the album was engineered by Roy DuNann.

As someone who reads “all” the liner notes and loves to know who was involved in creating my favorite recordings, because it’s the people that matter, not the released format (PCM, DSD, vinyl, tape, etc…), I was humbled to see the name Roy DuNann. I thought I knew who engineered all my favorite albums. Turns out, I missed many liner notes.

DuNann engineered Sonny Rolllin’s Way Out West! How could I not know that? Oh well, life moves on. He was a follower of the as simple as possible, and no simpler approach to recording. A wonderful article about DuNann, written by Steven Cerra, can be found on the Jazz Profiles site here (link).

Released in 1960 Carl’s Blues was Counce’s final album for Contemporary, during his lifetime. It opens with Pink Lady, composed by trumpeter Jack Sheldon. While not my favorite track on the album, it packs a hard bop punch and sounds pretty good.

Track two, I Can’t Get Started, is what originally hooked me on this album. Shortly after Perkins’ opening piano sequence, Harold Land’s lush tenor saxophone melts me into my listening chair every time. Counce lays the foundation for this one with his double bass, while the others take aback seat to Land. It’s just a masterful performance that sounds spectacular. Eight minutes of sonic bliss.

Another favorite on this album is track five, Larue, composed by Clifford Brown. This is one of those tracks that demands a glass of wine, a fireplace, and five minutes of one’s time. It’ll deliver a memorable musical experience. Both Herold Land on tenor sax and Gerald Wilson on trumpet are superb. As usual, Curtis Counce lays down a double bass groove that isn’t flashy or even indicative of a band leader, but serves this song perfectly.

Switching gears on track six, The Butler Did It, the album takes a terrific detour into this Frank Butler composed track. It’s 4:42 seconds of jazz drumming that sounds great and gives a real feel for the barebones recording environment Roy DuNann setup. The drum heads, squeaky pedal, cymbal shimmer, and general ambiance of the room are all on sonic display during this one. When I listen to this track, I can’t help but think Frank Butler inspired John Bonham and what would become the track Moby Dick. Every time I get to The Butler Did It, I crank it to eleven and put myself in Contemporary Records' Studio in Los Angeles in 1957 with Butler and his kit.

I really love the album Carl’s Blues and the sound quality I hear from the High Definition Tape Transfers DXD version. I’m sure the DSD and other resolutions sound equally as sublime, but I haven’t given them a digital spin.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days to select the music played in the car, on the way to dropping my daughter off at school. This morning we listened to this album, as I had the DXD version downloaded into Roon Arc. As I was telling my daughter about the recording, I couldn’t help but think it must have been an amazing time to be alive back in the late 1950s and early 1960s for fans of west coast jazz. A recording like this will transport the listener back in time, giving the listener his/her only chance to experience these amazing musicians and this wonderful sonic art in all its glory.

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

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Members of this community who’ve been around for a while remember the origins of the CASH List, Computer Audiophile Suggested Hardware. Even when we changed the name of the site to Audiophile Style, the CASH List designation for the best components remained. To those who’ve emailed, I hear you and agree, a revamp of the CASH List is definitely in order.

In March 2024 I started writing about some great albums that went under the radar for many people. I called the series I Bet You’ve Never Heard This. I published six articles in that series, but still felt something just wasn’t right. The name of the series was only OK. It was missing something.

Today we launch CASH, Classic Albums Sonic Hallmarks as the evolution of this series. Consider it an extension of the original CASH List. CASH albums are all about great music, first and foremost, and great sound. Music and sound quality are of course subjective. Some treasured albums are another audiophile’s trash. Such is life.

In a world where everyone vies for our attention and there’s a zillion new albums released each week, it’s nice to connect with writers who like similar music and appreciate good sound, to see what they recommend. Whether it’s new, old, or neither, CASH albums will be our favorites and we think you’ll like them as well.

Let’s kick off the evolution of this series with an old album that’s new to me. Enjoy.

