J Dilla (1974-2006)

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares139 Views

    Amp Fiddler, Versatile Keyboardist, Singer and Mentor, Dies at 65

    by

    A mainstay of Detroit’s soul, funk and electronic music scenes, he also offered guidance to young hip-hop and electronic music aspirants, notably J Dilla.Amp Fiddler in performance at an electronic music festival in Detroit in 2016. He was a versatile keyboardist, a prolific session player and a mentor to younger musicians.Laura McDermott for The New York TimesAmp Fiddler, a former keyboardist with Parliament-Funkadelic who became a fixture of Detroit’s soul, funk and electronic music scenes, and whose tutelage of the young rapper J Dilla helped alter the trajectory of hip-hop, died on Dec. 18 in Detroit. He was 65.His death, in a hospital after a long battle with cancer, was announced by his wife, Tombi Stewart.Mr. Fiddler was a versatile keyboardist, equally adept at playing warm Fender Rhodes grooves or squiggly synthesizer arpeggios, skills honed during his decade with P-Funk, from 1986 to 1996. He was also a prolific session player, working with artists like Seal, Maxwell and Raphael Saadiq.“The thing that I was always keen on as an artist was to leave my ego at home,” Mr. Fiddler said in a 2003 Red Bull Music Academy lecture. “I think that humility, having that sense of just being there for people and giving, is what got me more into getting more.”Mr. Fiddler had a striking, stylish presence — he favored flamboyantly psychedelic attire and wore his hair either in an expansive Afro or sculpted vertically into a Mohawk — that could make him seem even larger than his 6-foot-2 frame. In the early 2000s he began recording under his own name on neo-soul albums like “Waltz of a Ghetto Fly” and “Afro Strut,” showcasing his raspy but soothing voice. He also played keyboards for numerous electronic music producers in Detroit, including Moodymann, Theo Parrish and Carl Craig.But Mr. Fiddler’s most crucial role may have been as a bridge between generations of Detroit musicians — first as a wide-eyed wunderkind among veteran P-Funk players, then as a beloved mentor to the hip-hop and electronic music aspirants of the 1990s and 2000s. “It’s just so rare, especially in the entertainment business, to see figures who give without the expectation of getting something back,” Dan Charnas, the author of the 2022 book “Dilla Time,” said in an interview. “A generation of folks were blessed by Amp’s generosity.”The most notable of these disciples was James Dewitt Yancey, better known as J Dilla. Mr. Fiddler lived near the high school attended by several members of a fledgling rap collective, one of whom — drawn by the music booming out of his basement studio window — knocked on the door to inquire whether Mr. Fiddler could help produce a demo tape.Mr. Fiddler agreed, and the next day, seven teenagers arrived, including Mr. Yancey. Mr. Fiddler introduced him to the Akai MPC60 sampling drum machine and left him alone to learn by experimenting. Soon Mr. Yancey was skipping school to study in the gear-packed basement studio Mr. Fiddler called “Camp Amp.”“I would teach him something different just about every day until he got it,” Mr. Fiddler said in a 2015 interview with Sam Beaubien, a friend and collaborator. “I knew he was talented. He heard things in a different way.”A few years later, in July 1994, when Mr. Fiddler was on the Lollapalooza tour with the P-Funk All Stars, he introduced Mr. Yancey to Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, which was also on the tour. Mr. Yancey slipped Q-Tip a demo tape, beginning the chain of events that ultimately catapulted him into the hip-hop pantheon as a major innovator. (Mr. Yancey died at 32 in 2006.) “My happiness about the introduction,” Mr. Fiddler told Mr. Beaubien, “was for him to become successful and put Detroit on the map as once again a force to be reckoned with in the music industry.”Mr. Fiddler was equally adept at playing warm Fender Rhodes grooves or squiggly synthesizer arpeggios, skills honed during his decade with Parliament-Funkadelic.Laura McDermott for The New York TimesMr. Fiddler himself was a protégé of the Parliament-Funkadelic impresario George Clinton. In the mid-1980s, Mr. Clinton heard one of Mr. Fiddler’s demo recordings and offered him the keyboard chair in P-Funk once held by Bernie Worrell. Mr. Fiddler “helped me do amazing things,” Mr. Clinton wrote in his 2014 memoir, “Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You?” “Amp was a jazz musician, and he helped create some of these extended pieces.”Joseph Anthony Fiddler, the youngest of five siblings, was born in Detroit on May 16, 1958, to Cleophas and Christine (Young) Fiddler. The nickname “Amp,” which he used throughout his career, was a playground variant on his middle name. His father, a mill operator for the U.S. Rubber Company, was originally from the Caribbean island St. Vincent; his mother, who was from Virginia, worked as a salesperson at the J.L. Hudson department store.Mr. Fiddler began playing music on the family baby grand piano in his late teens. The pianist Harold McKinney, a founder of the Detroit jazz collective Tribe, lived down the street, and the young Mr. Fiddler began studying with him. After brief stints at two colleges, he started playing with Detroit-based touring acts, including Enchantment, RJ’s Latest Arrival and Was (Not Was).Was (Not Was) brought Mr. Fiddler to Europe for the first time, but the globe-trotting never stopped. Among the experiences he cherished most, he told