A Lovely Night Out With The Swells!
Harris Fogel | PA, USA | 06/13/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I was thrilled to find out this double album was finally released as a CD. I bought this back in 1975 when it was first released and I found it to be a wonderful album, with one caveat, which is that it feels like a concert for the Gin and Jag set.Musically, Price and his band are in top form. There isn't a missed note, word, or cue on the entire album. It has some of the best renditions of Alan Price's work I've heard. But.. there is a somewhat "polite" feel to the concert. Everyone is very in control, which I came to enjoy, like a vestige of a concert where the band knew that Prince Charles was in the audience. The applause of the audience is almost non-existant, which makes some sense for a concert originally for a television special. But in the end, it has a slightly sterile feel to it, despite superb musicianship.The selections are the best works that comprise Price's body of work till that point. Sonically, the mastering is clean, faithful to the vinyl version, but I would have liked a full remastering. They don't provide any liner notes regarding this, but from the soundstage my hunch is that the CD is remastered from the stereo master. But this could be the best they could do from the original live recording. The updated liner notes are a nice touch.Some truly wonderful moments await you on the disk; a funny schmoozy "Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear" and beautiful renditions from the concept album "Between Today and Yesterday" and the soundtrack to "O'Lucky Man" make this a worthwhile purchase. If they would only re-release "Between Today and Yesterday" which has been out of print for over 20 years, Price's catalog would be at long last given the treatment it deserves. Much of Price's earlier work is a trip down nostalgia's lane, which is fine, but limiting. By contrast, when one listens to "O Lucky Man", or "Between Today and Yesterday" we have a sense of what he was able to accomplish once free of the 60s. "Performing Price" provides a glimpse of both those worlds."
Track Listings (23) - Disc #1