Note: This is a community, members are always encouraged to share CASH album recommendations. Send me an email directly and let me know what albums to listen to next - chris@audiophilestyle.com

Here is a link to the index of all the CASH Albums  (link)

Album Details

Artist: Cannonball Adderley with Milt Jackson

Album: Things Are Getting Better

Availability: High Resolution DSD / PCM Tape Transfer (link), Tidal (link), Qobuz (link), Apple Music (link)

Band

Cannonball Adderley - Alto Saxophone

Milt Jackson - Vibraphone

Percy Heath - Double Bass

Art Blakey - Drums

Wynton Kelly - Piano

Note: The 24/352.8 PCM version from High Definition Tape Transfers is my go-to, and the version I listened to for this article.

The album title is Things Are Getting Better, but in my opinion things may have peaked with this album. Recorded at Reeves Sound Studio in New York on October 28, 1958 by Riverside Records engineer jack Higgins, the album features an all star band and performances to match. The opener, Blues Oriental, hooked me immediately. Kelly and Blakey ease listeners into track, before Milt Jackson delivers a flowing vibraphone performance that has peaks and valleys, and sounds superb.

Between the handoff from Jackson to Adderley at about 1:50 into the track, Art Blakey give the transition continuity with a great sounding drum combination that calls attention to him, without calling too much attention to him. In other words, I listen to it and think, I can’t wait until he lets it rip on the drums, but this isn’t his time.

Track three, Serves Me Right, will serve listeners right with a little volume bump and a log in the fireplace. Jackson’s vibraphone and Adderley’s alto sax both sound great on this track, but it’s the smooth playing and ease with which they play off each other than seals the deal for me. Throughout the track Jackson’s vibraphone sounds crystal clear, and when he lets it ring out, the decay is nothing short of glorious.

Adderley closes out this track with some silky smooth playing that’s down right good for the soul.

The opening sequence of Sounds for Sid, and the rest of the track, make me reconsider where we’ve gone wrong with the sound quality of recordings since 1958. Of course that’s not a literal statement for all recordings, but listening to this song should surprise everyone who thinks age and technology have anything to do with sound quality, Thomas Edison’s Mary Had A Little Lamb from 1877 aside.

Sounds for Sid not only features Jackson and Adderley, but also provides space for Wynton Kelly to spread his wings on the piano. In addition the amazing Art Blakey lurks in the background, rearing his drum heads more toward the end of the track, with great success.

Every track on this album is stellar and can be enjoyed as a whole, bathing the listener in beautiful jazz. I selected some pieces that stand out to me, but when I’m listening, my ming goes to Reeves Sound Studio in New York on October 28, 1958 as I listen to the songs as complete works of art and imagine this amazing band playing together in front of me.

Things Are Getting Better is rich in music and sound quality. It’s an easy selection for our Classic Albums Sonic Hallmarks list.

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

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Welcome to the sixth installment of I Bet You’ve Never Heard This, where I recommend albums you actually may have heard, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. These “Never Heard” albums should be in all of our libraries, but for one reason or another we missed them upon original or rerelease. These are albums that I absolutely love and I hope members of the Audiophile Style community come to love them as well.

Setting The Scene

As we enter Winter here in the northern hemisphere, especially the northern US and Canada, it’s getting chilly and snow is falling. We’ve winterized our chicken coops, oh wait, that’s just me. We’ve stocked the wood piles outside and brought in a few pieces for the fireplace. As the flames grow, the wood crackles, and the heat radiates out into the living room. This was the scene on Sunday, around noon, when I received a message from @audiobomber.

“This is very much in the vein of Spirit Sensitive.” He said, followed by a link to the Pharoah Sanders album Welcome to Love. Spirit Sensitive was the Chico Freeman album I featured in this same “I Bet...” series (link), and it was also submitted by @audiobomber. He has great taste, so I immediately grabbed my new Sennheiser ie 900 earphones and iFi GO link Max, and pulled up the album. It was just what the doctor ordered. Fat lush saxophone, a stellar backing band, and a warm sound to match my fireplace. After a couple listens through the album, I knew it had to be included as the sixth album I bet you’ve never heard.

