Features Virgilio Marti, Tito Puente, Yomo Toro, Javier Vasquez, Paquito D'Rivera, Adalberto Santiago, Yayo El Indio, and Chocolate Armenteros. LP, Vinyl record album

Mostly lush and laidback tunes, written by Cosma for this strange little French film from the early 70s – about a guy who spends most of his time as a shut in! The track does have a great theme – the tune "Where Is The Summertime", which is performed in a great bossa nova version at one point – with tightly dancing rhythms, and some great whistling organ that makes the track sound a bit like a Lalo Schifrin tune! There's one or two other numbers with a similar groove on the set – and tracks include "Piano Sweet Piano", "Rhythm In The Afternoon", "Bird Watchers", "Flirtation In The Grass", and "The Dog". LP, Vinyl record album

Mostly mellow numbers, but not without some charm – featuring tracks written by Rod McKuen for a variety of films and TV shows, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and Joanna. Greenslade was McKuen's prime interpreter at the time –and he's recording here on Rod's own label. Titles in clude "Lonesome Cities", "Listen To The Warm", "Mr Kelly/Kelly & Me", "Jean", "Pastures Green", and "The Loner". (Now Sound, Soundtracks) 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". (Jazz, Soundtracks) LP, Vinyl record album

A period score, but one with plenty of groovy touches – a masterpiece of 60s film scoring from the great John Addison! Addison's music for the famous Tony Richardson version of Tom Jones is every bit as playful as the images on the screen – with only marginal aesthetics of the period of the story, and instead lots of romping melodies, carried out on horn parts, percussive passages, and even some cool harpsichord bits. Most of the tunes move quite quickly – as does the action on screen – and titles include "Sylvan Misadventures", "Ladies Are Irresistible", "Love Theme From Tom Jones", "Wine & Women", "If He Swing By The String", and "The Squire Steps In". CD features 34 tracks in all – the full original album, plus lots more music from the film! CD

Sexy ladies on the cover, and some equally sexy sounds underneath – served up in a perfect 60s Italian blend of jazz and bossa-based styles! Sweeping strings bring a nice sense of depth to some numbers, while others have a more intimate feel – either via spare guitar, or some jazzy elements on piano, sax, and organ – shifting instrumentation that really keeps things interesting throughout, and which makes the record feel like some rich narrative on its own, in sound – without any need for the images on the screen. The whole thing is wonderful – one of those Italian soundtrack treasures that delivers even more than it promises – and music was composed by Alessandro Alessandroni and Francesco De Masi, then orchestrated by De Masi, with some cool wordless vocal moments as well. Titles include a number of variations on "Lesbo" plus the sweet vocal opener "Qualsiasi Cosa", "Crepuscolo Sul Mare", and "IL'Isola Dell'Amore". CD

A weird little record from John Barry – the soundtrack to a 1963 television special recorded by Elizabeth Taylor at the height of her early popularity, and featuring Taylor reciting a variety of poems and speeches over music by Barry! There's a relatively high concept feel to the album – as Barry's backings are fairly string-laden and serious, penned to match the mood of Taylor's presentation of material written by William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Pitt, Winston Churchill, and Queen Victoria. And although Taylor speaks on about half the record, the best tracks here are actually the instrumental ones – which have more of the depth of Barry's serious soundtrack work from the time, and manage to have their own sense of presence apart from the star quality of Liz on the set. Arrangements are by Johnnie Spence, and titles include "Elizabeth", "London Theme Jazz Waltz", "Queen Elizabeth At Tilbury", "Queen Victoria", "English Garden", "The Fire Of London", "Lovers & Browning", and "London At Dawn". CD

A weird little record from John Barry – the soundtrack to a 1963 television special recorded by Elizabeth Taylor at the height of her early popularity, and featuring Taylor reciting a variety of poems and speeches over music by Barry! There's a relatively high concept feel to the album – as Barry's backings are fairly string-laden and serious, penned to match the mood of Taylor's presentation of material written by William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Pitt, Winston Churchill, and Queen Victoria. And although Taylor speaks on about half the record, the best tracks here are actually the instrumental ones – which have more of the depth of Barry's serious soundtrack work from the time, and manage to have their own sense of presence apart from the star quality of Liz on the set. Arrangements are by Johnnie Spence, and titles include "Elizabeth", "London Theme Jazz Waltz", "Queen Elizabeth At Tilbury", "Queen Victoria", "English Garden", "The Fire Of London", "Lovers & Browning", and "London At Dawn". LP, Vinyl record album

A really lovely soundtrack from Forever Pavot – contemporary, but with some of the best touches of our favorite French film scores of the late 60s – a blend of sentiment and subtle instrumentation, light melody and occasional groove – all handled with excellent keyboards, flutes, and other sweet touches throughout! Pavot often has the sense of space and tune of Francis Lai – which makes the record a great hit in our book – and the organ, piano, and harpsichord moments are especially great – on titles that include "Au Chalet 2", "La Ballade De Poulenc", "Dans L'Aquarium", "Generique Debut", "En Voiture", "Les Amants", and "Marche Dans La Niege". LP, Vinyl record album

A sexy soundtrack to a mid-70s film written and directed by Serge Gainsbourg – and starring Jane Birkin and a young Gerard Depardieu! The feel here is very much in the spirit of Serge's work of the time – especially that recorded with Birkin – but in a way, it's almost even better, because the soundtrack setting has most of the tunes stripped down to their barest elements – with a simplicity not heard in Gainsbourg's music since Melody Nelson! Instrumentation includes some great "watery" piano bits that kind of float over the main rhythmic theme – but other tracks get a bit more rockish, with heavy bunker rock-styled guitar, and a few more use a bit of banjo – but in a weirdly syncopated way. The score features a few great variations on the classic "Je T'Aime Moi Non Plus" – and the "Ballade De Johnny-Jane" is a great instrumental that stands as one of Serge's most compelling themes from the 70s! Other tracks include "Banjo Au Bord Du Styx", "Joe Banjo", "Le Camion Jaune", and "L'Abominale Strip-Tease". (French, Soundtracks) CD

A weird and wonderful lost soundtrack from Polish composer Andrzej Korzynski – done for a movie that was essentially a children's story, but with a great array of unusual sounds and very cool 80s keyboards! The music is very much in par with some of Korzynski's other classics – and maybe has an even more eerie sort of vibe, given the mix of sweetness and dark that comes across – as some themes feel a bit redemptive, but others have a very moody sort of approach! The whole thing almost reminds us of an 80s variation of the same territory as the Peau D'Ane soundtrack by Michel Legrand – and the music also features some straighter electric piano, guitar, and orchestrations alongside a Yamaha keyboard. Titles include "Laser Golaraza", "Wilki Zdobywaja Zamek", "Inwazja Wilkolakow", "Zaklad Golarza Filipa", "Lustro", and "Leckcja Pryzrody". First time on CD – with bonus tracks, and some detailed notes on the unusual production of the film! CD

One of the most haunting scores you'll ever hear for a vampire film – a soundtrack that's moody, open, and extremely evocative! Henryk Kuzniak uses a range of instruments and sounds here – sometimes more familiar elements like vibes, other times more abstracted with effects and electronics – not in a mainstream 80s horror way, but at times almost with echoes of some of the industrial experiments that were happening at the time! The whole thing is as evocative of the dark economic corners of Poland as it is the horror of a vampire taking its victim – and titles include "Zasdzki", "Tropicel", "Mgla", "Slady Zbrodni", "Wampir I Ofiary", and "Zmierzch Dnia". CD