Stir It Up - The Music of Bob Marley (UltraHD review)

Monty Alexander; Jamaican Reggae 'Ridim' Section; The Gumption Band; USA Jazz Rhythm Section. FIM LIM UHD 0770 LE.

On this remastered FIM/LIM (First Impression Music/Lasting Impression Music) audiophile disc, Monty Alexander plays the music of Bob Marley. What do you mean, Who's Monty Alexander? Well, at least you recognize Bob Marley. Let me go back into my old teacher mode again and annoy those of you already in the know: Monty Alexander is a Jamaican-born jazz pianist who has been performing for some fifty-odd years. Bob Marley, of course, is the Jamaican-born King of Reggae, who in his relatively short lifetime became an internationally famous singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

What I didn't know about either artist is that they were both born in Jamaica within a year apart, and that while Marley became a superstar with some fifteen albums to his credit, Alexander has been performing longer and recorded over five times as many albums (seventy-six of them since 1969). The Alexander album under review originally appeared in 1999 under the Telarc label, and the folks at FIM just recently remastered it.

On the album, Alexander does jazz interpretations of a dozen of Marley's most-familiar tunes. OK, but probably the first questions that come to one's mind are Why, and who will it please? Marley fans may not want somebody else tinkering with their favorite music, and Alexander fans may not want the jazz man messing around in Jamaican reggae.

Fortunately, all is well. Most of this jazz-reggae fusion comes off pretty nicely, even if it isn't the best of either world. Personally, I'd still rather hear Marley done by Marley. Nevertheless, jazz is jazz, and Alexander's laid-back, straight-ahead, easy-listening jazz style falls sweetly on the ear. The fact that Alexander's renditions of Marley may appeal more to Alexander's fans (or jazz fans in general) than to Marley's fans (or reggae fans in general) we'll just have to leave alone. The music on the album is what it is: essentially jazz. Understand that going in.

A number of fine musicians back up Alexander in the rhythm section, including Dwight Dawes, keyboards; Robert Angus, guitar; Trevor Mckenzie, bass; Glen Browne, bass; Rolando Wilson, drums; Desmond Jones, percussion; Derek DiCenzo, guitar; Hassan J.J. Wiggins, bass; Troy Davis, drums; and guest artists Steve Turre, trombone and conch shell, and Sly Dunbar on "Could You Be Loved." Be aware, though, there is no singing involved. Alexander is a jazz pianist, and he's the star of the show. While not having Marley's words may disappoint his followers, Alexander's pianism at least partly makes up for it. These are not mere cover items, after all, but jazz renditions of Marley's work.

The twelve songs on the album are "So Jah She," "Nesta (He Touched the Sky)," "Jammin," "Crisis,"
"Could You Be Loved," "The Heathen," "No Woman No Cry," "Running Away," "Is This LOVE?," "Stir It Up," "Kaya," and "I Shot the Sheriff." Incidentally, the "Could You Be Loved" track is the extended remix featuring Sly Dunbar, while the album omits the regular version of the song.

We find two good fusions on the album. First, there's obviously the fusion jazz and reggae, which Alexander executes with a mellifluent sense of improvisation while maintaining a semblance of reggae beat. Second, there's the fusion of Alexander's piano and the players around him, whose interplay of instruments is delightful throughout the program.

Monty Alexander
Favorites? Sure. I enjoyed "Nesta" for its mournful yet uplifting spirit; "Jammin" and "Could You Be Loved" for their full-ahead jamming jazz style; "Crisis" for its oddly reassuring, calming influence; and "Is This LOVE?" "Kaya," and "Stir It Up" for their more-obvious Jamaican jazz influences.

Finally, let me remind potential buyers again that this is primarily a jazz album, not a reggae album, and Bob Marley's music is simply a starting point for Monty Alexander's own riffs, rhythms, and free forms. As such, it works fine. But if you want Marley, buy Marley.

And, yeah, there are a couple of selections I found a little too syrupy for my taste, neither very jazzy nor very reggae. Yet even these are relaxing and easy on the ears, and for this reason may even appeal to wider audience than the other tracks on the disc.

Producers Glen Browne and Robert Woods and engineers Jack Renner and Robert Friedrich recorded the music in October 1998 for Telarc Records at Avatar Studio, Studio A, New York City. FIM producer Winston Ma and Five/Four Productions engineer Robert Friedrich remastered the album in 2014 for FIM/LIM using the 32-bit Ultra High Definition mastering format and PureFlection processing.

One hears a very quick transient response, with crisp articulation throughout the set. Also, there is the expected good bass and treble response, with deep, tight lows and extended highs. The stereo spread is not quite as wide as on most pop recordings but remains more realistically centered just in from the left and right speakers. Then, there's a nice midrange transparency and an overall smoothness that's hard not to like. It's a realistic presentation and one worthy of FIM's audiophile remastering; whether it's worth the extra money over the standard Telarc issue may depend on how much you already like the album or how much in terms of price the absolute best sound means to you.

Like other FIM/LIM products, this one comes packaged in a glossy hardcover book format, with notes and pictures bound to the inside and the disc housed in a static-proof inner liner, further enclosed in a fastened paper sleeve.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:


Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa