A great moody set – one that features compelling arrangements from Coleridge Perkinson! CD

A really unique chapter in the career of Ornette Coleman – an album that he produced by himself in 1962, away from any other label – as an effort to showcase the newly freer sounds of his music! The recording's the first in a really groundbreaking stretch for the 60s – and it was fortunately finally issued by ESP Records a few years after the recording – providing a nice link between Coleman's earlier experiments and the sound of the younger generation usually showcased by the label. The group's a trio, with a sound that's quite different than the more rhythmic modes of Coleman on Atlantic Records – a freer, less structured lineup that features percussion from Charles Moffett and bass from David Izenzon. One track also adds in a string quartet – making the record one of Coleman's first experiments with this format – and titles include a 23 minute recording of "The Ark", plus "Doughnut", "Sadness", and "Dedication To Poets and Writers". CD

An open-ended live date from Bill Evans – recorded at the auspicious venue of Town Hall, but recorded with a warmth that matches Evans' smaller club sessions of the 60s! The sound here is possibly a bit more focused and direct than some of the moodier, mellower Evans live records – well pointed at the start, but then moving into some gentler chromatic modes as the set moves on – all with gentle accompaniment from Chuck Israels on bass and Arnold Wise on drums. Titles include trio versions of "I Should Care", "Spring Is Here", 'Who Can I Turn To" and "Make Someone Happy" – then Evans takes a 13 minute solo turn, dedicating a suite to the memory of his father! CD

Howard McGhee and his trumpet team up with pianist Phineas Newborn, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and Shelley Manne on drums for this great early 60s session. The record features the McGhee original "Demon Chase" and two Teddy Edwards songs, "Sunset Eyes" and his salute to McGhee "Maggie's Back in Town." McGhee himself pays tribute to one of his favorite trumpet players, Clifford Brown by doing Brown's "Brownie Speaks." Other titles include "Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise," "Willow Weep for Me" and "Summertime." LP, Vinyl record album

A huge amount of material from The Rockin Berries – one of the great almost-rans of the UK scene in the 60s – a group who should have stormed our shores during the British Invasion, but somehow got left off the boat! The group's got everything shared by all their best contemporaries – a great way with a tune, an ear for a catchy hook, and a way of mixing harmonized vocals with harder rocking moments at a level that means that there's plenty at the core, and the combo need no sweetening up in the studio! They also have two lead singers – Clive Lea and Geoff Turton – who sound great when harmonizing together, and can also split off and really let the group cover a nice range of material. Both of the albums here were produced by Brit sound maestro John Schroeder – Rockin Berries In Town and Life Is Just A Bowl Of Berries – and the set also features 36 more bonus tracks from singles and EP releases at the time – 60 tracks in all! CD

Classic King R&B material from Vinson, featuring some great backing by a surprising amount of jazz players! The album includes playing by Frank Foster, Joe Newman, Charlie Rouse, Ed Thigpen, Freddie Green, Paul Quinichette, and Nat Pierce – and the sound owes a lot to Joe Turner's work with Basie. Titles include "Cherry Red", "That's The Way To Treat Your Woman", "Kidney Stew", "Hold It Right There", and "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine". LP, Vinyl record album

Soulfully-blown tenor from Bennie Wallace – a record that really brings out the deepest, most heartfelt tones of his work on saxophone – yet also lets Bennie stretch out into somewhat free, unstructured territory too! The approach is one that Wallace forged right from the start of his career – a balance between a modern conception and an older sense of swing – one that seems to link together many traditions of tenor work in a single tune! The piano-less quartet has a great sound – with guitar from Jerry Hahn, bass from Bill Huntington, and drums from the mighty Alvin Queen – on titles that include "Thangs", "I Concentrate On You", "It Has Happened To Me", "The Picayune", and "Blues Velvet". CD

Some folks might associate Philadelphia soul with the famous Gamble & Huff productions of the 70s disco years – but the city was already overflowing with great music in the years before Philadelphia International – as you'll hear in this totally groovy set! Philly was making as much great soul music in the 60s as Detroit, Chicago, and New York – thanks to an earlier musical framework that was set up by the city's big pop hits of the late 50s – which provided plenty of labels, studios, and other facilities for Philly's ever-growing array of soul talents, too – so much so that by the end of the 60s, the city was turning into a destination for singers outside of town – almost as much of a musical magnet as studios in Memphis or Muscle Shoals! This set does a great job of bringing together both aspects of that scene – wonderful homegrown talent, mixed with outsiders to really took off in the new Philly sound of the 60s – a joyous, positive, upbeat approach that worked wonderfully well for a variety of artists. Titles include "Your Fool Still Loves You" by Oscar Weathers, "It's All Over But The Shouting" by George Tindley, "You've Been Untrue" by The Delfonics, "Ain't Nothing But A House Party" by The Show Stoppers, "Peace To You Brother" by Lou Johnson, "Christine" by Executive Suite, "Help Me" by Honey & The Bees, "You Got What I Need" by Freddie Scott, "Rainmaker" by The Moods, "Keep On Striving" by Moses Smith, "That's The Price You Have To Pay" by Brenda & The Tabulations, "What You Gave Up" by The Continental 4, "Every Day Is A Holiday" by The Intruders, "Standing In The Darkness" by The Ethics, and "Girl You're Too Young" by Len Barry. CD

