With guests Robert Fripp & Richard Lloyd! LP, Vinyl record album

A wonderful bit of soul jazz – much less trippy than some of Charles Lloyd's later work, and handled with a soulful flair that's a mix of Coltrane spiritualism, with an even larger dose of the sort of post-Trane experiments in jazz that would crop up during the early 70s on smaller independent labels – a scene that Lloyd really influenced with albums like this! The record's quite advanced for its time – and features Charles' tenor and flute next to piano by Don Friedman, bass by either Richard Davis or Eddie Khan, and drums by Roy Haynes or JC Moses – on titles that include Lloyd's classic "Forest Flower", plus "Little Peace", "Love Song to A Baby", "Sweet Georgia Bright", and "Bizarre". LP, Vinyl record album

With selections by The Uptowns, Johnny & The Jammers, Albert Scott, Electric Bluebirds, Ronnie Barron, Oscar McLollie & His Honey Jumpers, Jack McVea, The Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Chuck Higgins, Dion & The Belmonts, Chan Romero, Donna Dameron, Johnny Flamingo, Clifton Chenier, and Lloyd Price. LP, Vinyl record album

The title's a bit misleading – as Chico really wasn't much of a hitmaker, at least as far as the charts go – but the album is a wonderful collection of his groundbreaking work for Impulse, killer tracks that are head and shoulders above any of his earlier work! At the time, Hamilton was really going out from his more composed style of earlier years – exploring modal and eastern rhythms with the help of strong players like Gabor Szabo, Charlie Mariano, Charles Lloyd, Jerome Richardson, and Larry Coryell – setting up incredible off-beat grooves that proved to be a perfect foil for edgey reed solos, and tightly woven guitar work. The set's got a heck of a lot of great work from those years – and titles include "For Mods Only", "That Boy With The Long Hair", "Helena", "Baby You Should Know", "Manila", "Lonesome Child", "El Moors", "Transfusion", and "Man From Two Worlds". LP, Vinyl record album