A real mind-trip – and an incredible document of the times – not just ideas floating around in the late 60s, but also new ways of making records too! The album is loosely based around ideas and writings from The Medium Is The Massage – McLuhan's important 1967 book, co-written with Quentin Fiore – and represented here as a wild sound collage that blends together music, sounds, media snippets, and readings by McLuhan, Fiore, and a host of other voices! The album's actually much more of a "happening" than a spoken word album – a real studio party that's cut up and messed up by all the added effects, sounds, and music – genius that comes from Jerome Agel, who put the whole project together – and delivered it to the loving hands of John Simon, who produced some other wonderful records of this nature for late 60s Columbia. A real delight throughout – and the kind of an album we wish people still kept making! Great reissue package – in a gatefold LP-styled sleeve, with additional artwork, rare photos, full notes on the sessions, and more! CD

A late-life interview with Sun Ra – one recorded in the studio of composer Charlie Morrow, who is wise enough to let Ra open up and speak his mind! There's no music at all on the record – which is great, as you get to hear the wisdom of Sun Ra in a very different way than when he's playing piano, or leading the Arkestra – speaking in a voice that's both full of the larger ideas that have always shown up in his writings, but with a quality that's surprisingly down to earth! That side of Ra isn't always that well documented – and the record is a great illustration of the charms that Ra could have when working at a very interpersonal level – still a man of concepts, but also a man of the people as well. (Jazz, Spoken Word) LP, Vinyl record album

A wicked lost album of righteous funk and poetic knowledge from the great Gary Byrd! Gary began his life as a soul DJ in New York, but by the early 70s, he was using his rich voice to create recordings designed to educate as much as entertain. That said, the album is as funky as it is strident, and innovatively soulful – it's got raw and heavy drums and horns the burst in, but there's also roomier, slinkier grooves created to frame Byrd's voice and mood. The arrangements are by Chico O'Farrill and he really delivers. Gary Byrd's storytelling and spoken delivery leads the way, though – righteousness without bitterness, angry yet agreeable – truly brilliant and unique work! Titles include "To You Beautiful Black Sister", "If The People Only Knew (Power To The People)", "Shining Black Prince", "Country Preacher", and "How Long My People" and more. This great 2011 CD edition from Get On Down includes the bonus "Soul Travelin' Pt I (The GBE)" and "Soul Travelin' Pt I (The GBE)". (Soul, Spoken Word) CD

One of the Last Poets greatest albums – and one of their most sophisticated as well! Gone are the rough-hewn rhymes of the group's first album, and in their place are better arranged, more thought-out tracks that mix in a wealth of musical influences – and which expand the group's verbal expression past simple protests, and into the realm of Jazzoetry that became their trademark during the mid 70s. Tracks include "Related to What", "Black Is", "White Man's Got a God Complex", "Black People What Y'All Gonna Do", and "This is Madness" – and a number of tracks are preceded by strong and forceful chants before the lyrics kick in! (Soul, Spoken Word) LP, Vinyl record album