A set that might have you rethinking the early years of punk – as it shows that right next to the short sharp shocks of the new sound, there was also a rebirth of tight tuneful music too – a style that became known as power pop, even though many of the acts were ever bit as indie as the punk rockers! Don't mistake the "pop" for thinking that these are big commercial productions – as most of the work here is really back to basics rock and roll – a focus on sharp guitars, great rhythms, and excellent songwriting – served up in a wonderful mix of lesser-known artists, plus a few that went on to be timeless stars. The box set is every bit as great as other Cherry Red 3CD packages – detailed notes, 75 tracks in all, and work by artists who include Filmstars, Elvis Costello, The Questions, Rollers, Bram Tchaikovsky, The Deaf Aids, Undertones, Pinkees, Rudi, Gross Club, Stiff Little Fingers, The Monks, Backseat Romeos, The Flys, Pleasers, Leyton Buzzards, Purple Hearts, Elevators, Public Skool, The Cartoons, Excel, The Quads, Squeeze, Linda & The Dark, The Aces, and many others. CD

Nice collection of early 70's Gamble and Huff stuff, with a number of tracks that aren't too easy to find otherwise, like "Regina" by Bunny Sigler, "Stay With Me" by The Futures, "Super Groover" by Talk of the Town, "Slow Motion" by Johnny Williams, and "It's Forever" by The Ebonys – cuts that were more likely singles on the label. Also includes some more well known hits: O'Jays "Love Train", the Intruders "I'll Always Love My Mama", Billy Paul "Me & Mrs Jones", Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes "If You Don't Know Me By Now" and MFSB "Family Affair", 10 tracks in all. LP, Vinyl record album

Solidly socking soul from Chicago – a great little set recorded with a really old school feel, but one that's also different than the usual deep funk record! The Uptown Sound have a vibe that's all their own – at one level, a quality that's steeped in classic soul – but at another, with a quality that's strangely offbeat too, almost with an undercurrent of darkness in some of the instrumentation that somehow mixes slight punkish roots into funk! Lead singer JC Brooks follows suit strongly – hitting topics that aren't your usual soul music standards, even though his vocals would be right at home with such fare – and instead, the album's got a range of themes that really keep an edge to the set, of the sort that's bound to find these guys a large audience way outside the usual deep funk underground. JC's a real superstar – even larger on stage, which is a recommendation to catch the group live! Titles include "Love One Another", "Hold You Back", "75 Years Of Art Sex", "How To Stop Loving Someone Who's Stopped Loving You", "He Does The Town", and "Berry Please". CD

Four Christmas classics in one package – two from Verve, two from Chess Records! First up is the album Ella Fitzgerald Wishes You A Swinging Christmas – a wonderful Holiday album that's stayed fresh for years! Ella's got a perfect style to interpret these numbers – working with Frank DeVol and Russ Garcia in a set of lightly jazzy versions of Christmas favorites like "Sleigh Ride", "Jingle Bells", "Winter Wonderland", "White Christmas", "Frosty The Snowman", and one of the best versions of "What Are You Doing New Years Eve" ever recorded! The Sound Of Christmas album by Ramsey Lewis is a classic – and probably one of the best-selling Christmas jazz albums of all time! Ramsey and his classic trio with Redd Holt and Eldee Young serve up a tight set of grooves based around Holiday favorites like "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", "Winter Wonderland", "Here Comes Santa Claus", "The Christmas Song", and "Sleigh Ride" – and also carve out a few nice originals like "Christmas Blues" and "The Sound Of Christmas". Side one features the trio on its own, and side two features added arrangements by Riley Hampton – swirling around to expand the groove even more! Christmas 64 – also issued as Christmas Cookin – is as cookin a Christmas album as you'll ever find! Jazz organ giant Jimmy Smith works with Billy Byers to craft some sublime instrumentals that have his Hammond interpreting Christmas classics like "We Three Kings", "White Christmas", "Silent Night", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". If you know Jimmy from the time, you know that he can really make tracks like these groove nicely – and take them to places you never expected! Last up is the album Have Yourself A Soulful Little Christmas, from guitarist Kenny Burrell – on which he grooves nicely and gently over arrangements by Richard Evans, perfectly crafted in that soul jazz mode of his 60s work for Chess – not Kenny's most challenging format, to be sure, but proof that he often works better in a more structured environment than a freer one. Titles include "Away In A Manger", "My Favorite Things", "Little Drummer Boy", "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", "Merry Christmas Baby", and "Go Where I Send Thee". LP, Vinyl record album

