Preston Frazier’s Best of 2025 Reissues include projects featuring Yes, Steve Winwood, Joe Walsh and Tim Morse, among others. Click through the album titles for purchase information:
TIM MORSE – ‘TRANSFORMATION: 20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION’: Tim Morse’s Transformation, released in 2015, is an impressive showcase of sophisticated songwriting, progressive rock ambition and heartfelt musicianship. Best known for his work as a keyboardist, author (Yesstories) and member of the band Parallels, Morse not only occasionally handled vocals and a variety of instruments on Transformation, but also crafted a narrative arc about change, resilience and personal growth. His 2025 rerelease expanded on what is already a good thing with 15 bonus songs. The live tracks were recorded at the original record-release party and reinforce the strength of Tim Morse’s vision and the high level of musicianship. “Apocalyptic Visions Redux 25” is worth the price of admission alone. Additional favorites include a live take on Genesis’ “Dance on a Volcano.”
BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER – ‘IF YOU CAN’T DAZZLE THEM … Pt. Two’: Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber has been defying categories for more than two decades, blurring the lines between funk, rock, soul and free jazz. If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance, Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two captures that renegade energy in raw, live form. Recorded in Detroit and Ohio, it is an improvisational summit where groove and chaos coexist in glorious balance. If You Can’t Dazzle Them … is not a record that plays by the rules. It rewrites them mid-jam. If You Can’t Dazzle Them does not just blur the line between genres, it obliterates it, fusing funk, jazz, rock and soul into one free-flowing celebration of improvisation.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – ‘DEAR MR. FANTASY: A CELEBRATION FOR JIM CAPALDI’: Some tribute albums feel polite. Dear Mr. Fantasy is anything but. Captured live at London’s Roundhouse in 2007 and now remastered on 2CD and Blu-ray, this is a night where giants showed up to testify. Steve Winwood, Paul Weller, Joe Walsh, Gary Moore, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Simon Kirke, Bill Wyman and Jon Lord all bend Capaldi’s songs into living, breathing momentum. Weller’s “Paper Sun” glows with refined psych-soul, while Winwood’s double strike, “Light Up or Leave Me Alone” and “Dear Mr. Fantasy” sounds less like tribute and more like destiny fulfilled. Joe Walsh attacks “Forty Thousand Headmen” with twisted swagger, and Simon Kirke’s “Whale Meat Again” lands with dockside grit. Capaldi’s songwriting proves indestructible here, flexible, soulful, and built to travel through other voices. A sacred night, finally restored with the power it always deserved.
YES – ‘FLY FROM HERE: RETURN TRIP’: You may have noticed that this is the third release of Yes’ Fly From Here. Produced by former Yes member Trevor Horn and featuring then-Yes vocalist Benoit David, the 2011 album was a welcome return for the band. Return Trip followed in 2018 and featured remixed and extended versions of the original album. More significantly, it included newly recorded lead vocals, with Trevor Horn replacing David. This 2025 rerelease is significant for its remixed sound, available Atmos Blu-ray mixes by Richard Whittaker, and a wonderful instrumental-only mix of the album. Revamped versions of “Hour of Need” and “Don’t Take No For an Answer” add to what was already a stellar album, but the instrumental version creates a new dynamic to one of Yes’ best albums from the 2000s.
CELIA CRUZ – ‘SON CON GUAGUANCO’: Before the crowns, before the international glare, before “Azucar” became a global spark, there was Celia Cruz locked into the deep root system of Afro-Cuban rhythm. Son con Guaguanco caught her in that sweet spot where tradition is not preserved but is alive, sweating and moving bodies. The album’s mission statement arrives in the title track, where everything locks into sacred motion. “Son con Guaguanco” is Celia Cruz in full rhythmic authority, phrases snapping across the clave, swing embedded in every breath. The band does not simply follow her, they revolve around her gravity. What gives this album its lasting voltage is not archival reverence, it is how dangerously alive it still sounds. The percussion speaks. The horns testify. And Cruz, already a force of nature, moves between elegance and raw expression without ever blinking.
- Steve Porcaro, Vernon Reid, Steve Morse + Others: Preston Frazier’s Best of 2025 Pop and Rock - January 19, 2026
- Oz Noy, Catherine Russell, Bobby Broom + Others: Preston Frazier’s Best of 2025 Jazz - January 12, 2026
- Yes, Steve Winwood, Joe Walsh, Tim Morse + Others: Preston Frazier’s Best of 2025 Reissues - January 2, 2026