Mr. Beaubien, were playing at the Shrine in Lagos, Nigeria, with the Afrobeat percussionist Tony Allen, and recording at Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare’s studio in Jamaica (for the three men’s 2008 joint project, “Inspiration Information”).He shared a passion for music with his brother Thomas. In the late 1980s, they formed a group named Mr. Fiddler, conceived as a cross between Cab Calloway’s 1940s swing band and 1980s new jack swing. They signed a deal with Elektra Records; their 1990 album, “With Respect,” wasn’t a commercial success, but Amp Fiddler used his $10,000 advance to build a state-of-the-art home studio.Mr. Fiddler is survived by Ms. Stewart, whom he married this year after a 16-year on-and-off relationship. His siblings all died before him, as did a son, Dorian, from a relationship with Stacey Willoughby.Despite his illness, Mr. Fiddler gigged regularly in Detroit until last year, with up-and-coming groups like Will Sessions, Duality/Detroit and Dames Brown (a female vocal trio whose debut album, for which Mr. Fiddler was executive producer, will be released in 2024).“He was always teaching you stuff,” said Mr. Beaubien, the founder of the band Will Sessions. “Sometimes people don’t want to share their secrets, the things that they’ve learned, but Amp was never afraid to share his lessons. Saying that he taught me a lot is an understatement. I’m forever grateful.” More

    More stories

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      J Dilla Was a Revered Rap Producer. A New Book Deepens His Legacy.

      by

      The Detroit musician wasn’t known to give many interviews, and his influence has grown exponentially since his 2006 death. “Dilla Time” by Dan Charnas explores what drove him.Even during his lifetime, there was something unexplainable about J Dilla, the Detroit-born hip-hop producer and M.C. He was an open secret, an under-acknowledged force shifting and shaping modern music. Followers spoke of him reverentially and with enough hyperbole that he could feel inaccessible to listeners who didn’t quite get it. In the 16 years since his death, the aura around him has only grown.The writer Dan Charnas conducted nearly 200 interviews to write “Dilla Time,” a 400-page biography out on Tuesday that thoroughly examines the hip-hop producer’s unique approach. But Charnas, the author of the 2010 book “The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop,” could barely recall anything that J Dilla, born James Dewitt Yancey, said during the one occasion they spent together, in the summer of 1999.He remembered Dilla crouched over his MPC3000 sampling drum machine in the basement studio of his family’s home in the Conant Gardens neighborhood of Detroit. He remembered going out for Mongolian barbecue with the rapper Chino XL, Dilla and Common, who was in town to work with Dilla on what would become his album “Like Water for Chocolate.” But that’s about it.“I was talking rather than listening,” Charnas said in a recent video interview, “and so the big shift for me is that I’ve had to do really, really careful listening over the past four years to try to get this story.”Dilla, who came to attention via his work with the Pharcyde, A Tribe Called Quest and his own group Slum Village, died in February 2006 from complications of a rare blood disease three days after he turned 32. He was beloved by his contemporaries and a small following of fans for his off-kilter beats — and he was not known to talk to journalists often. (Charnas could find only 16 interviews.)Common remembered seeing Pharrell Williams bow down to Dilla when they met and recalled how Kanye West excitedly showed everyone in the studio the album that Dilla had given him to pull drum samples from.“I didn’t grow up listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. I didn’t even grow up listening to Fela Kuti or Jimi Hendrix,” Common said in a phone interview. “I’m bringing up their music because these artists and their work are everlasting. And J Dilla is one of those individuals.”Dilla’s career was rooted in seemingly contradictory ideas. He became known for matching somber, yet comforting tones with rugged, crackling drums. He often worked alongside artists who were positioned as the sanctimonious counterbalance to the increasingly materialistic and hypersexualized world of late ’90s hip-hop, but he himself was unapologetically enthralled with jewelry, expensive cars and strip clubs. As technological advances made music production easier, and as a result, more uniform, Dilla used those tools to find possibility in imperfections.Charnas wrote “Dilla Time” to help make J Dilla’s contributions to music known.Listenership and the breadth of Dilla’s influence have grown exponentially since his death. There are now annual Dilla Day events around the world, and his music has been celebrated by institutions like Lincoln Center and the Detroit Institute of Arts. His MPC3000 is displayed behind a glass case at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Charnas teaches a course about Dilla, which is how the book originated, as an associate professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.Over the years, there has been almost a deification of Dilla; Charnas’s book takes great efforts to humanize him. Though he is sympathetic to his subject’s struggles — particularly his misfortunes as an artist in the major label system and his deteriorating health — Charnas does not shy away from describing his imperfections.Dilla had a temper and could become jealous, those closest to him said to Charnas. When he was frustrated, his quietness would break as he lashed out at them. But the same people who told Charnas these unflattering stories continued to care about Dilla unconditionally.