Classic club from Webster Lewis – and much more of an all-out disco affair than some of his later work! The record introduces Lewis' all-encompassing style – as he writes, arranges, and produces the album at a level that easily matches that of Barry White – who would later emerge as a mentor for Lewis, introducing him as part of the later Love Unlimited Orchestra records. The group here is billed as "Webster Lewis & The Post-Pop Space-Rock Be-Bop Gospel Tabernacle Orchestra & Chorus" – a pretty good way to describe the soaringly full sound of the album – one that's built up from Webster's keyboards with lots of added strings and rhythms, plus occasional backing vocals from a female chorus. Most of the focus here is instrumental, though – filled with great tunes that include "On The Town", "Love Is The Way", "Do It With Style", "Song Of Joy", "Goodnight Baby Girl", "Since I've Been Gone", and "Saturday Night Steppin Out". LP, Vinyl record album

Really tremendous work from Mandrill – an instant funky classic, and a set that has the group furthering the sublime sound they crafted on their seminal Composite Truth! The record has all these wonderful twists and turns – not just the usual 70s funky styles, but inflections from a globe's worth of influences – all filtered down and used here in fresh new ways to really keep the sound interesting – with a tightness that's never slick, and which instead has this really visionary approach that may well top some of Mandrill's higher-charting contemporaries! Instrumentation has plenty of jazz inflections, which really keeps things interesting – and the percussion has so many different styles going on, it's hard to keep track! Titles include the massive sample cut "Fat City Strut" – plus "Never Die", "Two Sisters Of Mystery", "She Ain't Lookin Too Tough", "Interlude", "Mango Meat", "Afrikus Retrospectus", and "Aspiration Flame". LP, Vinyl record album

Piano, guitar, and bass – all moving along at an almost effortless pace – and a perfect model of the fluid Oscar Peterson sound of the mid 50s! There's a lightly grooving, almost-singing quality to most of the tunes on the set – that ringing Peterson piano sound meeting up with the guitar of Herb Ellis and the warmer bass of Ray Brown – all moving perfectly together in an exploration of a number of familiar tunes. At times, some bluesier modes come into play – but never in a way that's too forced or hokey – and titles include "The Champ", "Easy Listenin' Blues", "Moonlight In Vermont", "Should I", and "When Lights Are Low". CD

Creepingly beautiful – and one of the most haunting records to come out of the Chicago scene of the past few years! Town and Country mix Italian minimalism of the 70s with a grass roots improv style of instrumentation that features warm acoustic guitar, bowed bass passages, slow accordion washes of sound, and wobbly keyboard work that wanders in and out of the live performance. The result is three spare soundscapes that offer a lot more tone, color, and emotion than might be expected from this gang of young upstarts. Titles include "Spicer", "Off Season", and "Give Your Baby A Standing Ovation". CD

An amazing look at the psychedelic scene in late 60s Memphis – music that's really mindblowing for the time, yet which often never got its due – given the stronger mainstream focus on Memphis as a hub for blues and soul! (In other words, had any of these cats hit the Sunset Strip in the late 60s, they would have been huge!) Given that Memphis already had a strong studio scene in place – where some of these musicians worked on other sessions – the recordings here are incredibly advanced – often full of cool production techniques and other little twists and turns – all elements that take already-great fuzzy, freaky, hairy rock and roll – and turn it into something even more incredible by the time it's caught on tape! Most of these names are new to our ears, and the package is definitely a historical treasure trove – as pleasing to our record collectors' sensibilities as the music is to our ears. Sound quality is excellent, and many numbers have not been issued before – titles that include "Eat Me Alive" and "We're In Town" by The Goatdancers, "Crazy Man's Woman" and "Shoo Shoo Shoo Fly" by Greg McCarley, "Blue Music Box" by Changin Tymes, "For Your Love" by the Honey Jug, "Rockin In The Same Old Boat" by Triple X, "Deja Vu" by Judy Bramlett, "Come On Along & Dream" by The Poor Little Rich Kids, "Flying Horse Of Louisiana" by Knowbody Else, "Dancing Girl" by The 1st Century, and "Ticket To Ride" by Mother Roses – plus an advertisement for The Goatdancers too! CD

