Vinyl Me, Please Unboxed – Gary Bartz ‘Another Earth’
Good things comes in 12 inch packages. Delivering limited edition vinyl pressings of new and classic albums directly to your doorstep, VMP operates under a simple philosophy: The Album Lives! With a carefully curated catalog of new and hard to find releases, the subscription service is more than just a record club, it’s a lifestyle choice for folks who wish Record Store Day could happen every month… in their living room.
Here’s how it works. You send Vinyl Me, Please some of your hard-earned money (a 3-month membership will set you back about $119) and they send you one carefully selected album they feel is Essential to any record collection. Yes, it truly is as easy as it sounds. You even get FREE SHIPPING. Each custom pressing (often on colored vinyl!) also comes with killer extras like original artwork and informative listening companion booklet.
You’ll have membership privileges in the VMP store too, which means you can grab a copy of previous VMP selections from the archives – including their reissue of T. Rex's glam-breaking self-titled album from 1970 – or choose from a slate of super-limited releases pressed exclusively for Vinyl Me, Please. The store is open, and Team VMP are dropping fresh new selections to their stock every single week. Do not miss out.
Word to the wise, while the store is open to the public, subscribers are privy to reduced “Members Pricing” as well, so joining the club definitely has its rewards. If you’re peckish about relinquishing control of your record collection to complete strangers, know that VMP’s Swaps Program is in full effect. That means you can flip any VMP pick you’re not interested in for a past featured album from any track (including Essentials, Country, Classics, and Rap/Hip Hop). My advice? Don’t overthink it. Do your turntable a favor and sign up today.
As for July's box, I was feeling adventurous and swapped into the VMP Classics track to grab Gary Bartz's Another Earth, an overlooked jazz gem from the Post-Bop era. Here's a peak.
For The Love Of Vinyl, Please DO NOT BEND
So, the Vinyl Me, Please Essentials selection for July is not, in fact, Gary Bartz’s Another Earth. VMP instead tabbed Joni Mitchell’s 1975 classic The Hissing of Summer Lawns for that illustrious honor. Needless to say, if you’re a fan of Mitchell’s music, you’re probably over the moon about this oft-overlooked album getting the Essentials treatment from Vinyl Me, Please — even if it is a selection you can likely find a decent copy of for relatively cheap at most brick and mortar stores these days. That being the case, I opted to scope out a copy at my local rather than snag VMP's version.
Oddly, this was also one of those super rare months where I wasn’t really over-the-moon about any of the albums being released of VMP's five tracks. And so it was that I decided to Swap back into the company's vaunted vinyl archives to try my luck with an album that I knew absolutely nothing about, Another Earth. And if you’re wondering why Bartz’s album made the cut above the other releases in Vinyl Me, Please’s back catalogue, well, it’s purely because I liked the Another Earth’s cover art.
As the album was a recent VMP Classics pick, I was also pretty sure that: 1) it was probably pretty good, and 2) the pressing would be immaculate. For the record, I was right on both fronts as this album looks, sounds, and plays great. As an added bonus, the music itself is flipping fantastic.
If you’re like me and never heard of Gary Bartz, that’s largely because the alto saxaphonist and composer was, more or less, a fringe player on the jazz scene for most of his career. In the mid to late 1960s, however, he was a bit of a pioneer in the Free Jazz and Spiritual Jazz movements, cutting records with other Afro-Futurist trailblazers of those styles, such as the late, great tenor man, Pharaoh Sanders.
It’s hardly surprising then that Sanders makes an appearance on 1969’s Another Earth, lending his melodic overblowing style to Bartz’s sprawling self-titled album opener. Of “Another Earth,” I’ll simply say that the 24-minute opus — which unfolds in three movements — is a legit stunner as lavishly composed and produced as it is, at times, unflinchingly contentious. It’s as singular a marriage of the Post-Bob, Free Jazz, and Spiritual Jazz stylings as you’ll find in recorded history, and it's a testament to Bartz’s skill as both a composer and a player.
It is also the sort of track that will surely prove off-putting for casual jazz fans who don’t dig the experimental nature of those styles. Likewise, some folks may not be into the sometimes overbearing overblowing Sanders contributes to the sonic landscape. The good news is that Side 2 of Another Earth is a far more palatable affair for even casual listeners, with Bartz delivering a handful of more traditional space-themed compositions for quartet, including standouts “Dark Nebula,” and “Lost in the Stars.”
All in, the dramatically disparate album sides make Another Earth feel on the whole a touch uneven. But they also give you the full scope of what Bartz was capable of as an artist. And make no mistake, Another Earth as grande an artistic statement as you’ll find at the dawn of the Free Jazz era — even if it's also an album that continues to be overshadowed by works from some of the luminaries of that period and beyond.
Cover Matters
As it happens, Gary Bartz claims he was inspired to record the songs on Another Earth after an actual UFO sighting. So it's only fitting that the artwork on the album's cover should take inspiration from the cosmic arena.
This lovely tip-on sleeve is indeed a gatefold, with a few intriguing insights into the creation of Another Earth as recorded by Gary Bartz's wife, Maxine.
And on the back cover, a killer pic of Bartz with sax in hand, as well as album credits and, of course, that little stamp in the corner forever noting that Another Earth is a legit Vinyl Me, Please Classic selection.
As always, there's a few notable bits of info adorning the album's OBI strip, including an excerpt from the album's listening notes, and its catalog number in the Vinyl Me, Please Clasics stacks. It also notes reissue's source material and the name of the person behind the re-master. In the case of Another Earth, VMP gave it the full AAA treatment, with the great Ryan Smith cutting the new lacquers.
Jeff Weiss penned those listening notes, by the way. In case there's any quesiton, he provides some piercing insights into the world of Gary Bartz and the creation of this unsung late-60s masterpiece.
As far as the wax goes, the Vinyl Me, Please Classics track does not deal in anythign but black. While black is always a beautiful thing when it comes to vinyl, I can't help but think Another Earth might've benefitted from some sort of space-themed colorway. Nonetheless, this pressing will still look pretty sharp on your deck.
Give VMP a spin
How's it sound? Like an interstellar transmission was beamed right into the studio, with Gary Bartz and his crew interpreting sounds from the alien broadcast directly into song. Even as great as the album sounds, as someone who had never heard of Bartz or Another Earth before spinning this album (which is not even available on Spotify!), I gotta admit I'm very much of two minds on it.
One the one hand, it is a suitably epic work of experimental jazz that deftly displays where the art form was headed at the end of the '60s when folks like Bartz, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock were pushing it into places nobody ever could've imagined. On the other hand, it does feel a little disjointed stylistically between Side 1 and 2, almost like Bartz was aware of how challenging the “Another Earth” opus could be, and opted to take it a little easier on listeners for the rest of the album.
For the record, that's not a critique of the styles displayed either album side, as I thoroughly enjoyed each on their own terms. I'm just saying they don't entirely feel like they're part of the same album. In any case, I couldn't be more thrilled to have added this extraordinary work to my Jazz collection. And I cannot thank VMP enough for not only reissuing this long out of print marvel, but giving it the VIP treatment it truly deserves.
A big THANK YOU to our friends at Vinyl Me, Please for sponsoring this subscription. Don’t forget to check out the Vinyl Me, Please website and sign up to get some choice wax delivered right to your door each and every month! Be sure to check back next month to see what vinyl treasure Team VMP sends our way!