Tracks include "The Perils Of Self-Betterment", "I want To Be Cholorphylled I: Corpos Conductor", "Gutbucket Asylum", and "Compassion Montage". CD

Music from Woody Guthrie, Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Lord Invader With The Calypso Orchestra, Dr. W. K. Amoaku, Ella Jenkins, Langston Hughes, Ruth Rubin, Alan Mills, Illinois School Children, Suni Paz, and more. CD

Socking soul from Dee Dee Sharp – one of the hardest acts on the legendary Cameo/Parkway label! Dee Dee's got a rough, gospelly tone in her vocals that makes for a really nice change from sweeter 60s girl singers – a gutsy approach to the lead that stands out wonderfully, and which really marks her as one of the key females in the move to deep soul at the time. This 24 track set is easily the best collection we've ever seen of her work for the Cameo label – and it's a well-done, remastered package that also features details for each individual tune – tracing Sharp's early work with arranger Dave Appell, up to later recordings with the soon-to-be-famous team of Leon Huff and Kenny Gamble, the latter of whom would later become Dee Dee's husband! Titles include "Mashed Potato Time", "Never Pick A Pretty Boy", "Rock Me In The Cradle Of Love", "Slow Twistin", "Ride", "Do The Bird", "Baby Cakes", "Why Doncha Ask Me", "There Ain't Nothin I Wouldn't Do For You", "Deep Dark Secret", "I Really Love You", "To Know Him Is To Love Him", and "It's A Funny Situation". CD

An incredible album – one of our favorite Blue Notes ever! Despite the fact that the album's a spare quartet session, the record is one of Wayne Shorter's richest – and features his gutsy young tenor soloing insanely with a rhythmically intense combo that includes Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums – a wonderfully free-thinking rhythm trio! Workman's bass is especially strong, and it underpins the cuts with a throbbing pulse that takes them past any simple hardbop conventions. Every cut's a winner – and this is one album we reach for time and time again over the years! Titles include "Adam's Apple", "El Gaucho", "Footprints", and "Teru". CD features the bonus track "The Collector". CD

An incredible album – one of our favorite Blue Notes ever! Despite the fact that the album's a spare quartet session, the record is one of Wayne Shorter's richest – and features his gutsy young tenor soloing insanely with a rhythmically intense combo that includes Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums – a wonderfully free-thinking rhythm trio! Workman's bass is especially strong, and it underpins the cuts with a throbbing pulse that takes them past any simple hardbop conventions. Every cut's a winner – and this is one album we reach for time and time again over the years! Titles include "Adam's Apple", "El Gaucho", "Footprints", and "Teru". CD reissue contains an extra bonus cut, "The Collector". CD

Two 60s classics from Wayne Shorter – back to back in a single set! First up is Adams Apple, an incredible album – one of our favorite Blue Notes ever! Despite the fact that the album's a spare quartet session, the record is one of Wayne Shorter's richest – and features his gutsy young tenor soloing insanely with a rhythmically intense combo that includes Herbie Hancock on piano, Reggie Workman on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums – a wonderfully free-thinking rhythm trio! Workman's bass is especially strong, and it underpins the cuts with a throbbing pulse that takes them past any simple hardbop conventions. Every cut's a winner – and this is one album we reach for time and time again over the years! Titles include "Adam's Apple", "El Gaucho", "Footprints", and "Teru". Next is Super Nova – a bit of a hint of the 70's work by Shorter – as he plays here with a slightly larger group, and a bit of an electric sound. Sonny Sharrock and John McLaughlin play guitar, Airto plays percussion, and Maria Booker sings vocals on a rendition of "Dindi" – and this complicated larger group gives Shorter a quite different sound than some of his earlier Blue Note quartet and quintet sides. The session's got a great spiritual soul jazz undercurrent – pointing the way towards aspects of jazz in the 70s – and titles include "Super Nova", "Swee Pea", "Water Babies", and "Capricorn". CD

Classic work from Nina Simone – and an album that definitely lives up to its title! Nina Simone certainly emerged as the high priestess of soul during her monumental stretch for Philips Records in the 60s – as she moved way past jazz, way past some of the folk she'd begun tapping into, and into this new righteous territory that paved the way for countless other hip singers to come! Simone does a great job of mixing gutbuckety roots with hipper, 60s soul inflections – and the set's a treasure trove of great tunes – including her awesome reading of "Work Song", plus "Brown Eyed Handsome Man", "Come Ye", "I Hold No Grudge", "I'm Going Back Home", "I'm Gonna Leave You", "Take Me To The Water", and "The Gal From Joe's". CD

