A stunning set of punk jazz, and one that maybe hearkens back to key experiments of this nature from the 80s scene – particularly some of the more groundbreaking work on the New York downtown scene! Ava Mendoza plays electric guitar and Devi Hoff play electric bass – but the pair also work here with excellent tenor from James Brandon Lewis, whose presence really balances out the fuzzier electric energy in a great way – different lines, different sounds, and a balance that never has Lewis trying to match the guitars for ferocity, which is a real plus. The quartet also features great drums from Ches Smith – and titles include "The Stumble", "Interwhining", "Dyscalculia", "Babel 17", "New Ghosts", and "Ten Forward". CD

Annita Ray's vocals are certainly the main attraction here – but we're as equally in love with the backings from Harry Betts! The album's got a great sense of balance between the singer and the band going on – one that takes Ray's mix of breathy and warbling vocals, and focuses it nicely through Betts' blend of woodwinds, light strings, and gentle rhythms – a mode that has lots of bright notes that sparkle out and help illuminate the music, almost creating a sense of counterpoint with the vocals. Annita's the kind of singer who might falter in some other kind of setting, but she really sounds great here – with just a slight undercurrent of the blue-toned modes of Brenda Lee, yet not nearly as overdone. Titles include "I'll Be Around", "Oh You Crazy Moon", "A Sunday Kind Of Love", "For All We Know", "This Time The Dream's On Me", and "Slow Glow". CD

A follow up to Tompkins Square's excellent Berkeley Guitars compilation – featuring some of the best solo acoustic folk guitar players in the Bay Area, and simply an excellent set of timeless music by wonderful modern players – including Aaron Sheppard, Richard Osborn, Trevor Healy, Chuck Johnson, Sean Smith, Lucas Boilon and Ava Mendoza. Includes "The Transmigration Of The Old West" by Aaron Sheppard, "A Dream Of Distant Summer" by Richard Osborn, "Wrapped In Water" by Trevor Healy, "A Struggle, Not A Thought" by Chuck Johnson, "Ourselves When We Are Real" by Sean Smith, "Studies Of The Oak As Pertaining To Druidic Rites Of Passage" by Lucas Boilon and "Redwood Regional Park Blues: Between Hay And Grass" by Ava Mendoza. CD

A fantastic album from trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire – a set that really kicks his career up to the next level, and which is easily the most powerful record he's ever given us! The music finds Ambrose in many moods, all of them righteous – sometimes blowing hard and fierce in a small combo, sometimes issuing out more personal statements in a more stripped-down setting – working with players that include Harish Raghavan on bass, Justin Brown on drums, and Sam Harris on piano – plus vocalist Genevieve Artadi on one especially beautiful number that features Akinmusire on Fender Rhodes! We've loved the music of Ambrose for many years – and this is one of those faith-rewarding sets that always makes it so wonderful to follow the career of any key jazz musician – as we hope you'll also find on titles that include "Roy", "4623", "Moon", "Tide Of Hyacinth", "Cynical Sideliners", and "Mr Roscoe". CD

Although the Muse label had a reputation for doing mostly straight ahead sessions, they did manage to come up with some great avant ones, thanks mainly to the production work of Michael Cuscuna. Here, percussionist Barry Altschul is joined by his old Circle bandmate Dave Holland, and free-thinking out players Sam Rivers, Muhal Richard Abrams, and George Lewis. The melding of AACM and Circle-esque traditions of out playing is a good one, and the set has a number of different tones and voices. Titles include "King Korn", "Hey Toots", "Cmbeh", and "Natal Chart". CD

Includes the tracks "Havana/New York", "Para Los Papines", "Broadway Reunion (Recorded Live At Broadway And 44th Streets NYC)", and "En Memoria De Chano Pozo". CD

6 tracks by Frankie Avalon and 3 tracks by Fabian. CD

Patricia Barber on piano and vocals, John McLean on guitars, Michael Arnopol on bass, and Mark Walker on drums and percussion. Titles include "What A Shame", "Mourning Grace", "Ode To Billie Joe", "Mahna De Carnaval", "Inch Worm", "The Thrill Is Gone", "Romanesque", and more. CD

Genius work from Les Baxter – two of his best albums for Capitol, back to back on one CD! Ritual Of The Savage is one of those must-have albums from the 50s – a super-huge record upon its initial release, and an album that pushed the genre of exotica far further than most others at the time! Before this record, most attempts at exotica were simple instrumental pop, colored with slight worldly instrumentation – or too-dreamy recordings, putting over a sleepy version of life on the islands. Enter Les Baxter, who had an amazing ear for sounds, rhythms, and arrangements – one that was the first to record this sort of music in a way that was sonically evocative, and could stand on its own without other referents. Instrumentation is often conventional, but used oddly here – and Baxter's original compositions are all pretty darn great – playful without being goofy, and nicely mixing Latin and Pacific rhythms at the bottom. Titles include "Busy Port", "The Ritual", "Coronation", "Jungle Jalopy", and Les' original version of "Quiet Village". Heck, even the cover is gorgeous – with a brilliant blue illustration of some guy putting the moves on a woman amidst spooky tribal relics! The Passions is a really obscure box set recording – done as Les Baxter's classic exploitation of "a woman's passions", using vocalist Bas Sheva in the role of the tormented female! Shiva's got a bold, evocative style that's not unlike Yma Sumac – and she sings here wordlessly, as an added instrument on top of Baxter's orchestrations – playing the role of the inner psyche of woman, on titles that include "Lust", "Terror", "Joy", "Hate", "Ecstasy", and "Despair"! The whole thing's a mini docu-drama in sound – beautifully recorded in a flurry of red, blue, and other chromatic hues – not as exotic as Baxter's other work from the 50s, but equally great as a modern sonic psychoanalytic text! CD

