Joachim Cooder
Dreamer’s Motel
(Temple Of Leaves)
★★★★

SINGER-SONGWRITER, multi-instrumentalist and son of Ry Cooder, Joachim, who played on his father’s 1997 million-seller Buena Vista Social Club makes a welcome return to the studio with this set of Americana and alt country.

His last studio album Over That Road I’m Bound (2020) revisited the classic songs of old-time country music’s Uncle Dave Macon, and tracks like God Speed Little Children Of Fort Smith Arkansas (wonderful title) and Let Me See My Brother Walk are steeped in the history of US pre-war rural country music.

Cooder says the title track, accompanied by a brass band, was inspired by “a place you can only revisit in your dreams.”

The other standout is Down To The Blood, a rhythmic number with its roots in pre-war blues. Ry Cooder appears on each track playing guitar or banjo.  

Miles Davis
Miles 54 – The Prestige Records
(Craft Recordings)
★★★★★

1954 was pivotal year for be-bop trumpeter Miles Davis. He cut five sessions for Prestige Records in New Jersey (delivering four albums) with an array of be-bop and jazz talent, including Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, Kenny Clarke, Art Blakey, and Horace Silver, blending originals, popular ballads with compositions by his sidemen.

Davis was back in New York in ’54 after returning home to try to get clean from substance abuse and headlined top Big Apple venues with stars like Dizzy Gillespie, Dinah Washington and Chet Baker. 

With ballads including That Old Devil Moon, The Man I Love, Miles originals like Blue Haze and Solar, Milt Jackson’s Bags’ Groove and Sonny Rollins’ Oleo plus alternative takes, the set contains 20 tracks with a superb booklet and notes, and is available on vinyl, CD and download. Don’t miss it.

Mountain
Over The Top
(Floating World)
★★★★★

The classic line-up of Leslie West (guitar), Corky Laing (drums), Steve Knight (keyboards) and producer, songwriter and bass player Felix Pappalardi took the rock world by storm in the late ’60s with their debut and subsequent album outings. 

A thunderous hard-rock combo, modelled on Cream (who Pappalardi had produced) their albums contained enduring rock classics lead by West’s powerhouse guitar including Blood On The Sun, Mississippi Queen, Dreams Of Milk And Honey, Theme From An Imaginary Western and Nantucket Sleighride, which when used as the theme for the stuffy UK TV political talk show Weekend World drove early headbangers wild with joy.

This reissue double set features four albums, plus live tracks including an 18-minute tour de force of T Bone Walker’s Stormy Monday. Jack Bruce later joined West and Laing in a remodelling of Cream. Great days!