Guitarist Jakob Bro leads a trio with Thomas Morgan on bass and Joey Barron on drums. LP, Vinyl record album

With Jakob Bro on guitar, Thomas Morgan on bass, and Jon Christensen on drums. LP, Vinyl record album

Quiet beatcraft from Rehash – slowly building into beat heavy abstract funkiness – and a nice little quartet of instrumental moodpieces! Drone By Default finds Rehash taking a sidestep into post rock strummed sounds – and a deeper groove than the downtempo ether of their previous wax! Titles include "Blind Folk Can See", "Tema De Alta Mar", "Drone By Default" and "Untitled". LP, Vinyl record album

Features early production by Dante Carfagna! Includes "Assassination Attempt", "Kaos II *7* Dome", "Mental Genocide", "Jail Sale", "Crucified", "In-Cog-Negrow", "Bro Kemit Splitting Atoms In The Corporate War Zone", "My Ideology" and "The Late Great Black Man". LP, Vinyl record album

Lost funky work from Jimmy Smith – issued on his own small Mojo Records label, which he formed after leaving Verve in the early 70s. The album features 4 long tracks – played by by Jimmy in a hip small combo with Larry Gales on bass, Ray Crawford on guitar, Donald Dean on drums, and Buck Clarke on percussion. The standout cut is the loping groover "Can't Get Enough" – a spare but full-sounding number that has Jimmy hitting that perfect "Root Down" organ mode! Other tracks include a slow funky version of "Killing Me Softly", the jazzy stepper "Paid In Full", and the kicked-back "Bro Pugh". LP, Vinyl record album

Although most Nonesuch Explorer sessions were ethnographic ones, recorded in the field by the label's engineers – this one's a studio session, recorded in New York by a group that's reputedly from Ghana, but which seems to be kind of a "fake" one from our perspective. Why? Well, because Charles Earland's playing tenor, for one – and although his native Philly was kind of far away from New York, we never heard it referred to as "Ghana"! Other players here are US-based jazz ones, too – like drummers Sonny Morgan and Robert Crowder, vibist Garvine Masseaux, and bassist George Brooks. The set's still got a strong High Life sound to it – but it also has jazz flourishes, too, in the way that was used some of the Art Blakey Afro-Drum experiments from the same time. Titles include "Ebony", "Bus Conductor", "Saturday Night", and "Sugar Soup". LP, Vinyl record album

Open, swinging live work from the George Adams/Don Pullen Quartet – and a set that shows both the group's sense of jazz tradition, and their willingness to play with it on their own terms! The tracks here are all quite long, jamming numbers – built on lively rhythms from the bass of Cameron Brown and drums of Dannie Richmond, and featuring a mix of exploratory solos and more swinging moments from Adams on tenor and Pullen on piano. Titles include a great reading of the Mingus tune "Diane" – plus "The Necessary Blues", "Intentions", and "Solitude" – all of which are over 13 minutes long! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the greatest Cannonball Adderley albums from the Riverside years – a completely smoking live date recorded in San Francisco, often with long tracks that really let the group open up and do their thing! The lineup here is that classic one that first grabbed attention – the group with brother Nat on cornet, Sam Jones on bass, Louis Hayes on drums – and a young Bobby Timmons on piano, really cooking things up with tremendous drive, energy, and a sense of the groove! Titles include a great workout on Timmons' classic "This Here", plus originals "You Got It" and Spontaneous Combustion", and a great version of "Hi Fly". Soul jazz at its best, by one of the groups who gave the genre its name in the first place! LP, Vinyl record album

A landmark album – even if it was the only session that Cannonball Adderley ever cut for Blue Note! The album was recorded at a time when Adderley was working with Miles Davis – and as such, the session features a group that includes Miles, blowing trumpet in a cool tone that's a perfect offset to Cannonball's more soulful style on alto sax – also different than the sound of his brother Nat, who was Adderley's more frequent partner on records. The rest of the group includes Hank Jones on piano, Sam Jones on bass, and Art Blakey on drums – and like John Coltrane's Blue Train, the record's more of an "special session" than the usual Blue Note album, but the strength of the players make it one of the more memorable records of its day! Titles include "Somethin' Else", "One For Daddy-O", "Autumn Leaves", "Love For Sale", and a nice moody take on "Dancing In The Dark". LP, Vinyl record album

