New Music Friday - 10/22/21

Welcome to New Music Friday and my picks of the week – a song and an album that have caught my attention and something I think you’ll want to listen to this weekend. Here’s what’s good…

Today’s featured singles are “Taking Me Back” and “Taking Me Back (Gently)” by Jack White

A new, blistering track from the former White Stripe, Jack White – His first new music in four years. Featured in the trailer for the video game Call of Duty®: Vanguard, the song is exactly what you’d hope for from White. Fuzzy, sonic guitars with a funky backbeat lay the groundwork. The layers of this song build throughout and is much more of a feature for the music rather than his vocals, which are as expected. It’s White’s guitar playing that is on showcase here and I for one am glad to hear new music and look forward to more from him soon. The track is accompanied by “Taking Me Back (Gently)” which is reinterpretation of the original in a beautiful country style including fiddle and a Dixieland piano.

Today’s featured album is A Love Supreme – Live in Seattle by John Coltrane

John Coltrane is my favorite saxophone player. He never settled with a sound - he was a true innovator. One of, if not, his most famous albums is A Love Supreme. Released in 1965, the album was widely considered his masterpiece. Recorded at the end of a prolific stand at Seattle’s Penthouse club in the fall of 1965, these tapes sat unissued and unheard for more than 50 years. At the time of the engagement, the classic John Coltrane Quartet had blossomed to a septet aided by new arrival Pharoah Sanders and a couple of guests. The additions added to the beautiful madness that was A Love Supreme. Coltrane was a tinkerer, someone who would manipulate sounds and songs. You hear it live here – like a painter flinging around his brush, figuring out what ever comes next. A discovery like this comes along so rarely – so soak it in, every note, every sound.