New Music Releases: Beatles, Brubeck, Dolenz, North American Frogs, More!

Our picks this week.

The Beatles’ double-A-side single for “Now And Then” and “Love Me Do” pairs the last Beatles song with the band’s first UK single. Powerful musical bookends to The Beatles’ recorded canon, both songs are also featured in the expanded Anniversary Editions for 1962-1966 (‘The Red Album’) and 1967-1970 (‘The Blue Album’).

Recorded in 1957, Kenny Burrell's 3rd session as a leader for Blue Note presented the guitarist's signature stylings with a crack team of hard boppers featuring Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins, & Louis Hayes. Previously only issued on vinyl in Japan this swinging set is given a new shine with this mono Tone Poet Vinyl Edition produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, & packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket.

Easterly Winds-the 2nd of 3 Blue Note albums Jack Wilson recorded for Blue Note in the late-1960s-found the pianist at the helm of a first-rate hard bop sextet with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Garnett Brown on trombone, Jackie McLean on alto saxophone, Bob Cranshaw on bass, & Billy Higgins on drums. This stereo Tone Poet Vinyl Edition was produced by Joe Harley, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI, & packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket.

7A Records are proud to release Micky Dolenz Sings R. E. M., a 4 track EP comprised of songs R. E. M. wrote throughout their career, all beautifully reimagined by Dolenz and producer Christian Nesmith. The EP features fresh and completely new arrangements of some of R. E. M. 's most memorable and catchy songs. R. E. M. Reactions to the EP: "These songs are ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Micky Dolenz covering R. E. M. Monkees style, I have died and gone to heaven. This is really something. Shiny Happy People sounds INCREDIBLE (never thought you or I would hear me say that!!!). Give it a spin. It's wild. And produced by Christian Nesmith (son of Michael Nesmith), I am finally complete". Michael Stipe "That voice-one of the main voices of my musical awakening-singing our songs... It is beyond awesome. Let's help make this as huge as we possibly can. I am beyond thrilled. " Mike Mills. "I've been listening to Micky's singing since I was nine years old. It's unreal to hear that very voice, adding new depth to songs we've written ourselves, and inhabiting them so completely. " Peter Buck.

"The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Live from the Northwest, 1959" is the newest release from Brubeck Editions, the family-run label that only puts out music of the highest musical and technical quality. These exciting performances were recorded by the trailblazing and iconic audio engineer, Wally Heider, who pioneered the art of remote recording from his "studio on wheels." The sound he achieved is stellar, and this is perhaps the best live recording you can hear of one the most popular jazz groups of all time. The tapes were recorded in April, 1959 at the Multnomah Jazz Club and Clark College, both in the Portland, Oregon area. On this recording you can hear the Quartet's mastery of spontaneous counterpoint improvisation. Four months later, the Dave Brubeck Quartet's focus shifted to polytonal and polyrhythmic approaches when the group recorded the legendary "Time Out", and changed the course of jazz forever.

The amphibian song revival begins here! This classic of both biological fieldwork and natural sound recordings, compiled and narrated by renowned herpetologist Charles M. Bogert, was originally released by Folkways in 1958, and presents sounds of 57 species of frogs and toads (remastered from the original tapes) that were recorded in swamps, lakes, woods, creeks, and roadside ditches all over North America. Listen to the bewitching tones of the Pig Frog, Dwarf Mexican Treefrog, Little Green Toad, Southwestern Woodhouse's Toad, Great Basin Spadefoot, and other unsung heroes of the bog creek. In a time when frog and toad populations are in rapid decline, this recording reminds us of the remarkable diversity and beautiful sounds we are in danger of losing.

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