Rhino’s High Fidelity series has been a roaring success. Drawing from the vast catalogs of the esteemed Warner Brothers, Elektra, and Atlantic labels and their subsidiary imprint labels, the records released so far span a wide variety of time and genres. Here are four such recent releases.
If there ever was a perfect album to receive the deluxe audiophile treatment, it’s The Captain and Me by The Doobie Brothers. Released in 1973, it was the group’s third album. Their previous album, Toulouse Street, did have FM staples such as “Rockin’ Down the Highway,” “Jesus Is Just Alright” (a rocked-up gospel cover, no doubt gleaned from the 1969 Byrds cover), and “Listen to the Music,” which became a big hit.
The Captain and Me has less of the New Orleans feel of Toulouse Street and is even farther from the San Francisco biker bar rock. Warner Brothers staff producer Ted Templeman brought out the subtleties of the group’s acoustic side and gave their more accessible material a glossier and more pristine sound. This music was the height of the best of the slick LA studio sound, but Templeman’s deft touch maintained the band’s roots and virtuoso playing while spotlighting their great songs and tight vocal harmonies.
He also worked wonders for fellow Warner Brothers label mates Little Feat, although their sound was much more idiosyncratic and they never scored hits like the Doobies. Both bands also shared the New Orleans-inspired keyboardist Bill Payne, although with the Doobies he was always credited as a sideman. The Doobies at this time also shared some of the commercial LA sound of Steely Dan and again, both bands shared personnel at various times in an even more incestuous and fruitful way.
While definitely a product of its time, the music here still sounds fresh, with its electric and acoustic balance and mixing of rock, pop, country, and Cajun music. All this was accomplished while several tracks from the album such as “China Grove” and “Long Train Runnin’” were hits. The many attributes that make this such a great album sadly point out the myriad weaknesses of today’s music on the charts.
The punk and new wave explosion of the 1970s was a rock reset that was a breath of fresh air for pop music that had reached the end of an era that began with early American rock and was redefined by The Beatles. While the Ramones, The Clash, The Jam, and the Sex Pistols, among others, are usually regarded as the seminal musical artists of this explosion, the roots of this big bang had been percolating for years.
The foundation was laid as far back at the first Velvet Underground album and groups like the MC5, the Stooges, and even Blue Cheer. Other antecedents who in some cases became part of the sound often in different forms included Brinsley Schwartz, The Modern Lovers, The New York Dolls, and the Patti Smith Group. Two groups, who along with the Patti Smith Group, were part of this first wave were Talking Heads and Television.
While the Patti Smith Group and the New York Dolls were an outgrowth of the downtown New York art and music scene, the Talking Heads were part of the downtown scene by way of their meeting at the Rhode Island School of Design (the last member Jerry Harrison was in The Modern Lovers, which was based in Boston). What most of these artists have in common is that they would have come along and made waves regardless of the punk explosion. This is especially the case with Television. The group only made two albums in its initial incarnation, but its debut Marquee Moon from 1977, is significant and easily one of the best and most important albums of the second half of the 1970s.
The group consisted of Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Fred Smith, and Billy Ficca. Verlaine was the group’s brooding, artsy lead singer and primary songwriter while Lloyd reinvented what a lead guitarist could be in the post-Beck/Clapton/Page rock guitar god era. The rhythmic section provided the jagged, herky-jerky urban angst feel that reflected the post-modern grit of the downtown scene of this time.
After all these years, this album has not dated at all, as have some by straight-forward punk or pesky new wave, one-hit wonders. One could trace a straight line from the debut album from the Velvet Underground to this album, although it is a much more sober affair and in no way mimics or copies the Velvet Underground.
This might not be an album that many music fans would think would receive the deluxe audiophile treatment. However, the group was well-recorded at New York’s famed A&R Studios, mixed at the legendary Atlantic Studios, and was co-produced by Andy Johns. Making this an object d ‘art is the startling group cover photo by Robert Mapplethorpe. The group did reform in 1992 for one album. Tom Verlaine passed away in 2023. This album is a treasured artifact from a place and time that will never be again, but it succeeds as a worthy reissue due to the influence the group continues to have and the sheer power of the music.
Ornette Coleman turned the jazz world on its ear with the 1959 appropriately titled release of The Shape of Jazz To Come. The album was his debut on Atlantic Records. Change of the Century, his follow-up release, which also came out in 1959, sometimes gets lost being on the heels of The Shape of Jazz to Come and within the overall fulsomeness of Coleman’s rich, long, and varied recording catalog.
While not as groundbreaking as the previous album and perhaps a little more accessible, it still ranks as one of his best albums, another fine addition to his brief, but successful run with Atlantic Records and ultimately another key record in the free jazz genre of which Coleman was a central figure. Joining Coleman again are the same three musicians who were on the previous album. They are Don Cherry on pocket trumpet, Billy Higgins on drums, and the secret weapon of both albums, bassist Charlie Haden, with Coleman playing alto sax.
All of the songs were written by Coleman. The engineer and de-facto co-producer of the album is the legendary Bones Howe, a man comfortable recording many genres of music. The project was supervised by Nesuhi Ertegun, the Ertegun brother who as time went by spent the most time heading the jazz side of Atlantic Records.
It’s great having a bespoke audiophile edition of this extraordinary album and is just the kind of somewhat under-the-radar release that makes this Rhino High Fidelity series such a winner.
Herbie Hancock’s Crossings, released in 1972, is another one of those somewhat obscure releases that maybe one wouldn’t think would make for such a bespoke reissue, but after listening to this album and checking out the beautiful packaging, it’s obvious why it was chosen.
Hancock has had one of the most influential, long-lasting, and at times popular careers in jazz. He is also an artist who had made crossover music within a variety of hybrid, genre-hopping projects. Crossings came long after both his time as part of the legendary Miles Davis Quintet and his celebrated Blue Note salad days era and before his fusion zenith with his group Headhunters.
This album was one of the few albums he recorded for Warner Brothers and part of his “Mwandishi” period. Hancock began that period on his last album for Blue Note, Fat Albert Rotunda, which included music loosely associated with the Bill Cosby television series. It continued with the release before Crossings (Mwandishi), his first for Warner Brothers, and ended after Crossings with Sextant, his first for Columbia, and the album that preceded the self-titled debut album from Headhunters.
The multi-instrumentalists who join Hancock here and make up the core group are the key to the unique sound for him during that period. They are Eddie Henderson, Bennie Maupin, Julian Priester, Buster Williams, and Billy Hart. Also, Patrick Gleeson contributes Moog synthesizer and Mellotron, with Victor Pantoja on congas and the voices of Candy Love, Sandra Stevens, Della Horne, Victoria Domagalski, and Scott Beach.
The sound is very rhythmic and spacey and the entire album has the feel of a spiritual journey. On this LP one can hear some of the ways Hancock would mix his electric piano sound with rhythms that would be the basis for Headhunters, with Bernie Maupin also on board for the Headhunters debut. Hancock’s music often has a feeling like he is taking the listener on a journey, and this release is no exception. While not strictly a jazz fusion album, the music here reflects the best of that sometimes maligned, jazz sub-genre.
The sound quality and packaging on all of these releases are superb. Each album was mastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Optimal Media. All of the sets include a four-page, 12-inch booklet with a photo of the original master tape box, liner notes, essays, and additional photos. These albums have been released in limited, numbered editions of 5,000, with heavyweight gatefold jackets, poly-lined sleeves, and each one has an OBI-strip.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Doobie Brothers, The Captain and Me
B+
Television, Marquee Moon
B
Ornette Coleman, Change of the Century
A
Herbie Hancock, Crossings
A-