Fantastic studio material from Jimmy's best period on Blue Note! The CD features 6 unreleased tracks – all recorded in 1958, but never issued until now, for some insanely stupid reason! The tracks feature Jimmy's usual organ/guitar/drums trio approach, augmented with some great baritone work by Cecil Payne. Payne was a fantastic player at this point, and his gutsy baritone really opens up the band's soulful grooves in a great way. Kenny Burrell handles guitar, and drums are by either Art Blakey or Donald Bailey. The set includes 4 untitled tracks listed as "Blues No 1", "Blues No 2", etc – plus covers of "St Louis Blues" and "Swing Shepherd Blues". Excellent solo work by Jimmy throughout, with that deep raw sound that he was really laying on heavy in these late 50s recordings! CD

A twin-alto session that matches the sax of Sonny Stitt with that of Bunky Green – both set up in a tight little combo that includes some smoking work on Hammond by organist Odell Brown! Brown's fierce approach to the keys creates a really gutbuckety sound on the set – making the album burn like some of the best Prestige soul jazz sides from the mid 60s – but also opening up some of the tunes in the same sort of skittish groove that Brown was using on his own albums of the period! A young Maurice White plays drums – and titles include "Soul In The Night", "One Alone", "The Spies", and "Home Stretch". CD

A strong second set by Angie Stone – with production work by Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Raphael Saadiq, Rufus Blaq, and others – warmly wrapped up in a NuSoul orgy of beats, smooth instrumentation, and gutsy soul vocals. Titles include "The Ingredients Of Love" with Musiq Soulchild, "Snowflakes", "Soul Insurance", "Brotha", "Pissed Off", "More Than A Woman" with Calvin, "Brotha Part 2", "Time Of The Month", and "Wish I Didn't Miss You". CD

Reedman Joe Thomas is wrapped up here in some very warm grooves – a mix of electric jazz and clubby modes – all of which takes Thomas' usual sound right to the discos! Most cuts have a backup vocal group – with contributions from Gwen Guthrie and Jocelyn Brown – but these vocals soon step aside to make room for Joe's solos on both tenor and flute – every bit as soulful as before, maybe a bit like Stanley Turrentine or John Handy in such a setting! The album's also got some great keyboards from Pat Rebillot – and titles include "Plato's Retreat", "Mr Mumbles", "Get In The Wind", "Two Doors Down", and "Low Down". CD

Go out of the world with The Three Sounds on this sweet little set for Blue Note – as the trio are at their early best, and working with a care of craft that you won't find on other 60s albums for labels like Verve or Mercury! The mighty Gene Harris is in the lead on piano, moving between a great blend of lyrical and more soul-based styles – given great accompaniment from Bill Dowdy on drums and Andy Simpkins on bass – the latter of whom is an overlooked genius, with this round tone and solid touch that really holds the group together! Titles are a nice mix of exotic standards and gutbuckety originals – and tunes include "My Silent Love", "Just In Time", "Out Of this World", "Out Of the Past", "Sanctified Sue", and "Girl Of My Dreams". CD

One of Bobby Timmons' most obscure trio sessions from the early years – recorded at the tail end of the Riverside years, which is probably why the album disappeared so quickly! The set's in a similar format to some of Bobby's other records for Riverside – a trio set with either Sam Jones or Ron Carter on bass, and Connie Kay on drums – but it's different in that Bobby's a bit more introspective – "blue", if you will – working in less of the gutbucket soul jazz mode than before, and really hitting some lyrical magic on the keys! The album includes the original tunes "Know Not One", "Often Annie", and "The Sit In" – plus a great reading of Tom McIntosh's "Malice Towards None". CD