“He was private, and there’s still things I don’t talk about,” said Frank Nitt, Dilla’s close friend since middle school whose music he later produced as part of the group Frank-n-Dank. “But on the flip side, being who he was and how he’s being perceived by the people at this point, there’s a lot of misconceptions.”One of the foundational Dilla myths is how he arrived at his signature sound, in which the rhythm can feel off, different or just wrong. Some have said it was a failure to quantize his compositions, a feature in digital recording that eliminates human error and puts the timing of drum beats in their “correct” place.Charnas explains that Dilla’s process was more complex and that he took multiple steps to purposefully accentuate the sonic effects of error. The result was a fresh rhythmic feel that Charnas labels the titular “Dilla time” — differentiating it from straight time and swing time, the two rhythmic patterns that defined Western music. Dilla’s explanation for his innovation? He would just say that’s how he nodded his head.Charnas traces Dilla’s influence beyond hip-hop and soul, as it extended to pop, electronic music and jazz. His imprint can be found in songs by artists like Michael Jackson, Flying Lotus, the 1975 and Robert Glasper. (“Dilla Time” reveals that Dilla blew off potentially working with ’N Sync, twice.) Sometimes Dilla’s impact has been circuitous. He inspired young Los Angeles jazz musicians like Terrace Martin and Thundercat. Then Kendrick Lamar had those artists work on and expand the palette of his landmark 2015 album, “To Pimp a Butterfly.”Charnas also clarifies the story around “Donuts,” an instrumental album that Stones Throw Records released right before Dilla’s death that has become a key entry point for new generations of fans. It’s been said that Dilla recorded “Donuts” in the hospital, embedding messages for loved ones in his compositions as the end approached. In reality, “Donuts” was born from one of the many beat tapes he had made. It was largely edited and extended by Jeff Jank, who worked at Stones Throw, and completed months before Dilla died.Though he settled on J Dilla around 2001, he was alternately credited under names including Jay Dee, Jaydee, J.D. and Jon Doe. For much of the mid-90s into the turn of the century, he was part of two production collectives, the Ummah and the Soulquarians, alongside more famous members.In the book, Charnas relates how during the making of D’Angelo’s 2000 opus “Voodoo,” D’Angelo and Questlove called Dilla and Prince their “two North stars.” Dilla was around for many of the recording sessions at New York’s Electric Lady Studios, but none of the songs he initiated were completed. In the end, when he received his copy of the record, he was disappointed to realize that his name was nowhere in the liner notes.“The main theme for James in this story is credit, being seen,” Charnas said, “and he’s struggling to be seen.” Even on Common’s “The Light,” the biggest hit Dilla ever produced, he’s listed as “The Soulquarian’s Jay Dee for the Ummah,” leaving him, as Charnas said, “smothered in brotherhood.”Charnas’s main reasons for writing the book are not only to make Dilla’s contributions to music known but to also explain that the devotion from fans is justified. “Ultimately it’s really about me saying to everybody who loves Dilla: ‘You were not wrong. Your affection was not misplaced,’” he said. “He is special, more special than many of you all even know.” More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      A Trip Through Pop, Rap and Jazz’s Past, in 27 Boxed Sets

      by

      Collections from labels like Fania and Armabillion, icons including Ray Charles and J Dilla, and living artists such as Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Radiohead were welcome additions this year.In an era of abundance when every day brings a deluge of new music to consume, it may seem particularly futile to turn to the past. But this year’s resurrections and recontextualizations in boxed sets and reissues gathered up what’s been forgotten or overlooked — or in some cases, what’s been dissected ad nauseam but still commands attention — and put it back at center stage. As Taylor Swift proved this year, there’s no reason the old can’t be experienced as new, too.‘Almost Famous 20th Anniversary’(UMe; multiple configurations with deluxe editions starting at $169.98)Cameron Crowe’s 2000 film, “Almost Famous,” was his fond reminiscence about writing for Rolling Stone during the hard-partying, all-access 1970s. The expanded anniversary editions are overstuffed with familiar songs alongside a few live rarities. They also include a disc of mostly folksy soundtrack instrumentals by Nancy Wilson, from Heart, and the complete recordings of the film’s invented band, Stillwater — a Led Zeppelin/Bad Company knockoff stomping through songs written by Crowe, Wilson and Peter Frampton — along with, in boxed-set style, the demo versions. (A Stillwater EP, minus the demos, is also available separately.) Stillwater’s vintage style was meticulously reconstructed — booming drums, screaming lead guitar (from Mike McCready of Pearl Jam) — with hints of meta self-consciousness in the lyrics. “It was juvenile, it was something wild,” the band shouts in “You Had to Be There.” JON PARELESArmabillion Recordz(Armabillion.com; albums start at $30)One of a handful of