Nothing basic about this album by Count Basie – as the album has the legend working for the MPS label – whose own big band scene he really helped inspire! The band here is really dynamic – working with great arrangements from Chico O'Farrill, who's inherent sense of groove really gets things going from the start – which creates plenty of energy for the horn work by players who include Bobby Plater and Marshall Royal on alto, Eric Dixon on flute and tenor, Eddie Lockjaw Davis on additional tenor, Grover Mitchell on trombone, and Oscar Brashear and Sonny Cohn on trumpets. Basie himself plays piano – with that legendary punctuated style that's still quite strong at this point – and titles include "M Squad", "Blues In My Heart", "Sweet Lorraine", "Red Roses For A Blue Lady", "As Long As I Live", and "I've Got The World On A String". CD

Music from Slowly, Mr. Electric Triangle, DJ Yamaguchi, A One, Soundscape, Reminiscence Quartet, Marden Hill, Count Basic, Duboniks, Mondo Grosso and more. CD

Space age rock and roll! The great Jimmy Haskell is one of the hippest arrangers of the 50s and 60s – and he penned more than a few great charts in his day for rock and roll oriented films and TV shows. This rare album has him writing some cool spaced-out instrumentals that basically take a 50s instrumental rock groove, feed it through a lot of echo and effects, and turn it into the music you'd hear at a sock-hop on Pluto! There's loads of weird effects and some early work on electronics – all over a general beat that's very much in the "rock n roll" mode. Titles include "Blast Off", "Hydrazine", "Moon Mist", "Homeward Earth", "Asteroid Hop", "Astrosonic", "We Get Messages", and "Weightless Blues". CD

A fantastic comeback for the legendary Wanda Jackson – a country singer that was also one of the first female rock and roll artists too – heard here in a great back-to-basics set, co-produced by Justin Townes Earle! Titles include "Two Hands", "Old Weakness", "California Stars", "Tore Down", "The Graveyard Shift", "Pushover", "What Do You Do When You're Lonesome", and "Down Past The Bottom". LP, Vinyl record album

A pair of 80s albums from the fusion master – back to back in a single set! On Open Mind, Jean Luc Ponty is in very tight formation – continuing that nice shift to sparer grooves he made at the start of the 80s – when the more cluttered fusion modes of the 70s seemed a bit outdated! Most of the music here comes from keyboards and violin – usually in ways that are never too jamming, and which often hit a spacious kind of groove that mixes equal parts rock and jazz with a few newer soul influences. Guests include Chick Corea and George Benson, but most of the music is by Ponty himself – and titles include "Open Mind", "Watching Birds", "Solitude", "Modern Times Blues", "Orbital Encounters", and "Intuition". Fables is almost a back-to-basics album for jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty – one that has him kicking things up with a bit more heavy fusion than on some of his other 80s records – almost jamming at times, and at least returning to some of the energy he had back in the 70s! Most of the record features a core group with Scott Henderson on guitar, Baron Browne on bass, and Rayford Griffin on drums – and Ponty's playing a few different electric violins, plus a bit of keyboards – on tracks that include "Radioactive Legacy", "Perpetual Rondo", "Cat's Tales", "In The Kingdom Of Peace", "Infinite Pursuit", and "Elephants In Love". CD

Beautiful work from songwriter Chips Moman – a key force on the Memphis scene at the end of the 60s, and a writer whose pen managed to touch a huge range of genres and styles over the years! Chips is maybe best known for the famous songs he gave to Aretha Franklin and others in his early years – but Moman has that special southern style of easily crossing genres, which meant that his heartfelt lyrics were also taken up by folks in country and rock as well – as you'll hear on this great collection that brings together all sorts of unusual interpretations of Chips' tunes! If there ever was an artist to warrant the treatment that Ace gives in its "songwriter" series, it was Moman – and there's plenty of notes on the songs and the recordings to help flesh out your understanding of his genius. Titles include "Promises" by Carla Thomas, "For You" by Gizzelle, "Do Right Woman Do Right Man" by Cher, "Fool In Love" by the Veltones, "I'll Never Give Her Up" by The Canes, "Don't Let It Be This Time" by The Gentrys, "You're Gonna See A Lot More Of My Leaving" by Barbara Lynn, "Okeechobee Purple" by Gary Stewart, "Dark End Of The Street" by The Flying Burrito Brothers, "Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" by BJ Thomas, "Luckenbach Texas" by Waylon Jennings, "So Much Like My Dad" by George Strait, "Here Come The Flowers" by Dottie West, and "Easy Street" by Johnny Cash. CD

A great back-to-basics solo album from the legendary David Axelrod – cut in the mid 70s for Fantasy Records, after higher-concept projects like The Auction and Messiah! This set gets right to the core – and focuses on the funk currents that were always part of Axelrod's larger arrangements, but which sometimes never got pulled to the forefront as strongly – and the approach is almost like some of the funky jazz albums that were issued by Fantasy/Prestige Records at the time – especially those that Axelrod produced for Cannonball Adderley. The whole thing has that great Axelrod sense of composition, with lots of space, and lots of spare cold bits that are nice nice nice for sample cuts – and titles include the classic track "Everything Counts", plus "Get Up Off Your Knees", "My Family", and "Mucho Chupar". CD