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Proof that jazz can work with the same sort of supergroup energy as classic rock – especially when the overall sound is as rock-heavy as this! The album presents live material recorded in celebration of Klaus Doldinger's 20 years in music – and although issued as part of his Passport run for Atlantic Records, the album's much more of an all-star jamming affair – with guest work from progressive jazz luminaries like Volker Kriegel, Alexis Korner, Pete York, and Brian Auger – plus American tenorist Johnny Griffin, almost an odd choice for this sort of a record, but a surprisingly good fit – and no doubt chosen because of his work with some of the players in the MPS scene of the time! Tracks are a bit more jazzy than some of the other Passport work – although still quite jamming, with a rock-propelled bottom – and titles include "Freedom Jazz Dance", "Handmade", "Lemuria's Dance", "Rockport", "Rock Me Baby", and "Schirokko". CD

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A rare Jubilee Records album from Art Blakey – one of his non-Blue Note sets from the late 50s, cut during the year of 1957 – a time when the Jazz Messengers were hopping around a lot of different labels! This version of the group is searing and soulful – and features Johnny Griffin on tenor, Bill Hardman on trumpet, Sam Dockery on piano, and Spanky DeBrest on bass – plus the unusual addition of Sabu Martinez on conga, rocking and rollicking alongside Blakey's drums in an amazing way! The set's quite different than some of Art's "with percussion" dates for Blue Note – as Sabu's congas kind of just set an extra fire to the hardbop groove – giving it a slight Latin flavor, but more than anything, just getting in a wicked edge that really cooks up the session. Griffin is great, as always, and the album features four long tracks "Woddyn You", "Sakeena", "Shorty", and "Dawn On The Desert". CD

The only 2 trio sessions recorded by pianist and vibist Eddie Costa – both done in the late 50s, a few years before Eddie's untimely early death! The first 9 tracks on the CD feature work from the Eddie Costa/Vinnie Burke Trio album – a spare and sweet little set from the team of Costa and Burke – one of the best of the east coast chamber jazz pairings of the 50s! The duo's trio has Eddie on piano and vibes, Vinnie on bass, and Nick Stabulas on drums – all working together to craft light, rhythmic versions of tunes that really change them up rhythmically – working in the most playful mode of the time to freely create over the top of familiar numbers that include "Fascinating Rhythm", "It Could Happen To You", "Sweet & Lovely", "Yesterdays", and "Let's Do It". The set also features two nice originals – "Unison Blues" and "Pile Driver". House Of Blue Lights is a quite different record altogether – one that has Eddie playing with a much heavier touch on the left hand – inflecting the keys in a bluesier mode, but also working here with some modern touches from drummer Paul Motian, who's in the trio along with bassist Wendell Marshall. Costa's tone has changed decidedly for the record – and he's often got a loudly flowing approach to the keys that echoes later work by McCoy Tyner, Steve Kuhn, and other key 60s innovators. And even though tracks are again mostly familiar numbers, Costa's really pushing them to new levels – pushing, pausing, and twisting them into unusual time structures and melodic progressions. Titles include "House Of Blue Lights", "Diane", "When I Fall In Love", "My Funny Valentine", "What's To Ya", and "Anabelle". 15 tracks in all – 9 from the Costa/Burke Trio album, and 6 from Blue Lights. CD

A gem of a record – easily one of Herb Geller's best! There's a bite to the record we really love – a quality in Geller's tone that really blows us away – and which has had us going back and re-evaluating his career after hearing this set. Part of the strength is the setting – a nicely dark vibe, typical to some of the other Jubilee jazz sessions of the time – played by a lineup that includes Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Harold Land on tenor, Lou Levy on piano, Ray Brown on bass, and Lawrence Marable on bass – an ensemble that have a fuller punch than some of Geller's other groups in the 60s. The track's are easily grooving hardbop numbers – nearly all originals, and handled with a style that's much more New York oriented than you'd expect from Geller's west coast roots. Titles include "S'Pacific View", "The Fruit", "Marable Eyes", "Melrose & Sam", and "An Air For The Heir". CD

Wild electric work from Les McCann – an album of free, open sounds that's quite a change from his styles of the 60s – and from most of his other work of the 70s too! Side one features an extended 26 minute track titled "The Lovers" – a slow-building number that has Les on sublime Fender Rhodes, as things build slowly with this really spiritual current that comes from the addition of Yusef Lateef on reeds, Cornell Dupree and David Spinozza on guitar, Corky Hale on harp, and both Bernard Purdie and Alphonse Mouzon on drums! The track is loose, but builds into some great funky moments – almost a keyboard version of electric Miles Davis at the time, but a lot more soulful. And side two continues the heavy keyboard vibe – with a killer remake of Les' classic "Beaux J Poo Poo" and a similar "Poo Pye McGoochie", both with the kind of choppy funky grooves Les laid down with Eddie Harris a few years prior! CD features a long bonus track – a live version of "Compared To What", which originally appeared on the Doldinger Jubilee album from 1975. CD

A great late-life effort from Bobby Womack – hardly the kind of record he would have recorded back in the day, and a tremendous testament to his undeniably soulful talents! The album was done with production help from Damon Albarn and Richard Russell – and definitely has a contemporary bent in some of the backings – nothing too overly-modern, nor commercial at all – but a freshness that seems to really set Womack's vocals free – in a format that has Bobby sounding better than we've heard in a long, long time! Russell contributes some beats and effects to the set – but these almost always have a nice earthy sort of crispness – one that makes for music that's quite warm overall, and really fits the rootsy feel of Bobby's vocals – an approach that's not unlike some of the final Gil Scott-Heron recordings, with equally successful results. Titles include "Deep River", "Dayglo Reflection", "Stupid", "If There Wasn't Something There", "Love Is Gonna Lift You Up", "Jubilee", and "Please Forgive My Heart". CD