obscurantist rap reissue labels that have emerged in recent years, Armabillion is based in Italy but specializes in limited-run vinyl pressings of undersung gangster rap classics from around the United States, especially the South and the Bay Area. This year’s slate of releases has been impressive, among them Gank Move’s dreamy, tough-talking “Come Into My World”; Coop MC’s slinky “Home of the Killers”; Ant Banks’s essential debut album “Sittin’ on Somethin’ Phat”; and the rowdy “Straight From tha Ramp!!!” by Tec-9 (of U.N.L.V.), an early release on Cash Money Records. JON CARAMANICALouis Armstrong, ‘The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia and RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-1966’(Mosaic; seven CDs, $119)The period covered by this boxed set mostly fits within what’s considered to be Armstrong’s long midcareer lull, but when it comes to the creator of the modern jazz solo, even the mellow years can support a certain level of fascination. And this loving revisitation from the jazz archivalists at Mosaic spares no enthusiasm: The scholar Ricky Riccardi’s liner notes clock in at roughly 30,000 words, illustrated by 40 photographs, most of them never before seen. And the recordings — covering the full sweep of Armstrong’s studio dates for Columbia and RCA over a 20-year span — have been transferred directly from the originals and remastered. There are two discs of singles that include midsize- and large-ensemble performances, a rare duet with the German singer and film star Lotte Lenya on “Mack the Knife,” and even a promotional track, “Music to Shave By,” that Armstrong recorded on behalf of the Remington Company. Also included are his Columbia LPs from this era, plus outtakes from the sessions: “Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy”; “Satch Plays Fats” (that’s Fats Waller); and his musical-theater collaboration with Dave Brubeck, “The Real Ambassadors.” GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOPastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for Christ Choir, ‘I Shall Wear a Crown’(Numero Group; five CDs, $35; five LPs, $90)Half a century ago, T.L. Barrett was far from the only pastor in Black America — or even on the South Side of Chicago — fusing gospel standards with funk. But good luck finding anyone who did it with more flavor, more hooks or more genuine frontman flair. “I Shall Wear a Crown” pulls together the four albums and various singles Barrett released throughout the 1970s, all with his Youth for Christ Choir joined by a crackling rhythm section. The end of the ’60s was a golden moment for youth choruses on wax, with the era’s each-one-teach-one activism shining through. (See also: the Voices of East Harlem; Sister Nancy Dupree’s classroom choir in Rochester, N.Y.; and the loose group of neighborhood kids whose voices are captured on James Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” from 1968, possibly helping to set off the trend.) But Barrett’s music evolved through that moment, and he kept finding new ways to use the choir. By the mid-70s, he was dealing with synthesizers and crunchy electric guitar and cosmic slow-jam textures. This is the era that provided Kanye West with one of his most brilliant “Life of Pablo” samples, “Father Stretch My Hands,” a sultry, tantalizingly slow song in multiple parts. The box’s 24-page booklet features evocative and scholarly liner notes by Aadam Keeley and Aaron Cohen shining light on what has been, in many ways, a life of bridged contradictions and extraordinary achievement. RUSSONELLOThe Beach Boys, ‘Feel Flows: The Sunflower & Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971’(UMe; five CDs and hardcover book, $125)The Beach Boys revisit a less-heralded era in their history in “Feel Flows.”“Sunflower” (1970) and “Surf’s Up” (1971) were the Beach Boys’ most ambitious attempts to stay relevant in the 1970s while living up to Brian Wilson’s vision of merging complex music with mass popularity. “Sunflower” celebrated the joys of music and romance; “Surf’s Up” was as topical as the Beach Boys would ever be, worrying about environmental pollution, fatal student protests and the end of youthful innocence, with lyrics that sometimes reveled in literary conundrums. The boxed set includes both of the full albums and some complete outtakes, along with concert performances, alternate versions and stripped-down instrumental and a cappella tracks. The tracks are an education for aspiring producers, unveiling elaborate arrangements and savoring every earnest nonsense syllable of the band’s defining vocal harmonies. PARELESThe Beat Farmers, ‘Tales of the New West’(Blixa Sounds; two CDs, $19.99)The debut album from the San Diego band the Beat Farmers, released in 1985, is a dynamic and sturdy roots-rock gem, with flickers of the cowpunk sound that had been coursing through the region in the years just prior. The band’s best known song from this album, “Happy Boy,” scans as a novelty in retrospect, but the rest is full of savvy guitar work, slinky, yelpy singing and a rollicking rhythm section, peaking on the uproarious and blowsy “Lost Weekend.” The reissue’s bonus disc is an assured and easeful concert recording, “Live at the Spring Valley Inn, 1983.” CARAMANICAThe Beatles, ‘Let It Be (Super Deluxe)’(Capitol; five CDs, one Blu-ray audio disc and hardcover book, $140; five LPs and hardcover book, $200)An expanded boxed set for the Beatles’ “Let It Be” includes two discs of studio conversation.Anyone who didn’t get enough Beatles outtakes, dialogue and rehearsals in Peter Jackson’s