THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME (REISSUES AND ANTHOLOGIES) By Michael McDowell

 CD AND LP REISSUES / ANTHOLOGIES (PLUS BOOKS)

(REVIEWS ARE POSTED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER BY ARTIST)

IBREATHE: The band's legions of devotees have reason to rejoice with the legitimate release of the extracurricular Dogs And Sheeps album by PINK FLOYD as Live From The Los Angeles Sports Arena, in tandem with the Record Store Day 2026 celebration. Editor/Publisher Michael McDowell follows the crew of the space shuttle on their recent journey to The Dark Side Of The Moon below (Click on above imaege to enlarge). 

BILL EVANS IN NORWAY:

THE KONGSBERG CONCERT -

Bill Evans (Elemental Music)

Few personified the notion of suffering for one's art as poignantly as did Bill Evans.

To wit, despite a somewhat dramatic affiliation with trumpeter Miles Davis' band in 1958 - 1959, keyboard virtuoso, visionary and Plainfield, New Jersey native Evans managed to rise to the occasion and soar on the group's landmark Kind Of Blue album for Columbia. 

Evans left Davis' group in late 1959 and formed a groundbreaking trio with bassist Scott LaFaro (whose most impressive resume included collaborations with Chet Baker, Ornette Coleman, Buddy DeFranco, Stan Getz and Cal Tjader) and drummer Paul Motian. The group flourished well into 1961, when LaFaro's sudden passing in an auto accident in July of that year sent Evans into a protracted tailspin.

Nonetheless, Evans' work on stage and in the studio continued to soar. In 1966, he joined forces with bassist Eddie Gomez, with whom he collaborated on this magnificent thirteen-track live set. 

Recorded at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival on 26 June 1970, Bill Evans In Norway finds Evans, Gomez and drummer Marty Morell in perfect sync with one another, as they glide through an impeccable cross section of richly diverse material, including the adventurous 34 Skidoo, Quiet Now, Gloria's Step, Nardis and an ambitious take on Roger Williams' Autumn Leaves. Throughout the proceedings, Gomez instinctively asserts and downplays his role as needed, with Morell serving as a driving force of sorts between Evans' moments of solo flight.

Evans doggedly persevered throughout the 1970s, recording two acclaimed collaborations with Tony Bennett in mid-decade. Sadly, he succumbed to lingering health concerns in September 1980 at age 51.

The latest in a long series of Evans projects by veteran archivist and historial Zev Feldman, Bill Evans In Norway also includes a rare interview with Evans, plus recent exchanges with Gomez and Morell, as well as commentary by other musicians who were present at the event. True to form, it is a superb depiction of a Time Remembered most favorably.

EXPERIMENT IN METAPHYSICS,

PART TWO -

Perry Leopold 

(Gear Fab)

Jordan Christopher knew when to say no.

In the 1966 motion picture, The Fat Spy, the late composer, vocalist, actor, Wild Ones co-founder and Youngstown, Ohio native cautioned of the dangers of materialism in the opening number, People Sure Act Funny. Accompanied by some ambitous, Leadbelly-inspired twelve-string guitar from Chuck Alden, that track has long been hailed as a forerunner of the solo acoustic movement that increasingly availed itself in the folk genre at the time. 

Unlike Christopher, the Philadelphia-based composer and vocalist Perry Leopold threw lyrical caution to the wind in his like minded endeavors. In spite of the red flags borne of experience, as articulated by Abraham Sofaer as the Swami in the Monkees' 1968 motion picture, Head (and underscored decisively by his concluding observation, "Or should I speak, since I know nothing?"; a caveat that doubtlessly escaped Leopold's attention), Leopold plunged head first into the abyss.

Buoyed in part by the cavalier perspective indigenous to the so-called underground rumblings of the day, Leopold released his first such collection in 1970 as Experiment In Metaphysics. The fact that such an approach left unchecked could avail itself in close to the edge manner was evidenced by his Christian Lucifer project nearly three years hence. 

In keeping with his acclaimed academic / optimistic mission statement as curator, Gear Fab CEO Roger Maglio herein presents this final Leopold outing as an integral component of the overall legacy of the genre. Leopold (who passed away in 2024) had preserved the session tapes (recorded in a shoe repair shop in 1970), with with the intent of their being an adjunct to his earlier release.

The material speaks for itself. Using ambiguous lyrical imagery as a distraction of sorts, the titles of several of the numbers nonetheless pretty much articulate intent: White Clouds Of Embers, The Prophesy, View From Within, Lookin' For Another World, etc. 

Hank Williams once sang of traveling down the Lost Highway. In turn, the Hollies lamented their journey down a Long Dark Road. But unlike those tales of wisdom, Leopold's journey was one that left unchecked could lead to a dead end. Proceed with caution.

LIVE FROM THE

LOS ANGELES SPORTS ARENA -

Pink Floyd (Columbia)

"The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of the man in his prime".

So noted Pink Floyd in Free Four, a most encouraging return to form cut from their 1972 Obscured By Clouds album for the Harvest label. A return to form in that the album followed several relatively challenging years in terms of songwriting in the wake of the departure of guitarist and primary composer Syd Barrett from their ranks. That move towards reinvigoration ultimately served them well, as Pink Floyd soon found themselves in the upper echelons of mainstream acclaim, where they remained for the next several decades. 

As of this writing, four of the band's six members remain active in various  capacities. Original guitarist Rado "Bob" Klose has long enjoyed a successful career in photography. Primary lead guitarist Dave Gilmour (who succeeded Barrett in that capacity in 1968) and bassist Roger Waters have both flourished as solo artists, while drummer Nick Mason has toured in recent years with the like minded A Saucerful Of Secrets (sadly, Barrett and keyboard man Ric Wright are both deceased). Nonetheless, there has been no new Pink Floyd studio project since The Endless River for Columbia Records in 2014.

