One of three incredible albums cut by trumpeter Dizzy Reece for Blue Note Records – all a bit unusual, in that Dizzy was a key part of the scene in London at the time, and not part of the regular New York group that were so important to the Blue Note roster at the end of the 50s! Yet despite that difference, Reece fits into the groove perfectly – with a bold sound on trumpet that's a nice change from the usual – set up in a classic hardbop lineup that includes Hank Mobley on tenor, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. Mobley's playing is fantastic – as on all of his Blue Notes – and his presence alone takes the set into another level. His solos on the harder tracks are all great, and played with a razor-sharp edge that opens up Reece a lot more than usual too – very different than some of his work recorded in the UK. Tracks include "The Rebound", "Groovesville", "The Rake", and "A Variation On Monk". Great stuff, and a true classic lost Blue Note! LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic lost slice of work by one of the greatest modern jazz forces on the British jazz scene of the 60s – Jamaican-born saxophonist Joe Harriott, known for his groundbreaking avant jazz sessions and his experiments with Indian classical music! The sound here is quite different than those two better-known aspects of Harriott's career – and represents a return to the hardbop style he was using in the late 50s, when first making waves on the London scene. However, that's not a bad thing at all – as the album's overflowing with modern jazz undercurrents, and almost has a fresh post-Mingus approach to the horn parts and rhythm progressions. The quintet includes trumpeter Stu Hamer, drummer Phil Seaman, bassist Coleridge Goode, and pianist Pat Smythe – all well-suited players for Harriott in such a mode, and working here in a style that recalls the first great moments of British jazz from the late 50s. Titles include "Strollin South", "Just Goofin", "Time For Love", "The Rake", "Blues In C", and "Tuesday Morning Swing". LP, Vinyl record album

One of three incredible albums cut by trumpeter Dizzy Reece for Blue Note Records – all a bit unusual, in that Dizzy was a key part of the scene in London at the time, and not part of the regular New York group that were so important to the Blue Note roster at the end of the 50s! Yet despite that difference, Reece fits into the groove perfectly – with a bold sound on trumpet that's a nice change from the usual – set up in a classic hardbop lineup that includes Hank Mobley on tenor, Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. Mobley's playing is fantastic – as on all of his Blue Notes – and his presence alone takes the set into another level. His solos on the harder tracks are all great, and played with a razor-sharp edge that opens up Reece a lot more than usual too – very different than some of his work recorded in the UK. Tracks include "The Rebound", "Groovesville", "The Rake", and "A Variation On Monk". Great stuff, and a true classic lost Blue Note! LP, Vinyl record album

Godlike work from the legendary Nick Drake – and exactly the kind of record that's made him a continuing legend over the years! The style is completely its own – not really folk or rock, but not really jazz either – yet served up with plenty of jazzy phrasing that's helped keep Drake's music fresher than most as the decades move on – and which makes each song here a really rich discovery – even if, like us, you've heard the album hundreds of times in the past! The production is wonderful – with slight underscorings of strings that help unlock dark corners of the songs – and tracks include the classic "River Man" – easily one of Nick's best songs ever – plus "Fruit Tree", "Day Is Done", "Three Hours", "Saturday Sun", and "Time Has Told Me". A record we'd never part with – ever! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the most obscure albums ever recorded by Stan Getz – an unusual early 70s outing that pairs his tenor genius with some very cool larger arrangements, all produced to perfection by the great George Martin! The record's surprisingly great overall, with some groovy charts handled by Richard Hewson – not an artist usually associated with Getz, but then again, neither is Martin – and as with Dynasty, Communications 72, and other unusual projects from the time – the set really shows Stan opening up to some new ideas, while still winning us all over again with that wonderful sense of tone! Titles include great versions of "Without Her", "Cecilia", "Marrakesh Express", "The April Fools", and "Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head". LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic blend of funk, jazz, and Cuban rhythms – served up by the youthful Irakere, working here at the height of their powers! There's a sense of boundless energy throughout the entire record – an effort to try on so many things at once, and somehow get them all really right – from the complicated piano passages of Chucho Valdes, to the slight use of electricity on the fuzzy guitars or keyboards, to the soaring horns that really show some great sparkle from the young Paquito D'Rivera! Tunes are short, but almost have the full drive of much longer descarga numbers – and titles include "Valle Picadura", "Bacalao Con Pan", "Danza De Los Nanigos", "Quindiambo", and "Misaluba". LP, Vinyl record album

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The music of Don Cherry, but delivered in a completely different way than his original recordings – served up here as a beautiful series of duets between Ken Vandermark on tenor and Hamid Drake on drums and percussion! The pair have a sympathy for each other that's amazing – and the music is often more rhythmic than you might be used to hearing from Vandermark – as the duo weave together themes from Don Cherry compositions in a variety of classic settings – yet work them anew with the sort of individual magic that really makes the record special! This isn't a set of covers, nor some staid "tribute" record – and instead, Vandermark and Drake really soar with inspiration that's delivered at a very personal level, and which marks the record as a testament to the still very vital talents of both musicians. LP, Vinyl record album