documentary “Get Back” can try the expanded boxed set of “Let It Be,” which includes a new mix of the original album and singles (including the goopy orchestral arrangements), two discs of studio music and chatter, and another of the engineer Glyn Johns’s rough 1969 mixes from the album sessions. After making elaborate, groundbreaking studio albums, for “Let It Be” the Beatles dared themselves to record live in real time in front of a film crew — no pressure — joined only by the keyboardist (and unifier) Billy Preston. As in the documentary, the outtakes contrast Paul McCartney’s goal-oriented consistency with John Lennon’s casual restlessness. The find is the 1969 mixes: more open, more revealing, sounding even more live than the original album tracks. PARELESBush Tetras, ‘Rhythm and Paranoia: The Best of Bush Tetras’(Wharf Cat Records; three LPs, $98.98; two CDs, $29.98)With their most-loved songs scattered across various 7” singles and EPs, the delightfully prickly New York art-rockers Bush Tetras are the perfect candidates for a best-of collection like “Rhythm and Paranoia,” a chronologically sequenced triple album that puts their long, rich career into proper context. Thanks to underground hits like the walking-after-midnight anthem “Too Many Creeps” from 1980 and the groovy kiss-off “You Can’t Be Funky” the following year, the group was often associated most closely with the post-punk and no wave scenes. But the latter half of this set proves that for decades it continued to evolve in surprising yet intuitive new directions, as heard on the 1996 Fugazi-like wailer “Page 18” or the billowing blues-rock of “Heart Attack” from 2012. LINDSAY ZOLADZEva Cassidy, ‘Live at Blues Alley (25th Anniversary Edition)’(Blix Street Records; two LPs, $37.98)A new Eva Cassidy reissue presents her first solo album fully remastered, in the highest fidelity available.Though the vocalist Eva Cassidy didn’t write her own songs, and could sometimes slip into an almost exact approximation of Aretha Franklin or Bonnie Raitt’s phrasing, it never made sense to question her legitimacy or intent. Cassidy’s heart was right there, laid bare in her voice. When she saved up the money to record “Live at Blues Alley,” her first solo album, in January 1996, Cassidy wasn’t even a known figure on the small Washington, D.C., music scene. Just months after it came out, she died of cancer at age 33. It would be another couple of years before she broke through to a wider audience, thanks to a posthumous compilation CD, “Songbird” (drawn partly from the “Blues Alley” recordings), and the stream of cobbled-together releases that followed. This new reissue, pressed at 45 r.p.m. onto a pair of heavyweight LPs, presents the original document fully remastered, in the highest fidelity available. RUSSONELLOWhat to Know About ‘The Beatles: Get Back’Peter Jackson’s seven-plus hour documentary series, which explores the most contested period in the band’s history, is available on Disney Plus.Re-examining How the Beatles Ended: Think you know what happened? Jackson may change your mind.Yoko Ono’s Omnipresence: The performance artist is everywhere in the film. At first it’s unnerving, then dazzling.6 Big Moments: Don’t have time to watch the full documentary? Here’s a guide to its eye-opening scenes.‘Changüí: The Sound of Guantánamo’(Petaluma; three CDs and hardcover book, $63)When he realized there were very few recordings of local, rural changüí — music for all-night neighborhood parties in Guantánamo province, at Cuba’s eastern tip — the journalist Gianluca Tramontana began making his own with a hand-held stereo recorder, capturing the music live, acoustic and unadorned. This extensive boxed set, annotated with lyrics and musicology, offers Afro-Cuban music at its most elemental and kinetic: endlessly syncopated riffs picked on a tres (Cuban guitar) backed only by percussion and the plunked bass notes of a marímbula (a box with metal prongs), topped by singers who may well be improvising rhymes, answered by backup refrains. The lyrics offer history, advice, love, pride in the changüí tradition and up-to-the-minute commentary on what’s going on at the party or in the world. More important, the percussion and tres make the music eternally danceable. PARELESRay Charles, ‘True Genius’(Tangerine; six CDs and hardcover book, $105)“True Genius” collects decades of Ray Charles’s work.For me, and others, America’s greatest male singer was Ray Charles. His voice was grainy, earthy and wise; his emotional impact was unmistakable and complex, merging pain and strength, sorrow and humor, flirtation and heartache. Of course, he was no slouch as a pianist, either. This straightforward, career-spanning compilation covers his early years as he forges his fusion of gospel, swing, blues, country and pop, though for his pivotal 1950s Atlantic singles — “Hallelujah, I Love Her So,” “I’ve Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say” — it swaps in live versions instead of the studio classics. It moves through his decades as an interpreter, when he homed in on the soul within other people’s hits, and includes a rambunctious 1972 concert set from Stockholm and latter-day duets with admirers like Willie Nelson, Norah Jones and Billy Joel. PARELESJ Dilla, ‘ Welcome 2 Detroit — The 20th Anniversary Edition’(BBE Music; 12 7” singles for $129.99)A box of 7” singles includes instrumental versions and alternate mixes of J Dilla’s 2001 debut studio LP.By the time the tastemaking Detroit hip-hop producer J Dilla released his 2001 debut studio album, “Welcome 2 Detroit,” he