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Category:    Home > Reviews > Music > Instrumental > Latin > Jazz > Entertainment Industry > Licensing > Legal > Concert > Rock > Pop > New > The Latin Sound Of Lex Vandyke: Concerto de Aranjuez (2004/Intermusic/Top Music International/Super Audio CD/SACD/SA-CD Hybrid)/The Permission Seeker's Guide To The Legal Jungle: Second Edition, Expan

The Latin Sound Of Lex Vandyke: Concerto de Aranjuez (2004/Intermusic/Top Music International/Super Audio CD/SACD/SA-CD Hybrid)/The Permission Seeker's Guide To The Legal Jungle: Second Edition, Expanded & Updated by Joy R. Butler (2017/Sasha Softcover/446 pgs.)/Simple Minds: Acoustic In Concert (2015/BBC/Universal Music/Eagle Vision DVD w/CD)/Thelonious Monk Quintet: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 (Saga/Sam Records CD Set)



Picture: X/X/C+/X Sound: B+ & B/X/B & B-/B- Extras: C-/D/C-/C Book: B Main Programs: B-/X/B/B-



PLEASE NOTE: The Lex Vandyke Super Audio CD is now only available from our friends at Intermusic and can be ordered from the link below.



Here's our latest look art music releases, but this time, they reach into other arts and even commerce...



The Latin Sound Of Lex Vandyke: Concerto de Aranjuez (2004) has been reissued in the underrated but still very much alive Super Audio CD format. While vinyl has made its special comeback, most people have still not discovered its greatness or fidelity equal to any other sound format out there. Fortunately, Intermusic/Top Music International is one of the big supporters of the SA-CD format and this Hybrid disc has a high definition DSD layer and regular CD layer that will play on most CD players.


This 18-track set includes songs you may not have heard before and some you have but cannot name (like the title song), but we do get the instrumental theme from Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Besame Mucho, Vaya Con Dios and The Girl From Impanema, so you get a good mix of material to thoroughly enjoy here. If someone asked me for a good demo of Latin music, this would now be one of my top picks. Nice!


A paper pullout with more info on the album is the only extra.



A little while ago, I tackled the infamous ''Blurred Lines'' controversy and got into detail about both authorship, ownership, music and the arts, but could only say so much about getting permission to use other person's music works. Besides researching on the Web or at your local library, you have to get an attorney for such things. However, an excellent new book that is always involving and rich in all kinds of detail and ideas has arrived and it is now my top recommendation on where to start on the subject.


The Permission Seeker's Guide To The Legal Jungle: Second Edition, Expanded & Updated by Joy R. Butler (2017) leaves no stone unturned and not only on music, but getting to use (as a mature adult or respects the works of others) film, video and other visual sources from feature film, TV, Internet and other places as well as not music sound (think speeches, radio dramas, audio books, commercials, etc.) and is a priceless volume all serious users of media should own, even if they actually have a lawyer or are one.


Further updated from its original release, I am surprised more people have not seen or heard of this book, but there are those foolish enough to sample and use other's work without permission (my favorite excuse being that something is too 'old' or the like, which they would never say if they owned it and were making money on it) as if it were a game to get away with such things. A very stupid game! Just by being honest with ones self, you can get the facts, do the work and save yourself untold trouble and a giant waste of time by doing it correctly and being professional.


It is worth a look even if you're not immediately planning any licensing just to see what it all entails. Very impressive, smart writing and highly recommended.



Simple Minds: Acoustic In Concert (2016) has the underrated band in a recent BBC-backed show offering 16 songs that includes their still-oft-played ''Don't You (Forget About Me)'' from the screwy hit film The Breakfast Club, ''Sanctify Yourself'' and their ever-classic ''Alive And Kicking'' (even the original music video is a classic) so can these songs work decades later paired-down?


The answer is actually yes and like their contemporaries of the time (Crowded House, The Human League, Howard Jones, Depeche Mode) are as capable as ever and though a few parts were uneven, I thought they pulled this show off very well, embarrassing most such new music acts. Fans will be happy, but even non-fans will be surprised how good this show turned out. The group should have had and deserved more success in the U.S. than they got, but they get the last laugh by enduring as well as they have and this is easily one of the best concert releases on home video for the year.


Not counting the CD, a thin, illustrated booklet with tech info an an essay (beware the small print) is the only extra.



Thelonious Monk Quintet: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960 is a double CD set in which the original recordings that became the soundtrack for Director Roger Vadim's (And God Created Woman, Barbarella) version of Dangerous Liaisons with Jean Moreau has finally been issued and apparently was only just discovered independently of the film. That makes this set possible issued by Saga and Sam Records. As was the trend at the dawn of the French New Wave, the music juxtaposes the origins of the original work in a then-modernized approach to it and



An extensive, highly illustrated booklet with five essay/note sections is the only extra, but it is a fine one. This is so interesting that even not knowing the story, you want to see the film.


CD 1 has the music as recorded for the film, while CD 2 offers alternate takes and single versions of the music that actually gives us more insight into the way the music was thought out. Avant Garde? Yes. Clever? Yes. One of Monk's most underrated works? Probably. Modern Jazz of this period was still considered cutting edge and even a threat and the makes might have known that, but it was music of a certain intelligence few genres in its wake since have achieved and it is miraculous this was all found after being lost after 58 years! Catch it!



The Simple Minds release is the only one with any image performance and its anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image if fine for the format and a live HD recording, with some flaws and some good moments. A Blu-ray would look better, but might reveal a few more flaws, but I do like the color here. Of the DVD soundtracks, I liked the lossy DTS 5.1 mix a bit more than the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix and PCM 2.0 48kHz Stereo supplied,. But this is a good live recording and as good as most we've encountered of late, but I bet this would be really interesting lossless. The accompanying CD has decent PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo, but it pales in comparison to the DTS on the DVD.


The sonic champ here is the lossless DSD 2.0 Stereo on Concierto, which is an amazing studio recording that has great warmth, range, impact and detail, making me wish this was a 5.1 SA-CD, but the makers knew what they were doing and it comes across very clearly in the recording's impressive range reminding me that many motion pictures in lossless 5.1 don't sound this good. The remastering for this version is by talented Povee Chan and the equipment he used includes...


32Bits/192kHz High Resolution Mastering

SADiE DSD Digital Precision

Mastering Monitor: Almarro M

Monitor Amplifier: Octave Jubilee Preamp

Power System: Isoclean Power Conditioning System

Mastered with Fap Cable

Made in by Sonopress


PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo tracks are good, solid and passable, but harder to listen to after the audiophile-quality DSD playback. The Monk CD set has PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo that sounds good, but the first CD of the original recording sounds a little harsh at the edges like an older digital recoding or copy, so beware, but the second CD ids much smoother, more naturalistic and better sonically.



You can order the Lex Vandyke Super Audio CD directly from Intermusic at this link...


http://www.topmusic.com/ud-sacd8921.2.htm



- Nicholas Sheffo


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