One of the most unusual "best of" collections you'll ever own – given that it features material pulled together from seven different albums by Ben LaMar Gay – none of which were ever released! The package is more of a debut than anything else – and a hell of a musical statement, too – as Ben's music is almost completely without referent – and that's saying a lot, given the already genre-busting nature of other releases on the International Anthem label! We might list the music under jazz – as it does feature some jazz instrumentation – but there's also lots of electronic elements too, often used in these shape-shifting ways that criss cross with other elements – like bass clarinet, flute, viola, and voice – all kind of crashing together in waves of sonic energy that embrace multiple genres at once, but never have the hokey result of other music that might try to do such a thing. Instead, imagine Ben's voice as being this bold cut-up experiment (in the original William S Burroughs mode) – but one that might have been taken across the scope of an entire record collection, sweeping up snatches of jazz, electronica, orchestral music, folk, hip hop, and lots more – all with results that are as revolutionary as Burroughs' writing. Titles include "Muhal", "Music For 18 Hairdressers – Braids & Friends", "7th Stanza", "Gator Teeth", "Swim Swim", "Kunni", "Oh No Not Again", "Jubilee", and "A Seasoning Called Primavera". CD

The second half of the legendary Jazz At Massey Hall performance from 1953 – a set that features the core rhythm trio, without Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie – a killer lineup that has Bud Powell on piano, Charles Mingus on bass, and Max Roach on drums! The tunes are a bit shorter than on the quintet sides, but maybe that's because Powell can always pack so much into such a short space – and Mingus has plenty of sharp small group imagination here, while Roach is a young genius, really breaking out here too. Titles include "Sure Thing", "Lullaby Of Birdland", "Jubilee", "Cherokee", and "Embraceable You". CD

A great lost session by Stan The Man – recorded in the early 60s when he was doing some of his best work, but not issued by Blue Note until the mid 80s! The album stands right up there with other Blue Note gems of the time – especially albums like Comin Your Way and Jubilee Shout, both of which also had to wait many years to be discovered – and Turrentine's got all the bold, raspy tones we love in his youthful horn – a sense of phrasing and energy that's quite different than his later years. The group on the record helps keep the vibe a lot – with some excellent guitar from Grant Green, always a great one on a date like this – plus Tommy Flanagan on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Taylor on drums. The interplay between Green and Turrentine is wonderful – even before they start soloing – and titles include "ZT's Blues", "Be My Love", "The Lamp Is Low", and "The Way You Look Tonight". CD

Includes the songs "Jubilee Stomp", "Drop Me Off At Harlem", "The Clothed Woman", "Sophisticated Lady", "Doin' The Voom Voom", "On A Turquoise Cloud", "All Too Soon", "Tonk", "I Let A Song Go Out Of My Heart", "Echoes Of Harlem", "Prelude To A Kiss", "The Gal From Joe's", "Day Dream", and "Come Sunday". CD

One of the sexiest covers ever to grace a Wynton Marsalis album, but thankfully a record that's still got plenty of real jazz roots – and not the smoother sound you might expect from the image on the front! The group here is Wynton's expanded septet – a combo with Marcus Roberts on piano, Wes Anderson on alto, Wycliffe Gordon on trombone, and Todd Williams on tenor, soprano, and clarinet – all in far-reaching modes of jazz expression that often have an imagistic, soundtrack quality – one that echoes years and places past. Wynton plays piano, and also speaks to introduce "Monologue For Sugar Cane & Sweetie Pie" – and other titles include "And The Band Played On", "Brother Veal", "Sometimes It Goes Like That", and "The Jubilee Suite". CD

A really great collection of work from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – a set that's a collection of mostly older tracks, but which also includes a dozen unissued numbers – all put together with that special flair that always made the group's mid-70s records so different than work of their contemporaries! In other words, this is hardly a lean "greatest hits" collection – and instead, the 3LP collection has bits from the first decade of the group's career coming together in all sorts of different ways – almost with the longform exploratory sense of Will The Circle Be Unbroken, and the playful interplay of their Stars & Stripes set – both expanded packages like this. There's many gems here in an array of styles – and titles include "Bayou Jubilee/Sally Was A Goodun", "Some Of Shelly's Blues", "Ripplin Waters", "You Are My Flower", "Creepin Round Your Back Door", "Sixteen Tracks", "Honky Tonkin", "Soldier's Joy", "Buy For Me The Rain", "Melissa", "Woody Woodpecker", "Cosmic Cowboy (part 1)", "Mother Earth Provides For Me", "Jamaica Lady", "Gavotte No 2", "All I Have To Do Is Dream", "Visiting An Old Friend", and "Win Or Lose". CD

Includes music by Mahalia Jackson, The Trumpeteers, Roberta Martin Singers, Famous Blue Jay Singers of Birmingham, Angelic Gospel Singers, Golden Gate Jubilee Quartet, Georgia Peach & Her Gospel Singers, the Soul Stirrers, Swan Silvertones, Shirley Caesar, and more – 18 tracks in all! CD