In your own sweet way (Bill Evans) (LP 2528 - 2531)

Bill Evans Trio  How My Heart Sings! (Vinyl, Riverside Records, 1962) *****  

First Aid Kit  Palomino (Vinyl, Columbia Records, 2022) ****  

Fat Freddy's Drop  Live At Roundhouse London (CD, The Drop Records, 2010) *****  

Fat Freddy's Drop  Bays (CD, The Drop Records, 2015) *****  

Genre: Jazz; country rock; jazz/ rock/ reggae/ dub 

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Show Type Tune (Bill Evans); 29 Palms Highway (First Aid Kit)

Gear costume: How My Heart Sings! (Bill Evans); Out Of Our Head (First Aid Kit);

Active compensatory factors: A shopping expedition recently in Palmerston North's JB Hi Fi resulted in these four albums being added to the collection.

The Bill Evans album is a remastered version from 1989 but all the original album cover details are perfectly intact.

Jazz critic, C. Michael Bailey, sums it up - "After the ballad-laden Moon Beams, producer Orrin Keepnews wanted a slightly more up-tempo recording that resulted in How My Heart Sings. Fifty years later, the recording remains painfully introspective, up-tempo or not. Evans was the Van Gogh of jazz: sensile and troubled, characteristics that expressed themselves in his playing his entire career." 

First Aid Kit are a duo from Sweden (sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg) and they sound (and look) like two California girls.

I was attracted to their sound by how they reminded me of Jenny Lewis so I listened to Palomino a lot in 2023 on Spotify.

I've noticed their album in JB Hi Fi for a while now and decided to take advantage of JB's 20% discount. This is their fifth album. I like their sound a lot, because of their Jenny Lewis-ness - most obvious on side one and 29 Palms Highway.

My recent run down of Fat Freddy's Drop revealed a gap (Bays) and I happened to notice a copy of it along with the Live at Roundhouse London ($10 reduced to 8 - I call that a bargain).

First the live one - this is from my favorite era for the band - most of these shows come from Dr Boondigga and the Big BW. The band are on form and it's London y'all!! I love the band introduction - FFD - from Lyall Bay, Aotearoa!!

Bays is a classic five-star effort as well. By this stage the guys have created a great sound from their influences but made it distinctly Fat Freddy's Drop groove style - instantly recognisable, and instantly enjoyable. 

Where do they all belong? The start of a catch up of albums on the Nemperor label is coming next.