Beautiful bossa grooves! The Trip To Brazil series has been one of our best-ever Brazilian compilation series – but so far, it's only been on CD – so the folks at Universal Music Germany have deigned to release this limited vinyl sampler, which contains some of the best tracks from volumes 1 and 2! If you know the CDs, you know that they're stellar sets of jazzy bossa and post-bossa grooves – and that the selection of material is fantastic, with little duplication from other compilations of this nature. This 2LP vinyl set features tracks that are some of the bigger dancefloor cuts, and it's great to have them on vinyl in such a handsome format. Tracks include "Tombo in 7/4" by Airto, "Nana" by Moacir Santos, "Zazueira" by Elis Regina, "Cravo E Canela" by MPB4, "Mas Que Nada" by Ithamara Koorax and Azymuth, "Fittipaldi Show" by Marcos Valle and Azymuth, "O Barquinho" by Tamba Trio, "Telefone" by Dom Um Romao, "Influencia Do Jazz" by Carlos Lyra, "Surfboard" by Deodato, "Upa Neguinho" by Edu Lobo, "Crickets Sing For Anamaria" by Marcos Valle, "Samba With Some BBQ" by Paul Desmond, and "Meu Boi Bumba" by Thiago De Mello & Amazon. Great stuff! (Brazil, Funky Compilations) LP, Vinyl record album

Spiritual jazz both old and new – a collection that really gets past the obvious sides of the genre, and brings together a range of unusual work from the 70s onward! The tracks here are a great antidote to the well-traveled territory of labels like Impulse or Strata East Records – and are mostly from lesser-known sources that include tiny indies from the 80s, and a few ground breaking imprints from recent years! There's definitely a vibe here that holds strongly in the spirit of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, and other innovators from the end of the 60s – but the sound is especially fresh given the obscurity of the tunes. Titles include "For Our Souls" by Doug Hammond, "Amazona" by Francisco Mora Catlett, "The Mystery Of Man" by Sarah Vaughan, "Better Than That" by Nomo, "Gol E Gandom" by Lloyd Miller, "Motherless Child" by Brother Ah, "A Love Supreme" by Dwight Trible, "Why" by Woody Shaw with Carter Jefferson, "Rwanda" by Francis Bebey, "Come Sunday" by Stanley Cowell, and "En El Amanecer Del Tiempo". LP, Vinyl record album