The Albany touch is a great one here – at once angular and modern, yet also somewhat fragile and certainly human – that great blend of modes that Joe always brought to his rare dates in the studio! Even at the start, Albany had sort of an earthy undercurrent – one that was quite different than the way that might be used in a soulful setting, more kind of a backroom sort of view of the world – slightly detached, but often all-knowing – wrapped up in experience, but tentatively stepping forth to share its own ideas. And while that may sound like a lot to tie up in just one record, it's honestly a quality we feel from a set like this – an amazing Albany approach to the piano, and a good reminder of why we're so lucky that labels like this sought him out for recording sessions like this. Titles include "AB Blues II", "Joe's Blues", "Autumn Leaves", "Time On My Hands", and "Born To Be Blue". LP, Vinyl record album

A nice bit of funky blues, and a very strange record to appear on Motown! The production style and presentation are very rootsy – right down to the photo of Luther on the front cover, who's smoking a cigarette, but trying to pretend it's a joint! The style is electric blues of the Chicago school, but given a bit more of a country funk kind of sound. Titles include "Bad News Is Coming", "Dust My Broom", "Evil Is Going On", "Rock Me Baby", and "Raggedy & Dirty", which actually has some very nice drums! LP, Vinyl record album

A landmark album from The Allman Brothers – and a set that forever set the standard for double live albums in the 70s! The expanded format really let the group open up and show the strengths they had already developed as a live act, long before they walked into the studio for their initial album – as the tracks are often quite long, and let you hear the way they approached the process of creation – using lots of jamming energy that's really let loose here on the longer tunes, which are awash in amazing guitar and organ solos! Dickey Betts and Duane Allman are fantastic together – and titles include the side-long "Whipping Post" and "You Don't Love Me" – plus "Hotlanta", "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed", "Statesboro Blues", "Stormy Monday", and "Done Somebody Wrong". LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

An excellent session of bossa groovers with a slightly classical tinge, played by Ray Brown on bass and Laurindo Almeida on guitar. The set's got a similar feel to some of Ray's other groovy work from the time – like his remake of Jobim's score to the Adventurers. Includes the great groover "Brazilian Greens", plus "Fughetta IV", "Mo Greens", and "Just A Bossa Nova, Not A Symphony". LP, Vinyl record album

An album that definitely earns its title – served up by a British group who use inventive production next to a trippy blend of late psych elements and some weirder, wilder moments! LP, Vinyl record album

With John Scofield on guitar, Geri Allen on keys, Michael Formanek on bass, Daniel Humair on drums, and Jerry Gonzalez on percussion. LP, Vinyl record album

A nice collection of Gene Ammons' work that doesn't always get as well remembered as his sides for Prestige or Chess – a 1947 bop session for Savoy with Howard McGhee on trumpet, Leo Parker on baritone, Junior Mance on piano, Gene Wright on bass, and Chuck Williams on drums; and early 50s sesssions with Johnny Coles on trumpet, Lino Murray on trombone, Mack Easton on tenor and baritone, John Houston on piano, Ben Stuberville on bass, and George Brown on drums; done in a wonderfully full-voiced tone! The set features Gene's classic "Red Top", plus the great two part "Big Slam", and the titles "Chips", "Goodtime Blues", "Fuzzy", "Jim Dawgs", and "Street Of Dreams". LP, Vinyl record album

A nice little 2-fer collecting two great meetings of two greats! Jug and Stitt go head to head on Boss Tenors, a classic album of tracks that perfectly captures the joy and fury of their live performances from years before! The record was cut in Chicago with a very hard rhythm section that includes John Houston on piano, Charles Williams on bass, and George Brown on drums – and it's way heavier than the usual Verve "meeting of the masters" session, and feels more like a record that should have been issued on Prestige or Argo. Both players are impeccable, and the solos stretch out for a long long very live time. Titles include "Blues Up & Down", "The One Before This", and "Counter Clockwise" – but these guys even groove amazingly on standards like "Autumn Leaves" and "No Greater Love". Boss Tenors In Orbit was a follow up one year later, an obscure little session with the pair once again recreating the energy of their live shows – as they stretch out nicely on very long tracks that have spare backing by the Don Patterson trio! The cuts are mostly standard stuff – "John Brown's Body", "Walkin", "Long Ago And Far Away" – but the twin-tenor sound is great, and Patterson's free organ lines riff away nicely! LP, Vinyl record album

