New album records Grover Washington Jr.'s concert show from summer '97

IT'S A special treat to uncover buried treasure from a musical artist you care about and have been missing dearly.

This week, we're really hitting the mother lode - with multiple record labels hauling out newly unearthed gems.

GROVER GOLD: Topping the archaeological digs, "Grover Live" (G-Man Productions/Lightyear, A-) capturing the now 10 years gone king of Philly soul-jazz Grover Washington Jr. in a snappy, swinging concert performance from June 1997.

Recorded on two-track digital audio tape (DAT) directly from his concert board mix, the session speaks well to both Grover's "front of the house" concert production team and to the more dynamic, jamming approach the saxophonist/composer took to stage shows with his mini- "orchestra."

For album dates, Washington was kinda boxed into serving the "smooth jazz" gods who had made him rich.

In concert the bluesy, stretched-out "Soulful Strut" and "Sassy Stew" jump out and grab you by the ears early. So do the likes of "Let It Flow (For 'Dr. J')" and his show-capping claim-to-fame "Mr. Magic," also boasting plenty of soloing by the hardworking, multi-horn-playing Washington and his spotlight-sharers - including bassist Gerald Veasley, keyboardists Donald Robinson and Adam Holtzman, guitarist Richard Lee Stecker, and percussionists Pablo Batista and Steven Wolf.

Project producer Jason Miles says there's lots more GW concert music where this came from, a trove of tapes discovered by Washington's widow Christine. A full album of jazz standards done Washington-style (check out "Take Five" on this set), is next in line, but only if fans support this project. Consider yourself challenged!

GETTING SATISFACTION: The Rolling Stones figure in two old/new releases today. One is the much hyped re-release of their 1972 "Exile On Main Street" (Universal, B) pumped up with a bunch of period leftovers freshly finished by producer Don Was. Wish I could say there's 24K gold there, more stuff in the same league with "Tumbling Dice" and "Happy."

Still, Stonesologists will enjoy dissecting the gospelly "Plundered My Soul," New Orleans-horn stacked "I'm Not Signifying," sobby "Follow The River" (think Jagger's variation on John Lennon's "Jealous Guy") and a "Paint It Black"-riffing "So Divine (Aladdin Story)" for what's wrong with these sessions - like the "place-holding" lyrics that should have been tweaked - as much as for what's right.

Arguably, nobody put more muscle behind the Stones' smash "Satisfaction" than Southern soul singing sensation Otis Redding and his horn-blasting band. And now, yipes, we get to hear them work over that song four times in the three sets gathered on the double Redding CD "Live on the Sunset Strip" (Stax, B+). Excerpts of these 1966 L.A. club gigs were previously collected on two volumes of Redding's "Live at the Whisky A Go-Go." But here you also get to hear the soul/rocker casually chatting it up with the audience (sounding shockingly sparse the first night) and his road-weary band. He even restarts their performance of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" when the first take doesn't go right. Clearly, these dates were all about recording an album.

Also heard loud and often - "I Can't Turn You Loose," "Respect," "Mr. Pitiful," "A Hard Day's Night" and the ballad gem "These Arms of Mine," among others.

HORNE OF PLENTY: Lena Horne had an uncommon grace, pride and elegance about her, with a unique fire in her eyes and equally dramatic, full-body swagger when she sang. One of the first African-American singers to make it in motion pictures (1943's "Stormy Weather" was her biggest claim to fame) and often fighting the typecasting system behind the scenes, Horne came to personify the civil rights movement before the cause even had a name.

Sadly, Horne passed last week at age 92. PBS has pulled out a 1996 special "Lena Horne: In My Own Voice" for streaming at the Web site (www.pbs.org) and rebroadcasts. And you can also catch a few choice, midlife performances by Horne on the newly re-issued DVD "The Judy Garland Show - Volume Three" (Infinity Entertainment, B). But ironically, Horne and Garland "swap" hits in their medley together. A second show on the same disc features Tony Bennett, and it's he, not Horne, who's pictured on the package jacket. Typical.

TV TUNES: We could moan over the noncreativity of cover tune performances from TV talent contests and musical sitcoms being a major driver of downloads and album sales today.

Or, we could be grateful that something/anything is still getting people, especially young ones, to invest money and emotion in music.

Just a couple of weeks after the soundtrack to the Madonna-themed "Glee" show topped the charts, comes "Glee - Volume 3 Showstoppers" (Columbia, B) and it's loaded with full-on, Broadway pop-styled performance of oldies like the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye," Kenny Rogers' "Hello," the Burt Bacharach/Hal David medley "One Less Bell to Answer"/"A House is Not a Home" and the Aerosmith hit "Dream On."

No surprise, several show regulars have a background in Broadway musicals, both Lea Michele (who plays Rachel) and Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina) were in "Spring Awakening."

Ditto special guests Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel and Neil Patrick Harris. This latest gladbag of "Glee" also features Olivia Newton John's duet with the unctuous Jane Lynch on "Physical." Yeah, we love hating her, too.

I lost my craving for "American Idol Season 9" (19/RCA, C+) when the teary though fire-burning vocalist Didi Benami and then kooky Siobhan Magnus got the boot. Their standout renderings of the Rolling Stones' Play with Fire" and "Paint It Black" on the new cast album just prove the point again. Wasn't this supposed to be the year when the girl talents ruled?

Now we're down to two boy yawners ready to split the quasi-country vote, and just one semi-curious, guitar strumming woman, Crystal Bowersox, whose role model is Janis Joplin and whose full-blast performance of "Me and Bobby McGee" is the only other thing of value on this collector's set.

Also out today, and all original, whoopee, is the generic country rock of "Bo Bice 3" (Sugarmoney, C+) by the "Idol"-4 first runner-up.

MORE FASCINATING FEMMES: When Ms. Bowersox goes shopping for solo album repertoire, she ought to check out the catalogue of singer/songwriter Anne McCue on "Broken Promise Land" (Flying Machine/A-). McCue's got that neo-hippie/psychedelic/protest blues rock thing down very well. Grace Potter could learn from this chick, too.

The ever-grave, New Orleans-tinged blues original Mary Gauthier comes clean on how she got that way on "The Foundling" (Razor & Tie, B). It's a themed construction about what it feels like to be put up for adoption, to consider yourself a total outsider, later to try and reconnect with your birth mom and then be rejected all over again. Poignant and painful.

Tracey Thorn - best known as female half of the long running, cool pop duo Everything But the Girl - is now very much on her own on the autobiographically-themed "Love And Its Opposite" (Merge, B+). As the title suggests, it's a tastefully modern, folk-disco styled song cycle about breaking up, single parenting and diving head first into the dating scene again.

BANDS OF BROTHERS: With the White Stripes out of commission, The Black Keys (Patrick Carney, Dan Auerbach) get the voodoo blues duo franchise pretty much to themselves, and are working it quite well on "Brothers" (Nonesuch, B+).

Ironically, Jack White (of the White Stripes) has just laid down his second statement as member of The Dead Weather, "Sea of Cowards" (Warner Bros, A-). Like a fevered dream, its electro-buzzed dirty dirges keep playing over and over again in your head. Nothing makes sense but still scares the bejabbers out of ya.

Send e-mail to takiffj@phillynews.com.