Artist: Pharoah Sanders

Album: Welcome to Love

Recorded in July, 1990 at Studio Gimmick in Yerres, France and released on the Timeless record label in 1991 (CDSJP 358), Welcome to Love isn’t a typical Pharoah Sanders album. It’s much more akin to a Coltrane album of ballads than Sanders’ typical “overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of "sheets of sound.” (Wikipedia). We all have our own tastes, and Welcome to Love is like a hot cup of Organic Napali Golden Black Tea to me. It gives me a warm feeling and I could enjoy it all day and long into the night.

The band on Welcome to Love consist of Pharoah Sanders on tenor and soprano saxophone, William Henderson on piano, Stafford James on bass, and Eccleston W. Wainwright Jr. on drums. A couple “inside baseball” quotes about this album may be interesting to true jazz aficionados.

“The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings called the album "elaborate," and stated that "much of the credit has to go to... Wainwright, who... certainly can't be short of work playing as he does.””

"The playing is supremely mature and shows a deep understanding and appreciation of the material. On the surface and in comparison to his earlier releases, Sanders might, on casual glance, appear to have become entrenched in a kind of conservative, nostalgic reverie to a by-gone age, but deeper listening reveals beautiful, melodic music making by all involved here.”” Said Jazz Fuel's Matt Fripp.

I called the above quotes “inside baseball” because they are way over my head and present a different take or experience with this album. When I listen to music, especially jazz, I listen for how it makes me feel and what it sounds like as a whole. There’s certainly no right or wrong way to enjoy or even dislike art, this is just how I take it in and how it fills my soul.

On track one, You Don't Know What Love Is, I’m immediately taken with the fat and lush sound of Sanders’ sax. I enjoy Henderson’s piano as the track nears half-way and James’ standup bass following that, but this track is all about the sax to me. It’s a quintessential warm tea, warm fire, and crackling logs on a cold winter day type of track.

On track two, The Nearness of You, I was much more sucked into William Henderson’s piano playing and the overall sound of his piano on the recording. Yes, Sanders still blows smooth sweetness throughout, but the piano on this track sounds superb. There’s something about the piano solo toward the middle of the track that makes me both ease back into my listening chair, and want more of it in a “lean into it” type of way. As if to say, what’s this, I want more of it, I need to do some research to find more. Just a great track all around.

The final track I want to highlight is number nine, Lament. This track takes on a different persona from that of the others on the album. About a minute into it, bassist Stafford James busts out a bow and strokes the strings à la Gary Karr. It’s pure beauty that warms and fills the soul. Henderson accompanies Stafford piano for a couple minutes, until Sanders enters on lightly soprano sax. It all sounds very organic and has a realism, where the beauty is in the imperfection. Hearing the “static” of the sax while Sanders blows is like having him in the room, right between the loudspeakers. What a joy.

Like all albums in this series, the entire Welcome to Love album is wonderful. It’s available from Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Qobuz (for purchase and streaming), as a 16 bit / 44.1 album. Thanks again to @audiobomber for the recommendation. I hadn’t heard this album, and I bet you’ve never heard it either. Until now. Go enjoy.

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

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Welcome to the fifth installment of I Bet You’ve Never Heard This, where I recommend albums you actually may have heard, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. These “Never Heard” albums should be in all of our libraries, but for one reason or another we missed them upon original or rerelease. These are albums that I absolutely love and I hope members of the Audiophile Style community come to love them as well.

On with the show.