was already somewhere in the realm of mythos. A member of the Soulquarians and the Ummah production collectives, he was known for music that was both luscious and thumping — he was wildly influential and essentially uncopyable. (He died in 2006.) “Welcome 2 Detroit” is a musically wide-ranging album, but never thrums with anything but his particular vibration, the J Dilla feel that exists somewhere just beneath the skin. This immaculately detailed boxed set features 7” singles of the album’s songs along with instrumental versions, alternate mixes and a book detailing the making of the album. CARAMANICAWillie Dunn, ‘Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies: The Willie Dunn Anthology’(Light in the Attic; two LPs, $35; MP3 download, $10)Willie Dunn (1941-2013) was a Canadian songwriter, filmmaker and Indigenous activist; this set offers just a sampling of his extensive recorded catalog. He emerged in the 1960s with songs rooted in folk and country, sometimes incorporating Indigenous instruments and melodies. His voice was a kindly but forthright baritone, with hints of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Gordon Lightfoot. Dunn was a cleareyed storyteller, and in songs like “The Ballad of Crowfoot” he chronicled individual lives, historical injustices and the power and majesty of nature. PARELESBob Dylan, ‘Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985)’(Columbia/Legacy; five CDs, hard-bound book and memorabilia, $140)The latest excavation of Bob Dylan’s archives is from the first half of the 1980s, when he let go of the certainties of his born-again phase and returned to thornier, more enigmatic songs that still grappled with morality, love, history and responsibility on the albums “Infidels” (1983) and “Empire Burlesque” (1985). He also tried 1980s-style production, which left those albums with overblown drum sounds and a dated electronic sheen. Two discs from the 1980 sessions and rehearsals for his 1980 “Shot of Love” are mostly throwaways, except for the murky, ominous “Yes Sir, No Sir.” But the songs from sessions and tours for “Infidels” and “Empire Burlesque” offer more. The set unveils a full-band version of “Blind Willie McTell” and a boisterous, bluesy rock song that only surfaced briefly on tour in 1984, “Enough Is Enough.” It finds more vulnerable, less gimmicky versions of familiar songs, and it details the evolution — and sometimes overnight rewrites — of the songs that became “Foot of Pride” and “Tight Connection to My Heart,” a close-up of Dylan’s constant tinkering and improving. PARELESBeverly Glenn-Copeland, ‘Keyboard Fantasies’ and ‘Keyboard Fantasies Reimagined’(Transgressive; LP, CD, cassette or download, from $6.99 to $27.99)This is the latest installment of the campaign to resurrect the work of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, the Canadian new age/electronic music producer and singer whose recordings were rediscovered a few years ago. “Keyboard Fantasies,” originally released in 1986 in a limited cassette run, is entrancing and almost uncannily soothing. “Welcome to you, both young and old/We are ever new, we are ever new,” Glenn-Copeland softly warbles, a beacon of safety and possibility. The original album, now released on CD and vinyl for the first time, was followed by a collection of remixes and reinterpretations by acolytes, most notably Kelsey Lu’s ecstatically elegiac take on “Ever New.” CARAMANICAGeorge Harrison, ‘All Things Must Pass (50th Anniversary Edition)’(Capitol/UMe; Uber Deluxe Box, $999.98; Super Deluxe Box with eight LPs, $199.98, or five CDs, $149.98; other configurations from $19.98 to $89.98)Seek out the discs featuring 42 previously unreleased demos from George Harrison’s solo debut, “All Things Must Pass.”Anyone who has watched “Get Back” knows how creatively stifled George Harrison was feeling in the final days of the Beatles. His first post-Fab Four solo album, the sprawling, tenderly spiritual masterwork “All Things Must Pass” from 1970, became a repository for all those pent-up ideas. The joy of creation is palpable throughout the 50th anniversary deluxe edition of the album, which features a meticulous and punchy new mix derived from the original tapes by Paul Hicks. The set’s most revelatory material is on the discs featuring 42 previously unreleased demos, which strip Harrison’s compositions down to their bare essentials and showcase the almost otherworldly outpouring of song-craft that accompanied his musical liberation. This season of retroactive Beatlemania is the perfect opportunity for a deep dive into Harrison’s long-gestating opus — consider it “Get Back,” Part 4. ZOLADZ‘It’s a Good, Good Feeling: The Latin Soul of Fania Records (The Singles)’(Craft Latino; four CDs, one 7” vinyl record, $63.98; two LPs, $29.98)While it was on its way to becoming New York salsa’s equivalent of Motown Records, Fania was also helping to boost the Latin-soul hybrid known as boogaloo. