A great modern moment from trombone genius Bob Brookmeyer – and hardly the traditional album you might expect from the title – as Bob blows both valve trombone and plays piano, in a really cool combo with Jim Hall on guitar, and the great Jimmy Giuffre on baritone, tenor, and clarinet! The mix of the two horns and guitar is completely sublime – with all the sense of tone and spacing that Bob and Jimmy were bringing to their other late 50s work – and the tracks are longer extrapolations on familiar themes, but taken into fresh territory with the help of Dave Bailey on drums, and either Joe Benjamin or Ralph Pena on bass. Titles include "Truckin", "Some Sweet Day", "Jada", and "Louisiana". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer classic from the second chapter of Chick Corea's Return To Forever group – standard-setting fusion for the 70s, and a showcase of keyboard skills from Chick that nobody would have imagined years before! There's definitely plenty of soaring energy at the core of the record – the great Lenny White on drums and percussion, and Stanley Clarke on a bit of organ and plenty of bass – the latter of which is used in nicely different ways than his work with George Duke! Al DiMeola plays electric and acoustic guitar, and Chick also uses a bit of acoustic, next to Fender Rhodes, clavinet, and organ – and there's a warmth here that few other fusion combos could ever hope to touch. Titles include "Vulcan Worlds", "Where Have I Loved You Before", "The Shadow Of The Lo", "Where Have I Danced With You Before", "Beyond The Seventh Galaxy", "Earth Juice" and "Song To The Pharoah Kings". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer collection of previously-unissued jazz from Mercury Records – with material by Roland Kirk, Ben Webster, Dinah Washington, Bob James, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, Cannonball Adderley, and others! LP, Vinyl record album

Andre Previn's got some very hip pals here – drummer Shelly Manne and bassist Red Mitchell – both frequent partners during the late 50s, especially on this classic run of jazz-Broadway records for Contemporary! The spirit here is very much like that of the famous My Fair Lady date made by the trio – a strong extrapolation of familiar tunes from a hit show – taken way out into instrumental jazz territory – with less thought of the core melody, and more focus on the tunes use as vehicles for jazz improvisation. Previn's piano has hardly sounded better – and more creative, both in tone and timing – an inspiration that certainly comes from Manne's inventive drum work – and titles include "Aunt Alicia's March", "I Remember It Well", "The Parisians", "She Is Not Thinking Of Me", "Thank Heaven For Little Girls", and "A Toujours". LP, Vinyl record album

A great little record, filled with loads of cross-cultural influences that make for one of the most exotic Herbie Mann albums of the 60s! The group's billed as the Afro-Jazz Sextet– but has a strong Latin vibe as well – a bit of an echo of the experiments Herbie Mann did with Latin jazz previously on labels like Verve and United Artists – but given a bit more of the Atlantic-era punch here as well! The group features some wonderful vibes from John Rae – whose tones ring out beautifully on some of the best numbers – plus a mix of Latin and African-styled percussion from Ray Barretto, Olatunjii, and Ray Mantilla – who really make the record cook. A few tunes feature an added trumpet group, and the rest are mostly just flute and percussion – on titles that include "St Thomas", "Walkin", "Uhuru", "High Life", and "Sawa Sawa De". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the most righteous albums that Max Roach ever cut – and a monumental jazz release from the heart of the Civil Rights era! As you can guess from the cover and title, there's a very political bent to the record – served up in righteous lyrics penned by Oscar Brand Jr, and sung by Abbey Lincoln at her most biting – really stepping out here in just a few short years from her previous role as a straight jazz singer, and firmly grabbing up territory no other female vocalists had touched! For this momentous event, Roach gathered together a really special group for the record – players who include regular partners Booker Little on trumpet and Julian Priester on trombone – alongside surprising guests like Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax, Olatunji on percussion, and Ray Mantilla on congas. There's no piano at all on the record, and the tracks are all long ones – stretching out with soaring horn passages next to the vocals, and plenty of percussion at the bottom to get things moving! Titles include "Driva' Man", "Tears for Johannesburg", "Freedom Day", "All Africa", and "Prayer/Protest/Peace". LP, Vinyl record album

A killer batch of large ensemble numbers – very much in the mode of the Clarke-Boland Big Band, or some of the other groups on MPS at the time! The group's led by Jerry Van Rooyen, the Dutch jazzman and composer who did some excellent funky soundtrack work over the years – a fact that certainly shows up in the tracks on the set – which have a sweetly grooving feel mixed in with the large ensemble jazz – a great approach that would have been right at home in some hip Euro film score from the time! Van Rooyen gives the material a soulful feel that's a lot like some of Quincy Jones' best scoring from the 60s – blending together work on organ, Fender Rhodes, and piano (played by Frans Elsen, Rob Madna, and Rob Franken) – with breakaway horn solos by players like Benny Bailey on trumpet and Rolf Ericson on trumpets, Ake Persson and Jiggs Whigham on trombones, and Herb Geller, Ferdinand Povel, and Tony Coe on reeds – most of whom are players who've sparked great notes previously on sets with the Clarke-Boland Big Band, or other hip MPS ensemble projects. Titles include "Sonlite", "Because I Love You", "Some Blues", "For Nathalie", "The Runners", "JBW", "Green", and "Whirligig". LP, Vinyl record album

