Mickey Hart, Diga Rhythm Band - Diga Rhythm Band

On the heels of Mickey Hart's acclaimed Global Drum Project album comes The Mickey Hart Collection, a series focusing on landmark world music albums masterminded by the Grateful Dead percussionist. Diga, by the Diga Rhythm Band, was originally released on The Grateful Dead's label in 1976, was the first collaboration between Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain, and can be seen as the first step on the road to Planet Drum. Diga is a classic world-music album in its own right, with special guest Jerry Garcia on two tracks. Album Description

Great Music, Great Mastering

If you like drumming and/or Mickey Hart, this is a great record to own.

As far as the sound quality goes, the people at Shout did a magnificent job. In this day and age, hot loud mastering is the norm (google/wikipedia "loudness war" for more info), this disc is an exception. They took every care to make sure this disc sounds as good as possibly could given the source material (1976 analogue reels), and it shows. My highest compliments to Shout for doing things the right way and giving me a disc that I love playing.

Music 5 stars
Mastering 5+ stars

Bravo!

EDIT: turns out that Shout! didn't master the discs, rather it was rykodisc and shout! just used the tapes. So the kudos go to rykodisc for the original mastering, and to shout! for not messing with a good thing. March 30, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...