Transport yourself back to June 1958, in Hackensack, New Jersey. Rudy Van Gelder is at the controls in his eponymous recording studio, while musicians Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (saxophone, tenor), Shirley Scott (organ, Hammond B3), Jerome Richardson (woodwinds), George Duvivier (bass), and Arthur Edgehill (drums) are creating what one reviewer called, “meat and potatoes all the way, but it's made using the choicest ingredients.” To be honest, that’s probably why I love this album so much. I love straight forward meat and potatoes jazz, that enables me to lean back in my listening chair rather than lean forward to the edge of my seat trying to figure out where the musicians are taking me.

The stars of this show are Eddie Davis and Shirley Scott. By 1958 they’d been playing together for three years. These two got together with the aforementioned musicians for three recording sessions, in which four albums were created. “Cookbook, Vol. 1,” “Cookbook, Vol. 2,” “Cookbook, Vol. 3,” and “Smokin’”, subsequently released as individual albums starting later in 1958. In 2023 Bernie Grundman remastered the songs from all four albums for a single multi-disc release called “Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen.” The remastered compilation is the subject of this article.

Artist: Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis & Shirley Scott

Album: Cookin’ with Jaws and the Queen

Some of the previous albums covered in this “I Bet…” series have been difficult to obtain. Fortunately “Cookin’…” is available everywhere via streaming, purchase/download, and physical media. The specific version I listen to is the 24/192 download from Craft Recordings. I’m unsure what quality is delivered from the Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis Bandcamp page.

The track that originally got me started with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis is called The Rev, track number seven of this release. Right from the start it’s all Saxophone and Hammond B3, with what I can only imagine is the backing musicians watching in awe as they kept the beat. The interplay between Davis and Scott, on saxophone and organ respectively, never gets old. I could listen to this track every day for the rest of my life and enjoy it each time. The great sound quality is an added bonus.

On the track Skillet, roles start out a bit reversed, with Shirley Scott taking charge on the Hammond B3. Davis takes a breather while George Duvivier (bass), and Arthur Edgehill (drums) lay the foundation from which she lets loose. It’s truly magical organ playing in any sense of the word. It’s oozes feel and emotion over technical wizardry, although I have no doubt Shirley Scott is a master craftswoman on her instrument.

Around 3:30 into the track Davis eases in with a soft saxophone sound that almost demands a smoking jack, cigar, and a fire in the fireplace. It’s smooth and raw at the same time, and 100% lush.

The rest of the album is full of absolute gems, some bop oriented, while others are more relaxed. One thing is for sure, the musicianship and sound quality are first rate. As Miles Davis said in his autobiography, “If you were going to play again with Lockjaw, then you’d better not be bullshitting because he would embarrass you.”

This is one of those albums, four albums put into one, that can be queued up and let play all the way through. Not only once, but several times, back to back. If one is feeling it, like the musicians, it’ll be hard to shut the stereo off for the evening.

Masterful musicians, a legendary recording engineer, and a new remaster by one of the best in the business, with dynamic range for days. This album should’ve already been on everyone’s “best of…” list, but at least now you’ve heard about it.

Purchase the album here - Craft Recordings | Bandcamp 

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

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Welcome to the fourth installment of I Bet You’ve Never Heard This, where I recommend albums you actually may have heard, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. These “Never Heard” albums should be in all of our libraries, but for one reason or another we missed them upon original or rerelease.

On with the show.

I woke up with Black Sabbath’s War Pigs in my head. So, I did what any father worth his salt would do, I introduced my 12 year old daughter to the Black Sabbath catalog on the drive to school this morning. I heard a couple, “Dad this is weird” and “Do you seriously like this one dad?” comments, but it was a blast. It even segued from Black Sabbath’s Changes to the duet between Ozzy and his daughter Kelly singing Changes together (Tidal), of which my daughter approved.

After drop-off, I thought about another heavy rock album that I love and one that seems to have been forgotten by almost everyone. I played it the whole way home, and continued playing it in my listening room after I arrived. I thought to myself, this has to be one of those albums that I Bet You’ve Never Heard.