An excellent set of funky jazz tracks from the legendary MPS label! The folks at Crippled Dick have outdone themselves this time – and have even surpassed their previous set of MPS grooves by collecting a totally excellent batch of cuts, most of which haven't ever been reissued before! If you pay attention to jazz funk at all, you'll know that the German-based MPS label is one of the world's best sources for incredible grooves – and the label had a 20 year tradition of mixing musics from many different sources, and for delivering some of the most groundbreaking funk of the 20th century! Titles on this stunning set include "Titty Chickie Fitterbug" by Jasper Van't Hof, "Faces In Reflection 2" by George Duke, "Scratches" by Charly Antolini, "Knock Out" by Dieter Reith, "Miss Maggie" by Rolf Kuhn, "Powerstart" by Roland Kovac, "Baiafrock/Volker" by The New Dave Pike Set, "Volcano's Daughter" by Nelson Riddle, and "Bulgarian Beans" by Rimona Francis. LP also contains the bonus cuts "Sarava" by Baden Powell, "The World Is A Ghetto" by George Shearing, and "Grand Nite For Swinging" by Mary Lou Williams. (Funky Compilations, Jazz) LP, Vinyl record album

One of our favorite Woody Shaw albums from his later years – and an album that's got the same joyous spirit and free soaring feel of his best 70s work on Muse – really soaring with a sense of life and freedom in a really great way! The core group on the album is the Tone Jansa Quartet – led by European reedman Jansa, and working in a space that's quite similar to that of Shaw's backing groups on previous sessions – strong modal currents in the rhythms, and with Tone's work on soprano, tenor, and flute turning out to be a great partner for Woody's trumpet! Jansa wrote all the tunes on the set, and gave them a soaring feel that we really love – just the right mix of introspection and exploration found on classic Shaw sessions like Little Red's Fantasy or Lovedance. Titles include "Midi", "Boland", "Call Mobility", "River", and "May". LP, Vinyl record album

After working for years in the Crusaders, then honing his production skills with excellent work for Fantasy and Mercury, Wayne Henderson put out this album of his own, which drew on a lot of the work he'd been doing during the mid 70s. The album's a showcase for his At Home productions team, and it features work by Bobby Lyle, Roland Bautista, Ronnie Laws, and others. Henderson plays trombone, but he also gets in the way a bit with some hipster vocalizing that doesn't quite work. Titles include "Lady Bug", "Foot Stompin Music", "I'm Staying Forever", and a version of the great stepper "Keep On Keepin On". (Soul, Jazz) LP, Vinyl record album

One of the most amazing jazz vocalists of our generation returns here with an incredible group – a majestic combo to match all the spiritual inclinations in his music – with work from Kamasi Washington on tenor, Mark De Clive-Lowe on piano, Miguel Atwood Ferguson on viola, and both Carlos Nino and Derf Reklaw on percussion! Dwight Trible on his own is already more than enough to get us to run out and buy a record – but here, the combination of his unique voice with these musicians makes for an album that's an instant masterpiece – and one that even has lots of new colors and styles compared to some of Dwight's previous work! Songs include numbers by older west coast spiritual jazz heavyweights – like Horace Tapscott, Linda Hill, Nate Morgan, James Leary, and Jesse Sharps – mixed with some of Trible's own songs, and versions of work by Carmen Lundy, Oscar Brown Jr, and Donny Hathaway. From top to bottom, start to stop, the album's a treasure – with tracks that include "It's All About Love", "Thank You Master", "Song For My Mother", "Brother Where Are You", "Some Other Time", "These Things You Are To Me", "Desert Fairy Princess", and "Mothership". (Vocalists, Jazz) LP, Vinyl record album

A great one – and the kind of European jazz album that kicks like a Clarke/Boland Big Band album! Hans Koller directs a large-scale swinging big band of some of the best European and American expatriot players of the time – like Sahib Shihab, Benny Bailey, Donald Byrd, Johnny Griffin, and Albert Mangelsdorff – and the set screams with intense solos, and a tight groove that pushes past any of the cliches you could imagine for a set like this. One of the things that makes the session great is some groovy organ, played by Infried Hoffman, the German player who was in Klaus Doldinger's early group. Doldinger's also on here, and his sound is way better than on his 70's work. Titles include "Hip Hit", "Revelation", "Conversation", "Knodel-Waltzer", and "Blazy Bones Revisited". LP, Vinyl record album

US issue of some of Gerry's classic Vogue recordings, done in Paris in 1954 with a quartet that featured Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone, Red Mitchell on bass, and Frank Isola on drums. This is Gerry at the height of his powers, and playing classic piano-less material with supberb accompaniment by Brookmeyer. Tracks include a number of originals, including "Utter Chaos", "Five Brothers", and "Walkin' Shoes", plus others like "Bernies Tune", "Come Out Wherever You Are", and "Laura". LP, Vinyl record album

US issue of some of Gerry's classic Vogue recordings, done in Paris in 1954 with a quartet that featured Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone, Red Mitchell on bass, and Frank Isola on drums. This is Gerry at the height of his powers, and playing classic piano-less material with supberb accompaniment by Brookmeyer. Tracks include a number of originals, including "Utter Chaos", "Five Brothers", and "Walkin' Shoes", plus others like "Bernies Tune", "Come Out Wherever You Are", and "Laura". LP, Vinyl record album