Strong later sessions from pianist Junior Mance – served up here on three different albums! First up is Softly As In A Morning Sunrise – a record that has Mance working with an excellent trio on the session, which includes the great Jimmy Woode on bass! Jimmy's got a sound that we've loved for decades – and even at this later point in his career, he's got a way of warming things up and getting them going, right from the very first note! Woode's bass brings out a new richness in Junior's piano – and along with drummer Bob Durham, the group really opens up on a set of nice longish tracks – perfect for that open-ended, easy-fingered Mance style that's held up beautifully over the years. One of the best Mance recordings from the time – with cuts that include "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise", "Lady Bird", "Wee", "Sunday Go To Meetin", "Inside Out", "Deli Blues For Blakey", "Broadway", and "The Man From Potters Crossing". The two Town Hall records feature a really wonderful setting for the piano of Junior Mance – not a trio date, but a live session with a quartet – and one that features some very strong contributions from Houston Person on tenor! The vibe is almost more like some of Person's records of the time, but handled with a bit more care and class by Enja – and in addition to Houston's tenor and Junior's piano, the group also features Calvin Hill on bass and Alvin Queen on drums – two players who do a great job of keeping up with the boundless energy of the others on the album's nicely long tracks! Titles on this volume include "Nadja", "Harlem Lullaby", "Small Fry", "I Cried For You", "Mercy Mercy Mercy", "Blues In The Closet", "Some Other Blues", "My Romance", and "Jubilation". CD

A sweet little album of funky instrumental guitar! The record's one of the most obscure on the Westbound label – and it features guitar player Donald Austin going to town on 13 short little cuts with a tripped-out funky groove – sometimes fuzzy, usually funky, and always with that heavier kind of sound you'd expect from Westbound in the early 70s! Austin's guitar is very much in the mode of Eddie Fisher, Eddie Senay, or other kicked-back jazz funk players from his generation – an approach that's probably got a bit of Hendrix somewhere back in the mix, but which is more focused on the tighter side of the funk and soul instrumental spectrum! The album's like finding a stash of rare funky 45s – loads of great short tracks with titles that include "Sex Plot", "Crazy Legs", "You Want It, You Got It", "Side Saddle", "Nanzee", "Pea Shooter", "Do Me Right", and "Shake Your Head". CD

A double-length set that brings together 2 key early live sets by Albert Ayler – both recorded on the New York scene of the mid 60s! Bells was an unusual one-sided record that featured only 20 minutes of music, performed with an intensity that hardly leaves room for complaints about the shortness of the album! The single track "Bells" was performed at Town Hall by Ayler with a group that includes Donald Ayler on trumpet, Charles Tyler on alto sax, Lewis Worrell on bass, and Sunny Murray on percussion – all coming together in a raw, real sense of freedom – beautifully explored here without ever getting too overindulgent. The tune may well be one of the greatest illustrations of the ESP format at its best – as Ayler and company never stray too far, but carve out some incredibly imaginative space through their starkly-blown horn solos! Prophecy is longer – a full album that was recorded live in 1964 at the Cellar Cafe in New York, but not issued by ESP until years later, after Ayler's untimely early death. The performance is a trio outing – with Ayler's tenor alongside the bass of Gary Peacock and drums of Sunny Murray – all freely skirting around each other's space on the date, in a way that allows Ayler to take the bold lead with his sharp-toned solos, but which also allows for free interplay between the bass and percussion. Ayler's tone and wide swaths of sound are simply amazing – and titles include two variations on "Ghosts", plus "Spirits", "Prophecy", and "Wizard". CD

A long-overdue set from the great Johnny Blas – the percussionist who really made the Cubop label so great back in the 90s, returning here with a sound and style that's even more classic than ever! The instrumentation and production are rock-solid throughout – no too-polished modes, and a really strong focus on Johnny's conga work at the core – which seems to ground all the other great instrumentation on the set – including lots of strong work on trombone, piano, flute, and alto – the last two of which are sometimes played by Johnny too! There's vocals on the record on a few tracks, but the main focus is on jazzy instrumentation – and titles include "Unfinished Business", "Never Let Me Go", "Baila Que Baila", "Chi Town (parts 1 & 2)", "Berwyn Stop", and "Danzon For Rocio". LP, Vinyl record album