An excellent batch of funky Latin tunes from Irakere – and one of the group's best albums! It's got a mix of rolling bass and electric keyboards on the best cuts – sounding a lot like the funky sound of LA Latin groups like War or El Chicano, but with more of the Afro-Cuban groove of their homeland of Havana in the mix. The quality of the work is excellent – better than on any of the group's American releases in later years – and this one time Cuban-only release is the kind of gem that's was unjustly hard to track down in earlier years – all the while deserving of worldwide love! Titles include "Iya", "Moja El Pan", "Juana 1600", "En Nosotros", "38 1/2", and "Xiomara" and "Este Camino Largo". LP, Vinyl record album

A beautiful treasure from the legendary Nick Drake – the last album he ever recorded – and a set that may well be his most personal as well! The sound here is even more stripped-down than before – often just vocals and acoustic guitar, but used together in ways that are really unique – inflected with lots of the jazzy phrasing that always made Nick so unique – and light years from any of the folkies who were his contemporaries! There's a very special Drake-like approach to the whole record – a heavenly sound that's never been duplicated again – and titles include the classic "Pink Moon", plus "Place To Be", "Road", "Parasite", "Ride", and "From The Morning". LP, Vinyl record album

A sweet UK compilation of some of Nick's best work – and covering the stylistic breadth of it – from the somewhat underappreciated studio band backed gems, to the stripped down and rawly intimate songcraft that cemented his incredible legacy. With the exception of a couple tracks from the posthumous Made To Love Magic collection, Treasury draws pretty equally from each of this iconic Island LPs – so nearly every track is purely classic – so the biggest and only flaw here is that it has 15 incredible tracks, rather than all of them! "River Man", "Cello Song", "Poor Boy", "Hazey Jane II", "Magic", "Place To Be", "From The Morning", "Fruit Tree", "Road", and "Way To Blue". LP, Vinyl record album

A group that's co-led by guitarists Brent Fuscaldo and Przemyslaw Krys Drazek – the former of whom also sings, while the latter adds trumpet to the mix! The record has the layered feel and mix of acoustic and electric instruments that we love from the Astral Spirits label – and in addition to work from the core duo, the set features contributions from Joshua Abrams on bass, Hamid Drake on percussion, Tatsu Aoki on bass and shamisen, and Thymme Jones on drums, piano, melodica, and walkie talkie! These other elements are often used in ways that are as subtle as the performance of the leaders – gently filtering into each other to create soundscapes that build with a subtle sort of power and a nice undercurrent of spirituality. Titles include "The Coyote Messenger", "Weaving Tongues", and "Blossoming". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the earthiest recordings made by Bill Laswell during his run of classic productions on Axiom Records – a set that's very faithful to the unique sound of the Gnawa musicians of Morocco, and which features no performance at all from Laswell! Sometimes, Bill would like to insert himself in the proceedings, or inflect the music with his own identity – but he stays nicely aside here, and allows the large ensemble to really do their thing – making incredible music through interplay between vocals and percussion, touched with a few local instruments as well – including oud, sintir, and darbouka! Often, the percussion is augmented by handclaps, which really brings a sense of urgency to the record as the songs build up – and titles include "Tramin", "Chabako", "Toura Toura Tour Kelilah", "Hamouda", "Said Fafy Drum Solo", "Jillala", and "Mimoun Mamrba". LP, Vinyl record album

We don't know much about these guys, but the set's as groovy as you'd guess from the cover – a bit garagey, a bit psych, oddly spiritual, and very well-produced with this swirling vibe that really makes the most of the group's guitars and harmonized vocals! Van Dorn handles lead vocals, and wrote the songs on the set with JC Phillips – who produced half the album – on titles that include "Find Me", "Take A Friend", "Love Train", "No Number To Call", "Talk To The Soldier's Son", and "The Pot Starts To Boil". LP, Vinyl record album

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... 7-inch, Vinyl record

A funky psychedelic nugget from the Nigerian scene of the 70s – a record that's got more of a lean small group take on some of the bigger ensemble modes of the period, in a way that really seems to give the Moonrakers Band lots of flexibility with their sound! Some numbers might be a bit more guitar-heavy, others will have more organ – and the rhythms shift between rock, funk, and maybe even a bit of inspiration from Jamaican music – as the group serve up lyrics that are mostly in English, but with a definite offbeat vibe. There's occasional currents that resonate with Zamrock work of the decade, while other moments are straighter Afro Funk – on titles that include "Cut Your Coat According To Your Size", "We Got To Live", "What We Did Today Is Gone", "Wait For Me", "Little Sister Of Line", and "Enia Se Pele". LP, Vinyl record album

