By Mark Smotroff Following are “first look, first listen” impressions of some upcoming Record Store Day releases we’ve been honored to preview here at Audiophile Review. All of these are nice looking, deluxe gatefold edition, 2LP packages with bonus booklets, informative liner notes, archival photos, etc. They are pressed on 180-gram vinyl that is generally quiet (caveats noted below) and well centered. But at the end of the day it is comes down to the music. I’ve been enjoying these so perhaps you might want to consider adding them to your Record Store Day shopping list. Mal Waldron and Stev ..read more

By Mark Smotroff The new 50th anniversary super deluxe edition boxed set celebrating pioneering British hard rock band Deep Purple’s landmark album Machine Head offers deep wonders for hard-core and casual fans alike. Featuring 3CDs, 1 Blu-ray Disc (containing high resolution audio in Dolby Atmos, 5.1 surround and Quadrophonic sound) plus a smoke color vinyl edition, the set includes new mixes created by Dweezil Zappa. For more information on the vinyl LP experience, please visit Analog Planet (click here) where I reviewed the 50th Anniversary vinyl Machine Head in quite extensive detail.&nbs ..read more

By Mark Smotroff The three albums I’m highlighting here have nothing much in common other than they are fine collections of vintage — mid-century — jazz and that finding original pressings can be quite difficult and pricey, especially in good condition.  All have been recently reissued and the results are happily quite excellent. Harold Land Quintet’s The Peacemaker – I first reviewed this rare 1968 album in late 2023 when it was included in the excellent Vinyl Me Please boxed set titled The Story Of Cadet Records (click here to jump to that review). While that AAA all analog remastered e ..read more

By Mark Smotroff On the surface, a super deluxe edition boxed set celebrating one of the landmark movie musicals of all time, The Sound Of Music — which starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer — may seem a bit of overkill. But if you are a fan of the film and theater music in general, you’ll relish every fleeting sonic moment contained within. This music was created by no less than the legendary composers Rogers and Hammerstein and it helped to make this 1965 film adaptation of the smash hit 1959 Broadway musical —- and its score — a global smash hit selling more than 20 million copies w ..read more

By Mark Smotroff. Three sought after late 1950s and early 1960s LPs have returned to record store shelves courtesy of Universal Music and Craft Recordings.  All present an excellent value and viable options for audiophile-leaning vinyl enthusiasts seeking an excellent sounding edition of these LPs which mirrors the original releases in terms of mastering and packaging.   The Cats A number of years ago I came across beautiful condition 1965 edition of a 1959-era LP featuring 1957 recordings by a group labeled “The Cats.” This assemblage features pianist Tommy Flanagan (who wrote four ..read more

The new series of Quadraphonic reissues from Rhino Records make for a wonderful listening journey, allowing musical exploration of a past most of us never had the chance to experience. Digging deep into the archives of the vast catalogs of the once and former entity known as Warner Communications, this series includes four-channel releases from record labels such as Elektra, Asylum Atlantic, Reprise and Warner Brothers and, surprisingly,  music which originally appeared on the United Artists label. For those of your reading who are unfamiliar with the term “quadraphonic sound” — or simply ..read more

By Mark Smotroff One thing that has been a constant for this writer and music fan is the never ending joy of discovery of new artists and sounds, from the past to the present.  Such as the case with a soon to be reissued collection by legendary jazz saxophonist Yusef Lateef, an artist who I have admittedly been a little late to the party of diving down deeply into exploring his catalog. Mea culpa.  Recently I found one of his albums called Eastern Sounds in a local record store’s bargain bin — for just $5 in well-loved but not trashed condition, it felt like a no-risk opportunity to ..read more

By Mark Smotroff Some of the most desired recordings in the vinyl collecting universe these days are rare Latin and Brazilian oriented recordings from the 1960s and ‘70.  Finding these records, if you are a collector is a big challenge because a they didn’t sell in droves back in the day and those who did buy them usually played them to death as they were great party records records. I also suspect that some of them were regionally distributed to key markets serving those communities.  Fortunately, some of the major record labels which now own the back catalogs on several important ..read more

By Mark Smotroff In the world of jazz music, there is a sort of unwritten snobbery toward certain labels, particularly when it comes to collectors of vintage vinyl, which has been propagated, likely for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this review. Bottom line: there is a lot of great and important jazz music to be heard and enjoyed on labels other than Blue Note, Prestige and Riverside Records. And, there are great engineers other than Rudy Van Gelder (aka RVG) who many consider the last word when it comes to jazz of a certain vintage.  Some years back I was hepped to the so ..read more

By Mark Smotroff With so many titles coming out in the realm of audiophile leaning vinyl reissues, it’s indeed difficult to keep up with the pace of releases.  Even for us reviewing its sometimes hard to know which ones you “need” to own among the many we fence-sit on. Today I’ve cherry picked a quartet of recent issues from Verve Records / UMe and Craft Recordings / Concord Music, all crafted under the watchful eyes of the esteemed Acoustic Sounds series, which you might find worthy of your attention. All of these releases following share some fine common stats as part of the esteemed Ac ..read more