Red and Roach

This is the Atlantic SD 18110 1974 US release of the King Crimson album, "Red". This was the more affordable original pressing compared to the Island Records UK release of the same year, which is said to have better sound but runs well over $100 for a copy in nice condition. This is, however, a pretty pristine copy; no pops or cracks throughout the entire play-through.

I've always been a big fan of this King Crimson album in particular. While I prefer the older Crimson vs the newer (post-Red/Belew era), one of the complaints I had with older albums was that there were sometimes too much "free-form" space, be it poetry reading, or long open progressive jams, it sometimes filled up too much space on an album. Sometimes it's interesting, but most of the time not as much. Red on the other hand, has one song that's kind of open, but the album as a whole is pretty solid.

This 1966 Atlantic (Cat# 1467) mono release of Max Roach's "Drums Unlimited" is a real treat for drummers. It's got people like Freddie Hubbard (trumpet) and Ronnie Mathews (piano) on the session, but half of the album is drum solos. "The Drum Also Waltzes", "Drums Unlimited", and "For Big Sid" are just Max Roach solos.

One of the issues, though, is that the album was graded higher than it actually is. There were some scratches deep enough to make loud pops and cracks through some of the songs. I bought the album off of Discogs and I've always had pretty good experiences buying from sellers of the site. But I'd like to add that this particular seller, audio investment, was very accommodating and I was very happy with the response after I noted the descrepancy.

Filed under: Music
9/23/2014