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Liza Minnelli
"The Complete A&M Recordings"
Collectors' Choice
 
The four albums Liza-with-an-M released on the A&M label between 1968 and 1972 went relatively unappreciated at the time. While the world wanted rock, Minnelli was steeped in standards, jazz, and show tunes. And while she had the good taste to sing three Randy Newman songs on her 1968 album, "Liza Minnelli," today it sounds like a warm-up for the following year's "Come Saturday Morning," a rich, risky blend of thoughtful songwriting rendered with subtle drama. (And who's brilliant notion was it to have her combine Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park" with "Didn't We," the B-side of Richard Harris's hit single?)
 
Another great idea was to let Minnelli record "New Feelin'," an album of standards, in R&B-steeped Muscle Shoals, Ala. She sounds like Dusty Springfield after a long run in a Broadway cabaret. By 1972, Minnelli was too busy being a movie star to record a fourth studio album, so A&M wisely chose to release "Live at the Olympia in Paris," an energetic 1969 performance that concludes with her first live version of "Cabaret," the song that got her the part that made her a star.
 
 
Jimi Hendrix
"At Last...The Beginning: The Making of 'Electric Ladyland'"
Universal Music Enterprises DVD
 
Released in conjunction with a sonically spiffed-up "Collector's Edition" CD/DVD of Jimi Hendrix's 1969 masterpiece, this 96-minute documentary about the creation of "Electric Ladyland" is a Hendrix-head's dream.
 
"Ladyland" co-engineer Eddie Kramer plays the role of ringmaster, fading Hendrix's fascinatingly concocted instrumental and vocal tracks in and out on a mixing console as album cuts are discussed. The late drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding discuss the difficulty of working with a single-minded genius, differences that led to the band's dissolution during the course of the album's production. That the group was simultaneously touring and recording didn't make things easier.
 
Another prominent voice in this revealing documentary belongs to Hendrix's then-manager, Chas Chandler, who also quit during the album's production after suffering through dozens of retakes. As a member of the Animals, Chandler had cut most of their hits in a single take. But Hendrix was a perfectionist. "It wasn't just slopped together," said Hendrix of his sprawling and innovative effort. "Every little thing that you hear on there means something."