2 live cookers from Cal Tajder – back to back on a single CD! The set begins with Night At The Blackhawk – one of Cal's best late 50s dates for Fantasy Records – thanks to some smoking tenor sax from Jose "Chombo" Silva! The album has Cal working in the very comfortable territory of San Francisco's Blackhawk Nightclub – in a combo that also features familiar players Vince Guaraldi on piano, Al McKibbon on bass, Willie Boby on drums, and Mongo Santamaria on congas – all musicians who'd previously helped Tjader hit some of his best Latin grooves! But the addition of Silva on a few tracks here really makes the set crackle – giving it a gutsy, soulful fee that you don't always get on some of Tjader's other records. Tracks are longish – and titles include the nice original "Bill B", plus jazzy versions of "I Love Paris", "Blue & Sentimental", and "Night In Tunisia". Live & Direct is great live work from Cal Tjader – one of a number of sets but at his home turf of the Blackhawk Nightclub in San Francisco! The album's nicely laidback, with tracks that stretch out a bit more than Tjader's studio work for Fantasy Records – often hitting a slight Latin groove at times, but with a bit more of a straight jazz vibes feel overall! The great Lonnie Hewitt's on the group on piano, coloring in the tunes with some very soulful notes – and in addition to Cal's vibes, the rest of the lineup includes Victor Venegas on bass, and Willie Bobo on drums. Mongo Santamaria on congas and Rolando Lozano on flute join in on the track "Mambo Terrifico" – and other titles include "Racoon Straits", "Bad & The Beautiful", and "You Stepped Out Of A Dream". Note that the CD omits the track "The Continental" from Live & Direct – due to space restrictions. CD

Tortoise's third album and a pretty remarkable creative leap for the inventive Chicago ensemble – now with the great guitarist Jeff Parker in the fold! Like their earlier records, TNT features a haunting mix of percussion, electronics, and jazz-oriented instrumentation – put together with an approach that's even more sophisticated than earlier releases. That said, the guitar makes a huge difference – and there's a lot of guest players in the mix, including horns and strings. Definitely one of their best ever! Titles include "Swing From The Gutters", "Four Day Interval", "Jetty", "Everglade", and "The Equator". CD

A very successful album for Blue Note – and one that took the searing tenor sax of Stanley Turrentine and backed it with some boldly soulful arrangements from Oliver Nelson! Nelson was perfect at this sort of session – able to provide full backings that infused the record with energy, yet never dominated the space of the soloist – and Turrentine really rises to the occasion here, and matches the quality heard in similar Nelson sessions with Jimmy Smith, Lou Donaldson, and Cannonball Adderley! Other players in the core group here include Kenny Burrell and Herbie Hancock – but Stan's the main star of the set with his gutsy tenor lines, all blown beautifully in a way that points towards his later experiments in this mode. Titles include "Bayou", "Mattie T", "Little Sheri", and "River's Invitation" – and the CD features the bonus tracks "Gravy Train" and "A Kettle Of Fish". CD

The debut of Tom Waits – a prettier, less gravelly-voiced and less knowingly seedy effort as the albums to come – and a set that's as tender as any that Waits would ever record! This is Waits in after hours yearning mode, still upright on a barstool or a piano bench, not yet having fallen in a gutter. It's one of his best records. Includes "Ol' 55", "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You", "Midnight Lullaby", the beautiful "Martha" – which still one of his best written songs), plus "Rosie", "Lonely", "Ice Cream Man", "Closing Time", "Grapefruit Moon", and "Little Trip To Heaven". CD

One of best ever albums by Tom Waits – the beginning of his gutbuckety, Americana Carnivalesque era of dreamlike sinister romance and lovelorn surrealism! The tin pan piano ballads and get pushed a bit to the wayside for Tom's more mysterious and poetic side, and this begins one of the great second acts in pop/rock history. Includes the tracks "Underground", "Shore Leave", "Dave The Butcher", "16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought-Six", "Franks Wild Years", "Down, Down, Down", "Rainbirds", "Just Another Sucker On The Vine", "Town With No Cheer", and others. CD

Unpublished works by Woody Guthrie, set to music by bassist Rob Wasserman, performed by Van Dyke Parks, Lou Reed, Studs Terkel, Ani DiFranco, Jackson Browne, Pete Seeger, Tom Morello, Kurt Elling, and others. CD

One of the all-time great tenor/organ sessions on Blue Note – totally fierce, with a sound that's a lot rawer than most other work on the label! The incredible Baby Face Willette grooves it hard and heavy on Hammond – working in a quartet that includes Fred Jackson on tenor, Grant Green on guitar, and Ben Dixon on drums – a killer lineup that makes for a very cooking sound throughout! There's a bit of an R&B-ish tinge to most of the tracks on the set – gutbuckety soul jazz, of the sort you'd hear on a label like Prestige, but recorded with more of the Blue Note sense of poise and professionalism – a very unique blend that makes the album an essential one in any collection. Titles include "Swingin' At Sugar Rays", "Face To Face", "Something Strange", and "Goin Down". CD features 2 bonus tracks – "Face To Face (alt)" and "Something Strange (alt)". CD