Some Nice Things We’ve Missed: Quartet Records’ Trio of Sondheim and Double Mancini

As 2012 yielded to 2013, more than a few noteworthy releases may have been lost in the shuffle.  Some of the most impressive of those December releases came from Spain’s Quartet Records.  The label closed out the year with three particularly spectacular titles that no film score buff will want to miss.

Two came from the prolific pen of Henry Mancini, perhaps the most-represented soundtrack composer in terms of 2012’s releases.  Having previously issued the complete score to Curse of the Pink Panther (1982), the label turned its attention to 1978’s Revenge of the Pink Panther.  The last Panther film to star Peter Sellers in his lifetime (the 1982 picture utilized outtakes of Sellers to create a new film), Revenge was previously on CD only in a severely truncated form emphasizing the funkier sounds in Mancini’s score.  The new Revenge features a full 27 tracks, demonstrating the full breadth of the composer’s work and even including alternate takes from the original album issue.  This deluxe package also includes a detailed essay and track-by-track notes from John Takis in its 16-page full-color booklet.

Perhaps even more noteworthy is Quartet’s reissue of Mancini’s original soundtrack to 1985’s Santa Claus: The Movie.  Quartet’s predecessor label Singular Records had released (most of) the original soundtrack album on CD in 2009, but that release was considered lackluster despite the label having done its best with its resources at the time.  The new edition is a completely different case, however: a 3-CD edition presenting the complete film score (34 tracks!), 17 alternates and bonuses, and the original, complete 13-track soundtrack LP, with many themes modified from the originals plus pop songs from Kaja and Sheena Easton.  This new set presents the score in its entirety, remixed from ½″ 3-track stereo and 2″ 24-track session masters housed in mint condition in Abbey Road Studios, London.  The 1985 LP has also been remastered from first generation master tapes stored at Abbey Road.  Jeff Bond provides the annotation for the stellar 32-page booklet.  Though many critics derided the epic Santa origin film as excessive, this release proves that Mancini’s score (also containing songs with lyrics by Leslie Bricusse) was just right.

After the jump: take a trip to the Forum, plus the full track listings and order links for all three titles!

Four Tickets to Paradise: Rock Candy Remasters Eddie Money’s First Columbia LPs

Pack your bags, we’ll leave tonight: U.K. label Rock Candy Records is releasing brand new remasters of four albums by the one and only Eddie Money.

The Brooklyn-born Edward Mahoney was a New York cop in the 1960s, but he ultimately decided to chase a more artistic muse. Working his way through the club circuit in California, he was signed to Columbia Records, where he enjoyed a healthy run of hit singles and albums. His self-titled debut featured the smash hits “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets to Paradise,” propelling the disc within the U.S. Top 40 and double-platinum status. The following year’s Life for the Taking featured another Top 40 hit in “Maybe I’m a Fool,” and the album peaked even higher than its predecessor on the charts.

While the early ’80s were a time of personal travails for Money, including struggles with addiction, he still racked up some sizable hits, including “Think I’m in Love,” which topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts, and “Shakin'”; both singles were aided by videos on the fledgling MTV network. While Rock Candy’s work stops with 1982’s No Control, which spawned those two early-’80s hits, Money’s greatest successes were still to come – 1986’s Can’t Hold Back procured a Top 5 hit in “Take Me Home Tonight,” and follow-up Nothing to Lose (1988) had the Top 10 single “Walk on Water.”

Rock Candy’s spit and polish on these new reissues include new digital remasters for all titles, as well as expanded artwork and liner notes featuring rare photos and excerpts from new interviews with Money. There are no bonus tracks, however, so Money’s entry in the Playlist series is still your destination to acquire the unique single version of “Two Tickets to Paradise” on CD.

All four titles are released in the U.K. this Monday, January 7, and should hit U.S. shores about two weeks later as import titles. Full track details and Amazon U.S. and U.K. order links lie below.

Eddie Money (originally released as Columbia PC 34909, 1977 – reissued Rock Candy Records 172 (U.K.), 2013)

Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1. Two Tickets to Paradise
2. You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me
3. Wanna Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star
4. Save a Little Room in Your Heart for Me
5. So Good to Be in Love Again
6. Baby Hold On
7. Don’t Worry
8. Jealousys
9. Got to Get Another Girl
10. Gamblin’ Man

Life for the Taking (originally released as Columbia PC 35598, 1978 – reissued Rock Candy Records 173 (U.K.), 2013)

Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1. Life for the Taking
2. Can’t Keep a Good Man Down
3. Nightmare
4. Gimme Some Water
5. Rock & Roll the Place
6. Maybe I’m a Fool
7. Love the Way You Love Me
8. Maureen
9. Nobody
10. Call on Me

Playing for Keeps (originally released as Columbia FC 36514, 1980 – reissued Rock Candy Records 174 (U.K.), 2013)

Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1. Trinidad
2. Running Back
3. The Wish
4. Get a Move On
5. When You Took My Heart
6. Satin Angel
7. Let’s Be Lovers Again
8. Nobody Knows
9. Million Dollar Girl

No Control (originally released as Columbia FC 37960, 1982 – reissued Rock Candy Records 175 (U.K.), 2013)

Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

1. Shakin’
2. Runnin’ Away
3. Think I’m in Love
4. Hard Life
5. No Control
6. Take a Little Bit
7. Keep My Motor Runnin’
8. My Friends, My Friends
9. Drivin’ Me Crazy
10. Passing by the Graveyard (Song for John B.)
11. It Could Happen to You

Three From FiveFour: Jazz Label Offers Gil Evans on Hendrix, Plus Don Ellis and Duke Ellington

Cherry Red’s recently-reactivated FiveFour label’s latest trawl into the Sony jazz archives has delivered another three rare titles to CD.  All have been available in the format before, though one is particularly difficult to find, and all three should have great appeal.

The oldest selection of the trio hails from 1959.  Duke Ellington’s Jazz Party welcomed Dizzy Gillespie as well as Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Jones and Ellington’s longtime sax man, Jimmy Hodges.  Ellington and his frequent collaborator and co-writer Billy Strayhorn brought new tunes to the party, including the four-part, punningly-titled “Toot Suite” featuring Britt Woodman (trombone) on Part One, Jimmy Hamilton (saxophone) and Shorty Baker (trumpet) on Part Two, Russell Procope (saxophone) and Quentin Jackson (trombone) on Part Three, and Paul Gonsalves (saxophone) on Part Four.  The already-legendary Gillespie got his chance to show off his horn on Strayhorn’s “U.M.M.G.” (for Upper Manhattan Medical Group), while pianist Jones and former Count Basie Band vocalist Rushing join the Duke for Ellington’s “Hello, Little Girl.”  Two tracks not on the original 1959 Columbia LP, “Fillie Trillie” and the ubiquitous “Satin Doll,” have been included in the album sequence here.  Jazz Party makes a fine addendum to Ellington’s recently-released Complete Columbia Albums Collection 1951-1958 on the Legacy label, as it was released the following year after that set’s final album, Cosmic Scene.

After the jump: Al Kooper meets Don Ellis, and Gil Evans pays homage to Jimi Hendrix!  Plus: full track listings and order links!