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Fania put out a stream of albums and singles with English-language lyrics, mixing funk, rock ’n’ roll and son rhythms; dollops of doo-wop vocals; and more than enough cowbell. This box culls together 89 such singles that Fania released between 1965 and 1975; most weren’t hits, but plenty were by hitmakers: Ray Barretto (whose smash “El Watusi” had presaged boogaloo), Joe Bataan, Willie Colón. Boogaloo could sometimes feel like a fusion of related but not directly compatible parts (“Everybody gather ’round,/I’m gonna introduce the Latin soul sound,” Joe Bataan sings, with something of a heavy hand, on “Latin Soul Square Dance”), but some of the most fun to be had here is on the covers of pop and soul hits sprinkled throughout, which embrace the task directly: Larry Harlow’s orchestra covering “Grazing in the Grass,” Harvey Averne’s take on “Stand,” Joe Bataan’s “Shaft.” The LP version of the box is abridged, including 28 tracks across two discs. RUSSONELLOThe KLF, ‘Solid State Logik 1’(Streaming services)In 1992, the KLF — the British Dada prankster dance-music anarchists who had become global hitmakers in the previous two years — fired machine-gun blanks at the audience at the BRIT Awards and announced their retirement from the music business. Shortly thereafter, they took their whole catalog out of print and, later, burned one million pounds in royalty payment cash. So it’s cause for excitement, and perhaps skepticism, that the group’s catalog began to trickle onto streaming services this year. Most crucial is the compilation “Solid State Logik 1,” which contains all the stratospheric, ornate, deeply ambitious hits: the spooky “What Time Is Love? (Live at Trancentral),” the ecstatic and triumphant “3 a.m. Eternal (Live at the S.S.L.)” and “Justified & Ancient,” with those Tammy Wynette vocals that still, three decades on, are disorienting in just the right way. Is the reissue series a scam? A prelude to a prank? Or a concession to permanence from a musical act that seemed content to live on only as a memory? CARAMANICANirvana, ‘Nevermind: 30th Anniversary (Super Deluxe Edition)’(Geffen; five CDs, one Blu-ray videodisc and hardcover book, $200)A 30th-anniversary edition of “Nevermind” features four concert recordings from 1991 and 1992.GeffenAs if Nirvana ever had to, it proves its punk bona fides yet again with the 30th-anniversary expansion of “Nevermind.” The newly remastered album adds a little additional clarity that brings out both the songs’ pop structures and the rasp and yowl of Kurt Cobain’s voice. It’s packaged with four live concert recordings of variable fidelity from 1991 and 1992 — Amsterdam (included as both audio and video), Melbourne and nearly mono-sounding sets from Del Mar, Calif., and Tokyo — that show Nirvana bashing the music out night after night, screaming and blaring, overloading with physical impact and probably spurring some wild mosh pits. Wherever the tour led, as Cobain sang, there was “no recess.” But the 20th-anniversary “Nevermind” box, in 2011, included a better-sounding 1991 concert, “Live at the Paramount,” and more rarities. PARELESOutkast, ‘ATLiens (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)’(Legacy Recordings/Sony Music; four LPs, $69.98)A sublimely sinuous Southern funk album full of jackhammer rhymes, “ATLiens,” the second Outkast album, from 1996, is perhaps the duo’s most overlooked from its pre-pop-breakthrough era — not the scrappy statement of purpose that preceded it (the 1994 debut, “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik”) nor the psych-rock philosophy lesson that followed (“Aquemini,” from 1998). But it’s crucial to the Outkast worldview formation — it shows the duo both at ease with the languor of laid-back Southern production but also champing at the bit to incorporate small moments of explosion. This release includes the original album alongside, for the first time, the full set of instrumentals. CARAMANICA‘R&B in DC 1940-1960’(Bear Family; 16 CDs, $273.04)Probably the heavyweight champion of boxed sets this year (it weighs 10 pounds), “R&B in DC 1940-1960” collects nearly 500 singles recorded in the nation’s capital back when doo-wop, mambo, early rock ’n’ roll, jump blues and big-band jazz were first being lumped together in the pages of trade magazines into a category called “R&B.” It’s all contextualized engagingly in a 352-page book, full of closely researched history, images and song-by-song notes. You can tease out the presence of some major figures and themes: Marvin Gaye lingers in the backing vocals on at least one track; his mentor, Bo Diddley, also makes an appearance; the recordings of the Clovers and Ruth Brown, as the notes attest, played a role in keeping Atlantic Records afloat in the label’s fledgling days. But the point of this collection is to get you to listen more broadly, and more completely, to an entire musical and social moment: Jay Bruder, the researcher who compiled the collection, wisely included commercials, jingles and other radio-broadcast ephemera in this collection. These are the sounds of Washington in the midcentury, when it was home to one of the country’s most thriving Black middle classes and an incubator of musical talent to match. RUSSONELLORadiohead, ‘Kid A Mnesia’(XL; three CDs, $23; three LPs, $60)Radiohead dig out songs that didn’t make the cut for “Kid A” or “Amnesia” on a new box taking in both releases.Radiohead thoroughly dismantled its rock reflexes to make “Kid A” (2000) and “Amnesiac” (2001), two albums drawn almost entirely from the same sessions. Its former arena-rock guitars and anthemic choruses receded behind fragments, loops, electronic beats, orchestral experiments and ominous noises; disquiet and malaise floated free. “Kid A Mnesia” unites the two companion albums and adds a disc of alternate takes, stray instrumental tracks and songs Radiohead had not quite committed to disc: “Follow Me Around” and “If You Say the Word.” They’re not revelations, but they extend the mood. PARELESThe Replacements, ‘Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take out the Trash (Deluxe Edition)’(Rhino; four CDs, one LP, one 7,” $79.98)Snarling, thrashing