An underground funky gem – one that never made it past the collections of the elite sound library audience in the 70s – but which is well deserving of global acclaim! Yan Tregger works here in this style that's every bit as funky as his contemporaries on bigger library labels, but which also shows a strong love of club music too – not straight disco, at least not in any sort of "easy" way – but a real ear for just the right sort of basslines, keyboard parts, and uptempo rhythms to keep things moving throughout! Given the all-instrumental approach, think of this set as a jazzy take on clubby grooves – or maybe an instrumental funk record for the clubs – with great cuts that include "The Girl In The Gold", "Dawn & Darkness", "Friend Island", "The Last Girl", "Haunting Refrain", "Girls Will Be Girls", and "The Way Of All Flesh". LP, Vinyl record album

Beautiful music from Chicago, set to another Chicago-themed project – a film based around the Roy stories of writer Barry Gifford! Yet that literary reference aside, the music here has fantastic merits of its own, even if you've never read Gifford at all – a very different, more compositional side of the spectrum from vibist Jason Adasiewicz, yet still music that has a loose small combo vibe as well – serve dup by a cool quintet that features Jonathan Doyle on saxes, Josh Berman on cornet, Joshua Abrams on bass, and Hamid Drake on drums! There's a mix of new tones and modern ideas that take us back to that late 50s time on the Chicago scene when Sun Ra's Arkestra was still in town – and the tunes penned by Adasiewicz are not only superb, but a perfect showcase for his incredible tones on vibes. Doyle is a real revelation too – a player we don't know well at all at this point, but whose sense of timing and presence really makes the whole record sparkle – as does the work of the rest of the better-known players in the group. Titles include "Ballad For Kitty", "River Blindness", "Walkin To Clinton", "Rudy's Basement", "Sand", and "Blue People". LP, Vinyl record album

Unreleased work from the glory days of the Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet – a legendary free jazz ensemble that's playing here at the height of their powers! The group have a vibe here that's wonderful – both as playful and as sinister as the title might imply – stretched out to a performance that's almost 20 minutes in length, and which almost has a sort of cinematic sense of dynamism at times – although still with all the unscripted energy that made the group so great. Brotzmann is in the lead on tenor, with Mars Williams on tenor and soprano, Ken Vandermark on baritone, Mats Gustafsson on alto, Joe McPhee on valve trombone, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Fred Lonberg Holm on cello, Kent Kessler on bass, and Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake on drums. The first-ever issue of this music comes in a limited one-sided record – with music on side a, and a silkscreen of Peter Brotzmann artwork on side B! LP, Vinyl record album

Beautiful early work from British singer Vashti Bunyan – an important figure in the acid folk scene at the end of the 60s, heard here on some really wonderful work from a few years before! Some of the tracks have a really trippy style, and others are a bit more like conventional Brit girl pop of the time – but given a very weird twist overall, with a sound that's quite hard to describe! Vashti's vocals have these really dark qualities overall – and even when the backings are fuller (which often they are not), there's a sad, earthy feel to her singing. But equally great is her guitar work – heard with more prominence on most of the album's previously-unissued tracks from mid 60s tapes. Bunyan plays with these warm harmonics that kind of nestle and bristle underneath her vocals – pushing the tunes up with a sense of brightness in contrast to the voice – almost in a Nick Drake sort of way (and trust us, we don't throw around comparisons to his music easily!) The package is a wonderful look at these almost-lost years of Vashti's career – and it features both sides of her Decca and Columbia singles, an unreleased Immediate single, and a lot more tracks pulled from rare tapes from 1964, 1966, and 1967! Set features 25 tracks that include "Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind", "Train Song", "Love Song", "Winter Is Blue", "Leave Me", "How Do I Know", "Go Before Dawn", "Girl's Song In Winter", "Don't Believe", "17 Pink Sugar Elephants", "Someday", and "I Know". LP, Vinyl record album

Rootsy noise sweetened by raggedly alluring melodicism from Califone – still one of the most vital and idiosyncratic groups of their time! We can no long heap the experimentalist tag on Califone – if we ever really could. They've got quite a sonic blueprint laid down after 8 or so albums, but they do continue to surprise us. Roots And Crowns is a strange and compelling blend of crackling, somehow rural sounds & percussion, strummed and sometimes chugging guitars, pastoral found-sound atmosphere and singing that's no more or less part of the ether than any other element. A timeless piece of work! Tracks include "Pink & Sour", "Spider's House" (which references Brian Wilson at his furthest out stage), "The Eye You Lost In The Crusades" (which references Nick Drake a bit in the guitar), "A Chinese Actor", "Our Kitten Sees Ghosts", "The Orchids", "Black Metal Valentine", "Rose Petal Ear", "3legged Animals", "If You Would" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

The birth of a legend, and easily one of the heaviest records to hit the mainstream in the late 60s! The album's got a sinister quality that you can hear on the first few notes – a low-end, rumbling approach that brings in a lot more fuzzy bass than other groups of the time had ever thought to use – all topped with some of the most wickedly edgey guitar put on record to date, and undercut by drums that are almost verging on funk at times! Basslines set the tone for most of the tunes in the set – creating a bottom-heavy groove that would be copped many times in years to come, but which still sounds tremendously fresh here in the original. Titles include "Mandrake Root", "I'm So Glad", "One More Rainy Day", "Help", "Love Help Me", "And The Address", and "Hey Joe". LP, Vinyl record album