Hence the memories of the deeds of the men in their prime. To that effect, a pair of  archival live albums have surfaced in recent years: 2021's Live In Venice and 2023's The Dark Side Of The Moon Live At Wembley.

Live From The Los Angeles Sports Arena is the latest in that series. Released on both vinyl and CD in tandem with the Record Store Day 2026 celebration, the album was recorded on the 26th of April 1975. The material therein had previously been issued in 1993 as an extracurricular release of sorts under the title Dogs And Sheeps.

To be certain, the venue itself was the ideal setting for the so-called arena rock that the band epitomized in 1975. To that effect, their 1973 The Dark Side Of The Moon album was in the second year of its extraordinary nineteen year consecutive run on the so-called national charts. Faithfully executed material from that album comprises the second half of this live set. 

For openers, the band took a relatively upbeat approach that in part served to acknowledge Barrett's contributions in light of his well publicized health concerns. The opening numbers Raving And Drooling and You've Got To Be Crazy did so with remarkable candor, as did the well-received Have A Cigar and Shine On You Crazy Diamond from their forthcoming Wish You Were Here album (released in September of that year).

Although the band's hardcore faithful numbers are still legion, there are no plans for another Pink Floyd studio collaboration. But given the resolve with which Gilmour, Waters and Mason have pursued their individual interests, in the words of some of the band's post-Barrett transitional releases, it would perhaps be in the best interests of the rank and file to not Meddle in such matters, instead giving them the option to sidestep The Narrow Way and open the door to the possibility of a new Dramatic Theme.

HE TOOK US BY STORM -

Various Artists

(Bear Family)

And a quiet storm it was not.

Given the wealth of covers afforded Bob Dylan material during rock and roll's peak creative period (from the Turtles' It Ain't Me Babe and the Vacels' Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window to Rick Nelson's She Belongs To Me and Peter Antell's The Times They Are A Changin'), it would have been a fairly straightforward process to issue a CD comprised of the best such endeavors.

But in keeping with Dylan's consistent endeavors to confound expectations, Bear Family herein instead has gathered twenty-five tracks that drew their inspiration from his work. The rich diversity of artists represented in He Took Us By Storm speaks volumes, from Dion DiMucci (Two Ton Feather), Billy Joe Royal (covering Joe South's These Are Not My People) and Donovan Leitch (his Hickory-era Universal Soldier single) to Bob Seger And The Last Heard (their landmark January 1967 Persecution Smith single for Hideout), Barry McGuire (his much loved Dunhill-era Don't You Wonder Where It's At) and Leon Russell (Everybody's Talking About The Young). First rate gems by Eric Andersen, P.F. Sloan, David Crosby, Tom Rush, Johnny Winter, Bobby Darin, Boz Scaggs, Ferre Grignard and Dino Valenti round out the remainder of the set.

Featuring an insightful commentary by the late John Sinclair (a one time member of Blitz Magazine - The Rock And Roll Magazine For Thinking People's production team) and extensive sleeve notes by Philippe LeBras and others, He Took Us By Storm is most assuredly a decisive step towards taking the far reaching impact of one of the twentieth century's premier wordsmiths and Bringing It All Back Home.

KINGS, QUEENS AND JOKERS  -

Victoria (Gear Fab)

Remarkable is the reissue project that enjoys deluxe treatment in its third incarnation.

Such is the case with the 1971 debut album by the New Jersey band, Victoria. Recorded between 1969 and 1971, the original album featured eight original compositions by band co-founder Greg Ruban.

In reality, the album was a joint venture between Victoria (Ruban, along with Sharon Barton, Maureen Deidelbaum and Cheryl Simpson), in tandem with the Dirty Martha Band. Logistics prevented the band from performing live, but they did manage to capture this lone extraordinary effort in the studio. 

As a composer, Ruban (who also served as producer for this project) demonstrated remarkable vision and depth during that deceptively fallow creative period. To wit, the original album featured ambitious psychedelic workouts such as Village Of Etaf, which would have been right at home within the fertile boom period that produced the likes of Tintern Abbey, Grapefruit and the Soft Machine a scant few years earlier. 

In turn, the curious Cumberland takes its cue in parts from the Velvet Underground's Sunday Morning, while Gevaro avails itself as a latter day reimagination of Frankie Laine's Jezebel. Moreover, Ride A Rainbow serves as an extension and/or answer of sorts to the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Purple Haze, while the opener, Peace sports some refreshing acoustic guitar in its intro that falls in solidarity with the like minded overtures found in Lighthouse's One Fine Morning. The rare profession of candor that is the aptly named Never Knew Blues brings it all full circle; paradoxically drawing as it does from the tension that graced the template of Billy Roberts' often covered 1962 standard, Hey Joe.

Curiously, Kings, Queens And Jokers did not make it past the demo stage at the time of its recording. Nonetheless, it did finally see a limited release of two hundred copies in the early years of the twenty-first century. Out of print since 2005, it now enjoys a deluxe CD reissue on the Gear Fab label. For this deluxe third appearance, label president Roger Maglio has included seven heretofore unreleased Ruban compositions that were drawn from master tape and acetate sources, highlighted by the Gospel-tinged Mister Let Me Go, Child Of A Princess and an alternate take of Cumberland.

Sadly, Greg Ruban passed away in 2008. Nonetheless, his unique vision brings a most welcome addition to Gear Fab's extensive catalog of reissues of the rarest independent releases. Incentive to Ride A Rainbow indeed.