and defiantly tuneful, the Replacements’ 1981 debut album, “Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash,” has always sounded like a power-pop LP stuffed into a blender and flicked on to high. But this comprehensive, 40th-anniversary deluxe edition is a sustained reminder of the craft and winning chemistry behind an album that was never quite as anarchically tossed-off as it seemed. Across 100 tracks — 67 of them previously unreleased — it becomes clear that the sturdy melodic core of Paul Westerberg’s songwriting and the ramshackle fury of Bob Stinson’s solos were present from the earliest days of the Minneapolis band’s existence. Some of the most fascinating tracks on this reissue, though, point to where the Replacements were headed on “Let It Be” from 1984 and beyond: A handful of Westerberg’s solo home demos, the best of which is the gut-wrenching “You’re Getting Married,” foreshadow the ragged-heart balladry of a ’Mats classic like “Answering Machine.” Nearly four hours of material is plenty to sift through, but a high percentage of this “Trash” is treasure. ZOLADZThe Rolling Stones, ‘Tattoo You’(Interscope; four CDs, picture disc and hardcover book, $150; five LPs and hardcover book, $198; two CDs, $20)Beyond the kick of “Start Me Up” and the unexpected tenderness (and Sonny Rollins saxophone solo) of “Waiting for a Friend,” “Tattoo You” (1981) was a second-tier Rolling Stones album: vigorous performances of merely passable material. With band members estranged, it was built largely by finishing lyrics and vocals atop outtakes from previous albums. Its 40th-anniversary expanded version includes nine previously unreleased songs that casually continue the album’s 1981 strategy, revisiting tracks from the vault; Mick Jagger sings some obviously anachronistic lyrics in songs like “It’s a Lie,” which mentions eBay. (More deluxe versions add a two-CD 1982 Wembley concert recording.) The new tracks offer familiar pleasures: hearing the band romp through every song. PARELESNina Simone, ‘The Montreux Years’(BMG; two LPs, $29.99; two CDs, $19.98)Between 1968 and 1990, Nina Simone played the Montreux Jazz Festival five times.The most arresting scene in Liz Garbus’s 2015 Netflix documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” is a performance from the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival, during which a weary but incandescent Nina Simone performs her interpretation of Janis Ian’s “Stars.” Simone’s reading is one of the most damning and deeply felt critiques of fame I have ever heard — and luckily it is featured on “Nina Simone: The Montreux Years,” a new and beautifully packaged two-album collection of live material. Between 1968 and 1990, Simone played the Swiss jazz festival five times; each performance was both a reflection of a specific moment in her career and a testament to her continued virtuosity. For all her ambivalence about jazz festivals and her noted preference for performing in classical music halls, Simone clearly had a special connection to Montreux and, as this collection attests, brought her best to its stage decade after decade. ZOLADZWadada Leo Smith’s Great Lakes Quartet, ‘The Chicago Symphonies’(TUM; four CDs, $71.99)The trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith turned 80 this month but continues to compose and perform prolifically. And his projects have only been growing grander in scale, while still centering his stark, epigrammatic style of playing and writing. Smith’s latest effort (it isn’t an archival recording) is “The Chicago Symphonies,” four extended works, carefully composed but minimalist in craft, written not for an orchestra but for a quartet: the Pulitzer Prize winner Henry Threadgill on alto saxophone, John Lindberg on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. (The saxophonist Jonathon Haffner replaces Threadgill on the fourth and final symphony.) It’s the same group that was featured on Smith’s celebrated “Great Lakes Suite,” from 2014. This new collection of music is dedicated not to the natural beauty of the region, but to the lives of great Midwesterners, from politicians like Abe Lincoln and Barack Obama to Smith’s own colleagues in the avant-garde. The simpatico between Smith and Threadgill is an exciting and rarely documented thing, and it gives these already spellbinding compositions the allure of a privileged conversation. RUSSONELLOThe Who, ‘The Who Sell Out (Super Deluxe Box Set)’(UMe/Polydor; five CDs, two 7” singles, hardcover book, memorabilia, $139)A new boxed set pulls together the Who’s scattered trove of recordings from 1967-69.The Who tried multiple directions while writing and recording “The Who Sell Out,” amid tour dates and the general psychedelic ferment of 1967. Pete Townshend was coming up with character sketches, expanding songs toward mini-operas and layering voices and instruments ever more ingeniously. To hold together its hodgepodge of songs, “The Who Sell Out” was sequenced as a pirate radio show, including jingles and parody commercials. The boxed set pulls together the Who’s scattered trove of recordings from 1967-69. It expands the original album (in mono and stereo versions, plus non-album singles) with three discs of recordings from 1967-68 along with sketches that Townshend would mine for “Tommy” in 1969 and, newly unveiled, a dozen of Townshend’s increasingly ambitious demos, including a thoroughly unrelaxed “Relax” and a smoldering, baleful “I Can See for Miles” that fully maps out the album version, which would be one of the Who’s pinnacles. PARELES More