Band - Them Crooked Vultures

Album - Them Crooked Vultures

I’m usually not a fan of supergroups because there’s nothing to buy into or get behind. There’s no community of fans who’ve supported the band from its early years or a body of work over which the band has grown or at least experimented. A supergroup is essentially an all-star team upon which high expectations are placed and almost never met or exceeded.

Them Crooked Vultures is one supergroup that I took a chance on fifteen years ago and I’m happy that I did. I really like the band’s only album, and much of the music put out before and after, by its members. Them Crooked Vultures consists of bassist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), drummer Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), and guitarist / vocalist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss).

The album Them Crooked Vultures isn’t an audiophile standard, never will be, and won’t be released on 180 gram vinyl spritzed with unicorn tears anytime soon. It’s a heavy rock album that sounds dirty, distorted, and compressed. I can’t get enough of it and hope members of the Audiophile Style community can get into the vibe as well. I also understand that, like all art, Them Crooked Vultures isn’t for everyone. An album made to please everyone will please no one. Let’s dig into the music.

The opening track, No One Loves Me & Neither Do I, is an absolute banger. The track sounds like three guys putting their musical histories and musical mastery into five minutes of current hard rock and roll. The drum into just oozes Dave Grohl, while shades of Zeppelin and Queens of The Stone Age can be heard throughout, but without falling into the trap of sampling or covering what we’ve all known and loved previously.

The track Elephants is of a similar vein, with a guitar into capable of giving one goosebumps. Again, don’t fall into the “it’s compressed to hell, so I can’t like it” camp. I encourage everyone to set their audiophile cards down for an hour and turn up the volume. Elephants is a meandering, nearly seven minute track, full of original music that could’ve came out in the 1970s or the 2020s. This is far from the Greta Van Fleet flattering Zeppelin imitation because of the band’s influence, and all about three guys letting their creative flags fly.

Scumbag Blues is a tight track that sounds like this supergroup has been together for decades. Taking it to another level, John Paul Jones throws his classic clavinet into this one, here and there, in a similar way as he did in Trampled Underfoot, but also in a completely original fashion that feels like this is where he would’ve gone if John Bonham wa still alive and Zeppelin was still firing on all cylinders. Josh Homme’s guitar leads throughout Scumbag Blues are blistering yet lush at the same time. He plays like he’s the leader of Them Crooked Vultures, and the other guys are there to support him. I just love it, much more so than anything he has done with Queens of The Stone Age or Eagles of Death Metal.

Spinning in Daffodils, Mind Eraser, No Chaser, Caligulove, and Gunman are other tracks I could listen to all day, but this music demands high volume and I’m not sure my retired neighbors are on the same page as I am. I like to give them a taste of great music like Them Crooked Vultures, but not a seven course meal. Maybe I’ll wait until summer when the windows are closed and the air conditioning is on, to let this entire album really rip a concert levels. For now, I’ll enjoy the spring air through the open windows, knowing that I at least introduced this album to both the Audiophile Style community and those who live within 100 yards of my listening room.

Let it rip if you can, you’ll enjoy it.

Them Crooked Vultures by Them Crooked Vultures is available to stream and purchase from the following places. Enjoy.

Tidal | Apple Music | Amazon Music | Qobuz

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

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Welcome to the third installment of I Bet You’ve Never Heard This, where I recommend albums you actually may have heard, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. These “Never Heard” albums should be in all of our libraries, but for one reason or another we missed them upon original or rerelease.

The first two articles in this series have been hits, not so much because of what I wrote, but because the feedback and community submissions of albums never heard, has been fantastic. Keep them coming, send me an email at chris@audiophilestyle.com.

On to the current album I bet you’ve never heard.

The Album - Bill LaBounty by Bill LaBounty (1982, Warner/Curb)

It’s time to hit the exit ramp off of the rat race that is our everyday lives, and step aboard the boat. In yacht rock parlance, one who is aboard the boat is part of the club, either a legendary musician of this special genre of soft rock, or someone kicking back to enjoy these sonic delights. For the next few minutes, let’s all get aboard the boat, forget about any dumpster fires, and take a trip back to 1982.

