Listening to Now (In Surround) - Volume 2

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GNOME~O~PHOBE!

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Maynard Ferguson, Conquistador (1977), in a conversion from Q8. Lots of overblown screaming on disco-y pop tunes (and some misguided backing vocals on a couple of cuts), but still compelling, and you gotta admire the lineup. Seems like a natural for Dutton, esp. since they issued the MF Horn series as stereo two-fers back in the day.

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Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly (1973), in a conversion from Q8. Another one of those albums where I previously only knew the (killin') title track. Now there are a couple of other standouts for me, like the Aretha-worthy "No Tears (In the End)" and the ballad "I'm the Girl," with cellist Kermit Moore. Also some beautiful charts by Deodato and Don Sebesky, and inspired production overall by the legendary Joel Dorn (who I mainly knew from his work with Rahsaan Roland Kirk). Excellent quad mix, but does anyone else find the rears a bit loud? This is another that deserves a "Quadio" reissue.

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Hal Galper Quintet, Redux '78 (Concord Jazz, 1991). Dolby Surround CD, in a FLAC 5.1 conversion. Wasn't familiar with bassist Wayne Dockery, but Bob Moses on drums? The Brecker Brothers as your frontline? Come on! Mostly Galper originals with a couple of standards mixed in. I don't have PLII any more, so I'm having to rely on my AVR's Dolby Surround Upmixer.

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Philip Glass, Three Pieces in the Shape of a Square, arranged for trumpet by Craig Morris (Bridge Records, 2018), in the digital-only AIFF 5.0 surround version. I honestly can't tell how truly multi-channel this recording is, but the effect is convincing enough, and the concept is so cool I almost don't care. "The music is set up in a roughly 10’ square, with one performer on the inside of the square and one performer on the outside. The performer on the inside moves around the square in a clockwise direction, while the performer on the outside moves around in a counterclockwise direction."
https://bridgerecords.com/products/9508-surround
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Valery Gergiev conducting the KIROV Orchestra SHEHERAZADE, IN THE STEPPES OF CENTRAL ASIA, ISLAMEY [PHILIPS CLASSICAL/Multi~CH SACD]

This has certainly been a week of 1001 Arabian Nights...spinning the fabulous newly remastered Stereo SACD of Leopold Stokowski's Phase 4 Version and now this splendid version!



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Steve Hackett, Please Don't Touch! (1978; 5.1 DTS DVD, 2016). For some reason, Spectral Mornings was the only solo album of Hackett's I bothered checking out back in the late 70s. Listening to Steven Wilson's 5.1 mix of it a few weeks ago got me curious about this one. Interesting how stylistically diverse it is. (A "sampler album," as he says in the liner notes....)

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Charlie Haden, Liberation Music Orchestra (1970), in a SurroundMaster conversion from an allegedly QS-encoded CD. (Even the original QS LP wasn't all that quaddy.) I love Charlie Haden, and I love Carla Bley even more. This is at least as much her album as it is his, and nothing else of Bley's is even nominally in surround, so I'll take what I can get!

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