20 tracks including "Roll Over Beethoven", "Maybellene", "Thirty Days", "Havana Moon", "Reelin' and Rockin", "Beautiful Delilah", "School Day", and "Johnny B. Goode". CD

A smoker from Art Blakey's later years – a killer session that features a reunion of past Jazz Messengers, with a cast that includes Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Benny Golson on tenor, and Walter Davis Jr on piano! Buster Williams is on bass, and he brings a nice degree of soul to the set – rounding and warming things to give the album a progressive soul jazz approach that we really love – a dose of the slightly more righteous side that Blakey hit during his early 70s Prestige Records years. The group comes together with a magical flourish – moving past simple "here's my solo" styles, into a unified ensemble that really sounds special here. Titles include the excellent "Dana's Dance" – penned by Davis, and a really fresh choice for a date like this – plus "Uranus", "Ala Mode", and "Just By Myself". CD

Really stunning work from John Blum – one of his few efforts as a lead act, and one that has us wondering why he hasn't given the world a lot more tremendous albums like this! Blum's got this way of attacking the piano that's definitely in the school of Cecil Taylor, an old mentor – yet the recording also has this way of working the sound of the room into the blend of the work on the keys of the piano – this kind of echoey brilliance that almost seems to absorb some sonic ideals of avant composition as much as it does explode with the energy of free improvisation! Titles the set features nine tracks in all – each numbered "River" selections. CD

With Arthur Blythe on alto, John Hicks on piano, Dwayen Dolphin on bass, and Cecil Brooks III on drums. CD

Tracks include "De Cigarro Em Cigarro", "O Barbinah Branca", "Engano", "Perdido De Amor", "Manha De Carnaval", and "Eu Voce E O Mar". 14 tracks total. CD

A key slice of Clifford Brown from the 50s – two long tracks both recorded in an open-ended jam session format, showing a side of Brown's powers that's even bolder and more inventive than some of his previous studio work! The album soars along beautifully – with Brownie in the lead amongst an unusual, but well-chosen batch of players that includes Herb Geller and Joe Maini on alto saxes, Walter Benton on tenor, Kenny Drew on piano, Curtis Counce on bass, and Max Roach on drums – all grooving alongside Clifford on the album's nicely extended tracks. The album was released after Brown's death in 1956, features the side-long tracks "Caravan" and "Autumn In New York". CD also features a bonus take on "Caravan" – much shorter, called "Caravan (The Boss Man)". CD

Donald Byrd in a sweet electric mode – as you'd guess from the title! The set was recorded right before Byrd's legendary run with Larry Mizell in the early 70s – and the electric approach is a bit different here – a style that blends Byrd's wonderful trumpet lines with the larger ensemble mode Blue Note sometimes used in the late 60s, but with a spacey, stretched-out feel that's mighty nice! The album's somewhat similar to Byrd's Kofi set – but possibly a bit more open overall – and players here include Duke Pearson on electric piano, Jerry Dodgion on alto and sopranos ax, Frank Foster on tenor, Pepper Adams on baritone, Hermeto Pascoal on flute, Wally Richardson on guitar, Ron Carter on bass, Mickey Roker on drums, and Airto on percussion. Pearson produced, and probably arranged too – given a slight Brazilian undercurrent to the grooves – and titles include "Estavanico", "Essence", "The Dude", and "Xibaba". CD

Live In Denver, Colorado, USA, 1974. CD

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Include the songs "Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte", "Black Orpheus", "Pavane", "Oblivion", "Reverie", "Healing In Foreign Lands", "Apres Un Reve", "Excerpt From Alexandra", and "Cinema Paradiso". CD

Features Ron Carter on bass, Houston Person on tenor saxophone, Bill Frisell on guitar, Stephen Scott on piano, Payton Crossley on drums, and Steve Kroon on percussion. Tracks include "Manha De Carnaval", "Goin' Home", "Samba De Orfeu", and the Carter originals "Saudade", "Obrigado", and "1:17 Special". CD

The raw, mesmerizing debut of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds! On From Her To Eternity, Cave stalks and staggers right along the line between the aggro caterwaul of The Birthday Party and the haunting moodiness of later records with the Bad Seeds – and it's as distinct and exciting as ever after all these years! The looseness of the Bad Seeds sound is big part of what makes it so amazing, with spare backdrops that always carry the promise of noisy menace to come, and it's all the more exciting with it does – and Cave's mournful, angry testifying is in near peak form here. Includes "Avalanche", "Cabin Fever!", "Well Of Misery", "From Here To Eternity", "Saint Huck", "Wings Off Flies" and "A Box For Black Paul". DVD features 5.1 DVD-audio surround mix and bonus videos! CD

A fresh new chapter of the long legacy of drummer Joe Chambers – a key instrumental force in the hipper reaches of the Blue Note label in the late 60s, but an artist who seems to finally be catching up with his own work as a leader after all these years! Joe is every bit as wonderful here as on his famous recordings, and his more recent dates for Blue Note – a wonderfully inventive percussionist, and an inherently rhythmic player who's got this ability to spin sounds out in all these different directions, yet always make things feel wonderfully unified too. His group on the set has excellent vibes from Michael Davidson, almost recalling Joe's work with Bobby Hutcherson – and other players include Caoilainn Power on alto, Andres Vial on piano, Eli Miller Maboungou on ngoma drums, and Ira Coleman on bass. Titles include "Dance Kobina", "Intermezzo", "Gazelle Suite", "City Of Saints", "Moon Dance", "Power To The People", and "Caravanserai". CD