Recorded at Warner Bros. In North Hollywood and A&R in New York City, this Russ Titelman production belongs near the top of the yacht rock mast. Bill LaBounty is in top form and surrounded by legends such as Jeff Porcaro, Steve Gadd, Jennifer Warnes, Steve Lukather, David Sanborn, and James Taylor among many others.

This album certainly isn’t audiophile demonstration material like so many Steely Dan albums, but perhaps this is a good thing. I guarantee nobody is burnt out of Bill LaBounty and in my opinion, the music on this album is every bit the equal to much of Steely Dan’s catalog. Hopefully this non-audiophile status will enable us to enjoy the album alone together, rather than hear it endlessly blasted out of every hotel room at the next audio show.

Anyway, all aboard the boat.

I first talked about Bill LaBounty in my review of the dCS Rossini APEX, where I said the following.

On the opening track [Livin’ It Up] Bill LaBounty's Rhodes piano evokes an emotion that suits the song so well and creates a nice counterbalance to Ian Underwood's synthesizer. The stars of this track though, are LaBounty's vocal performance and David Sanborn on the Alto Saxophone. The classic 1982 sound, when heard through the Rossini Apex, is as good as it gets. Not perfect, but also not editorialized with something added. Through the Rossini Apex, LaBounty and Sanborn transport the listener to the deck of a boat floating off the coast, where the sun is shining, beverages are flowing, and good times are had by all. 

The remaining nine tracks on the album are every bit as good as Livin’ It Up. For example, track two, Didn’t Want To Say Goodbye, is low-key, even for even for yacht rock, and features lovely vocal harmonies by Bill LaBounty and James Taylor. It’s one of those tracks that feels good, even though LaBounty proclaims, “I threw it all away, I used to have a lot of pride, I got no pride today, Didn't really wanna say goodbye.”

On Dream On, two elements among many stand out as favorites of mine. The horn section featuring trumpeters Chuck Findley and Jerry Hey, is sparse but oh so perfect, entering and exiting the song quickly, but effectively. It’s like a horn section hook, that keeps me coming back.

In addition to the horns, I love Dean Parks’ dreamy guitar solo midway through the track. It isn’t a Mike McCready style face melter, but perhaps a signal that it’s time to top off one’s cocktail or remove the umbrella from that fruity drink and get serious about hydration.

Another favorite, among favorites, on this album is Never Gonna Look Back. LaBounty starts it on the Rhodes and delivers a lead vocal that oozes effort and emotion. What more could we ask for, while floating through these warm waters of yacht rock? How about some vocal harmonies by James Taylor and Jennifer Warnes? Ok, done and done. This one is three minutes of sipping a fine port or relaxing with that Ron Zacapa Rum.

I’ve probably listened to this album a hundred times since discovering it in the last year. I just can’t get enough of it. Never before have stories of heartbreak, regret, mid-life crises, mistakes, and a touch of revenge that comes with newfound freedom, sounded so good.

Bill LaBounty by Bill LaBounty is available to stream and purchase at 16 bit /. 44.1 kHz from the following places. Enjoy.

Tidal | Apple Music | Amazon Music | Qobuz

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system

    Audio: Listen to this article.

Welcome to the second installment of I Bet You’ve Never Heard This, where I recommend albums you actually may have heard, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. These “Never Heard” albums should be in all of our libraries, but for one reason or another we missed them upon original or rerelease.

After publishing the first article in this series, I received wonderful feedback and album submissions from the Audiophile Style community. What a terrific bunch of people, who absolutely love music! I encourage people to continue to contact me directly, with album submissions - chris@audiophilestyle.com.

The album featured in this article was submitted by @audiobomber. I can’t thank him enough for letting me know about this one.