Accompanied by Ray Brown on bass, Benny Carter on alto, Ron Eschete on guitar, Marshall Otwell on piano, and Jimmie Smith on drums. LP, Vinyl record album

A great cooker from the glory days of Ernestine Anderson on Concord Records – a time when the singer was rediscovered, and revamped in a bit of a bluesy mode – reaching a wide new audience at the time! Her vocals really shine at this point in her career, as she lets loose with a bit more personality too – as you'll hear on this swinging set of down home numbers, cut with a combo that includes Red Holloway on tenor, Ray Brown on bass, and Gene Harris on piano! Titles include "Someone Else Is Steppin", "Goin To Chicago Blues", "Alone On My Own", "Mercy Mercy Mercy", and "I Love Being Here With You". LP, Vinyl record album

A funky treasure trove from Apple & The Three Oranges – a group we hardly know at all, but who really blow us away with the cuts on this collection! The groove is plenty hard right from the get-go – the best of the funky 45 underground of the early 70s – which means that there's more 60s rawness on the record than you'd get from bigger-label funk at the time – as Ed "Apple" Nelson still works here with a mostly underground vibe! Ed plays drums – which are mighty hard on most numbers – and his vocals have this offbeat, off-kilter, over the top quality that almost reminds us a bit of the Hank Ballard/James Brown recordings for late 60s King – particularly in the way that Nelson's completely unbridled with his energy. The whole thing's great – one of the best funky collections we've heard in years – and presented with a rich amount of notes and historical information too. Titles include "Free & Easy (parts 1 & 2)", "Moon Light", "Curse Upon The World", "What Goes Around Comes Around", "Down Home Publicity", "True Love Will Never Die", "Gotta Stand For Something (parts 1 & 2)", and "I'll Give You A Ring". Features a great 16 page booklet with extensive liner notes and photos! LP, Vinyl record album

One of the standout moments in the career of Rod Argent – a record that gave his self-named group one of their biggest hits ever, yet a set that still kept all the depth and diversity of their other records too! The album starts out with the group's famous "Hold Your Head Up" – the anthemic strutter that crossed over big, and which burns here with plenty of great organ lines from Rod. Other numbers really mix things up – rocking harder than Rod's Zombies work, but also showing some complicated sensibilities too – brought out nicely by co-producer Chris White, who also wrote most of the songs on the date with Argent. Titles include "Pure Love", "He's A Dynamo", "Hold Your Head Up", "Be My Lover Be My Friend", "Keep On Rolling", and "I Am The Dances Of Ages". LP, Vinyl record album

A beautiful pairing of horns – the compressed trombone and trumpet sounds of Bob Brookmeyer and Tom Harrell – coming together here in a record that's one of the real standouts from Brookmeyer's 70s years, and a key demonstration of the young powers that would really make Harrell shine in later decades! The players have a way of blowing that's almost a great 70s update of 50s modern modes – a clear thought to the way they'd work together, but with a more fluid, soulful energy too. Rhythm is just the right kind of easygoing to make the whole thing gel wonderfully – thanks to strong leadership from pianist Benny Aronov – and titles include "Shadow Box", "Marchons", "On A Theme Of Debussy", "Water's Edge", "Upper Manhattan Medical Group", and "Passages". LP, Vinyl record album

Crisp sparkling Afro pop from this Ghanian band. Uptempo grooves are peppered with chirping guitars and bubbling percussion on this set of nice easy African grooves. 7 tracks in all, including "Kill Me & Fly", "Onipa Retu ne Nan", "Saa Na Yede Beye Wo", "Asem Bone Se Hiani", "Gyae Nkonta Buo Yi", "Kusa Wo Bankye" and "Me Wu Mu Bebre". LP, Vinyl record album