Posts by Doug Collette

Bob Dylan suffered a serious health scare some four months prior to the release of Time Out Of Mind (released 9/30/97), one so serious that, in its aftermath, he’d be prompted to say “I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon.” Not surprisingly, coincidental upon the release of the aforementioned record, much was made of its looming […]

The Doors’ Strange Days(released 9/25/67) did not have the cultural or commercial impact of the iconic band’s eponymous debut earlier than the h/alcyon year of 1967. And that’s all the more regrettable because, in purely artistic terms, this second album is superior in (almost) every way.  In reality, with now over half-century hindsight, it’s more clear than ever […]

Approaching the half-century anniversary of Steely Dan’s Aja (released 9/23/77) it’s confounding to try and figure out why it became the group’s most commercially successful album. After all, a fair-sized hit, “Do It Again,” emerged five years prior to their debut, Can’t Buy A Thrill, while “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” the opening track of their third LP Pretzel […]

Four decades of hindsight reveal just how pivotal a release was Love Over Gold for Dire Straits (released 9/24/82), While it is not actually the first LP in which the ensemble ceased to function as a quartet or the first official instance of film scoring on the part of Mark Knopfler, in his role as titular leader […]

A companion piece to Grateful Dead’s Lyceum Theatre 5/26/72, this New Riders concert album from the same venerable British venue is an equally celebratory piece of work. Its release supplies a missing link in that now-legendary tumultuous tale of psychedelic warriors on tour through England and the European continent fifty years ago. That distinction noted in […]

Looking back on Miles Davis’ return from his six-year hiatus in 1981, he quite clearly began to draw a sketch of the musical style he wanted to pursue for the foreseeable future. That’s What Happened 1982-1985: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7 not only provides details and variations on that outline represented by his initial studio recording, The Man With The Horn, […]

Anyone mystified by the release of a 2018 Remix of Pink Floyd’s Animals four years after the fact only needs to take note of the almost startling relevance of the songs on the 1977 album. Notwithstanding the use of a conceit similar to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the topical pertinence is as provocative as the sound, both of which deserve […]

Guitarist Julian Lage reaffirms his prolific creative output with his second album for Blue Note Records View With A Room. Notwithstanding a title too clever by half, it hearkens positively back to the guitarist’s handful of earlier studio records as a solo artist for the Mack Avenue label: like 2016’s Arclight, this one further documents his progression […]

If Long Gone proves nothing else, it is that the rekindling of chemistry between Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride & Brian Blade, as represented on 2020’s ‘Round Again, was no fluke. Indeed, when taken together, these two releases pose the question of whether there has ever been such a reunion of elevated pedigree in the jazz oeuvre: John Coltrane’s […]

The entertaining and enlightening documentary covering Linda Ronstadt’s personal life and career, The Sound Of My Voice, notes the woman’s opening slot for Neil Young in his early stadium tours, a discussion that serves to highlight the ascension of Ronstadt’s own popularity. Yet her rise to comparable heights of success wasn’t the lightning-fast arc of the […]