The Album - Chico Freeman - Spirit Sensitive (1979)

First a note about Chico Freeman from Wikipedia. He is incredibly talented and took the road less traveled, compared to those who proceeded him playing jazz, and his contemporaries.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of jazz tenor saxophonist Von Freeman. His uncle George Freeman played the guitar, and his uncle Bruz Freeman played the drums. Freeman took piano lessons as a child and was introduced to the trumpet by his brother Everett, who found a trumpet in the family basement. Freeman began playing, inspired by artists such as Miles Davis and his Kind of Blue album. He went to Northwestern University in 1967 with a scholarship for mathematics and played the trumpet in the school, but did not begin playing the saxophone until his junior year. After practicing eight to ten hours per day and trying out for the saxophone section, Freeman quickly changed his major to music, and graduated in 1972. By that time he was proficient in saxophone, trumpet, and piano.

After graduation, Freeman taught at the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians School of Music in Chicago, and started taking classes as a graduate student at Governors State University, earning a master's degree in composition and theory. Although most of Freeman's musical upbringing had been in jazz, at this time he began getting involved in blues music as well. He began playing at local Chicago clubs with artists such as Memphis Slim and Lucky Carmichael.

Spirit Sensitive, a ballads album full of jazz standards, was recorded  between October 1978 and January 1979 by engineer Bob Cummins at India Navigation Studio, in New York City. Bob used an Ampex 440 8-track at 15 ips and mixed it down on an Ampex ATR 102 at 30 ips. He used and  Electrovoice RE 20  microphone on the saxophone, and several AKG and Beyerdynamic ribbon microphones on the bass, piano, and drums.

Chico Freeman played both tenor and soprano saxophone, accompanied by Cecil McBee on bass, John Hicks on piano, and Billy Hart and Famoudou Don Moye on drums.

Spirit Sensitive is one of those albums with which I immediately fell in love. I don’t care that the New York Times called it "a lyrical, utterly traditional album of ballads and jazz standards." As if that’s a bad thing. From the opening notes of Autumn in New York to the closing of Duke Ellington’s Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, this album gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. It’s full of lush saxophone and stern standup bass, that both sound wonderful accompanied by piano and percussion.

Freeman’s saxophone on track two, Peace, is silky smooth. After the opening sequence, Freeman provides some space for Hicks on piano and McBee on bass to shine, before picking back up and finishing as a cohesive foursome.

It’s impossible to NOT fall in love with track three, A Child Is Born, immediately after pressing play. Cecil McBee’s bass in the center, Freeman’s saxophone panned a bit to the right, and the two play off each other beautifully for the first minute of this nearly eight minute masterpiece.

Track five, You Don’t Have To Say You’re Sorry, opens with a twist. I believe Cecil McBee plays his bass with a bow, before Freeman elegantly joins in on sax (I believe both tenor and soprano). This track is a masterclass in control, even when one has the ability to step on the gas.

Obtaining the Analogue Productions version of this album results in a double delight. It’s sonically superior, due to mastering by Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab, with all tube electronics. And, this version contains the four bonus tracks, Lonnie’s Lament, You Don’t Have To Say You’re Sorry, Wise One, and Carnival.

The current Discogs prices for the Analogue Productions version on CD are ridiculous. I really hope that Acoustic Sounds re-issues this reissue, without changing a thing. I’ve seen images of other releases from Japan, and certainly a few on vinyl as well. Given that this series isn’t nearly as thorough as @Josh Mound's The Best Version Of…, I’ll leave it up to members of this community to help identify those worth pursuing.

Fortunately, Spirit Sensitive is available to stream from Tidal. While the Analogue Productions version is better, listeners will still be delighted by what the original release offers. This is definitely a new favorite album of mine, and it’s one that you can no longer say you’ve never heard.

Album Details

Artist: Chico Freeman

Album: Spirit Sensitive

Availability: Discogs (link), Tidal (link)

About the author - https://audiophile.style/about
Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system