An excellent album that features some great Fender Rhodes work from the mighty Frank Cunimondo! Frank's more famous for his oft-sampled work with singer Lynn Marino – but this album's a lot more obscure, and features Frank doing amazing work on electric and acoustic piano, aided and abetted by drummer Roger Humphries and bassist Mike Taylor. The format of the album is simple, but the sound is incredible – with lots of complicated fills and grooves from the rhythm section, a perfect platform for Frank to get all warm and moody on the keys, ringing out in that subtly funky style that's made him a favorite on the groove scene for years. Includes sublime versions of "Wichita Lineman" and "We've Only Just Begun" – both done in a mellow funk mode that's just great – plus the tracks "Seven Steps To Heaven", "Echoes", "You've Made Me So Very Happy", "Remembering Our Love", and "Bonnie B". CD

A great illustration of the way that Martin Denny expanded his groove in the 60s – on some sweetly inventive records like this! On Latin Village, Martin Denny changes the rhythms from tropical to Latin – but the overall groove is still highly in his best exotica mode, and nicely augmented by some additional instrumentation! There's some traces here of the shift in production for instrumental music from the time – a bit of electric bass echoing out at the bottom of some cuts, more echo than usual on the piano lines, and a floating quality that's almost even more sublime than the original Liberty sessions. But the core Denny elements are also still in place – tinkling piano, island percussion, and a playful approach to familiar rhythms that never fails to please. The Latin is more of a nod to harder Latin modes than anything else, but it does make for a nice, if subtle change – one that works especially well when Denny's piano is out front, but compressed a bit in the mix. Titles include "Flying Down To Rio", "Ho Ba La La", "Something Latin", "Girl From Ipanema", and "Latin Village". The Versatile Martin Denny definitely lives up to the versatile in the title – working through a whole host of different 50s and 60s easy tunes – played in ways that are much wider-ranging than usual! Some are percussive and slightly exotic, some have more strings and tinkling piano, and some get slightly playful instrumentation – in a very nice way. Titles include "Little Bird", "Theme From Mondo Cane", "Exotique Bossa Nova", "Quiet Village Bossa Nova", and "Strawberry Tree". CD

Beautiful grooves from the legendary Piero Piccioni – a set that's a great follow-up to some of his famous 60s work – touched with a few more sexy 70s touches than before, but in a way that's still extremely groovy! There's lots of electric piano lines on the set – almost a Stelvio Cipriani vibe at times – but these are mixed with fuller arrangements from Piero, with slinky woodwinds and some great rhythms that extrapolate styles from bossa nova, then go off in all these cool jazzy directions! The music was scored for a documentary of the "mondo" variety, but has a feel that's much more like the best love/sex soundtracks of the time – with titles that include "Katmandu", "Starless Sky", "Inventions", "It's Possible", "Nights To Come", "New Ways To Live", and "Love Will Find A Way". 2CD version features a whopping 49 tracks in all – over two hours of music, and a delight throughout! CD

Very groovy! This series never stops being great – and this 7th volume is a stunning set of mellow jazzy grooves, with kind of a slight 60s easy bent to them! The list of tracks is very nice, with many light lilting groovers – including a number with a good Brazilian feel to them. Titles include "Misturada" by Kjeli Ohman, "A Starlett For You" by Andre Luterau, "Samba Para Norma" by Joel Wanroogenbroek, "Summertime" by Herb Alpert, "We've Only Just Begun" by Frank Cunimondo Trio, "Take Seven" by Roger Roger, "Bim Bom" by Silvio Silvera, "Berimbau" by Americo Bellotto, and "Kidnapping" by Karlheinz Schafer. Nice cover, too! CD