A massive batch of funky soul jazz – the Second Movement (to the first album Swiss Movement) of the collaboration of Eddie Harris and Les McCann! The vibe here is even freer, and hipper, than on the first set – with a host of long tracks that have Les really working the Fender Rhodes into some great grooves, as Eddie blows along some mean, mad Varitone with equal charm! Players include Bernard Purdie, Buck Clarke, and Cornell Dupree – and titles include "Saima", "Carry On Brother", "Universal Prisoner", and the brilliant sample cut "Shorty Rides Again"! LP, Vinyl record album

The extremely successful union of two of Atlantic's biggest funky jazz stars, caught live in Switzerland, with the amazing Benny Bailey sitting in on trumpet. The tracks are long and funky, and are virtually a blueprint for pop soul jazz playing of the time – mixing slinky rhythms with some breakout solos that show that all players are still deeply committed to a strong jazz sound. Titles include "Cold Duck Time", "The Generation Gap", "Kathleen's Theme", and their great version of "Compared To What", with the famous vocal by Les that made the track a soul jazz vocal hit! CD

... 7-inch, Vinyl record

The extremely successful union of two of Atlantic's biggest funky jazz stars, caught live in Switzerland, with the amazing Benny Bailey sitting in on trumpet. The tracks are long and funky, and are virtually a blueprint for pop soul jazz playing of the time – mixing slinky rhythms with some breakout solos that show that all players are still deeply committed to a strong jazz sound. Titles include "Cold Duck Time", "The Generation Gap", "Kathleen's Theme", and their great version of "Compared To What", with the famous vocal by Les that made the track a soul jazz vocal hit! LP, Vinyl record album

The extremely successful union of two of Atlantic's biggest funky jazz stars, caught live in Switzerland, with the amazing Benny Bailey sitting in on trumpet. The tracks are long and funky, and are virtually a blueprint for pop soul jazz playing of the time – mixing slinky rhythms with some breakout solos that show that all players are still deeply committed to a strong jazz sound. Titles include "Cold Duck Time", "The Generation Gap", "Kathleen's Theme", and their great version of "Compared To What", with the famous vocal by Les that made the track a soul jazz vocal hit! CD also features the bonus track "Kaftan". 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! LP, Vinyl record album

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

Great later work from Eddie Harris – three albums in a single set! Live In Berlin is a surprisingly great concert – recorded by Eddie at the end of the 80s, with a fire and open approach that we wouldn't have expected! The album features Eddie on piano and tenor, with backing only by Ray Peterson on bass and Norman Fearrington on drums – and the spare setting really has Eddie taking charge of the set dynamically, hitting funky notes one moment, soulful notes another, and messing around in a tripped-out style that we haven't heard since his best Atlantic recordings of the early 70s. The set kicks off with the funky jamband number "Ambidextrous", rolls into the weird vocal tune "La Carnival", and contains other great numbers like "Scatting Unlyrically Simultaneously", "Airigen", "Walkin", "Lover", and "Eddie Who". Eddie Who is only a trio set, but one that often has all the full, soulful currents of some of the reedman's 70s material for Atlantic Records! Eddie plays piano and trumpet in addition to his usual tenor – and often does so at the same time, thanks to the magic of overdub – which also allows Harris to vocalize a bit next to his instrumental passages, with this very cool sound that's both an extension of the vocalizations he'd begun with Les McCann, but also some more familiar jazz singing as well. The whole album's not vocal, and the more instrumental passages feature some mighty nice tenor – and rhythm is from the team of Ralphe Armstrong on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums. Titles include "Eddie Who", "Cedar Trees", "Silverplated", "Eddie Theme", and "Ambidextrous". People Get Funny is a later album from reedman Eddie Harris – but a set that still continues some of his best funky styles from the 70s Atlantic Records years! In fact, the record may well be the last that Eddie ever cut in this mode – a real surprise at a time when some of his other sessions were more traditional – and the record's filled with lots of very groovy surprises that include great Fender Rhodes from William Henderson, plus more electric piano from Eddie – who also sings a bit too, in that great raspy tone of his. Rhythms are often pretty great, too – funky, in an offbeat way – thanks to sweet basslines from Larry Gales and drums from Carl Burnett. Titles include "People Get Funny When They Get A Little Money", "Ski Ball", "Three Quarter Miles", "Silver Plated", "Hal Strange", and "Step Down To The Top". CD

Includes work with Richard Groove Holmes, Gerald Wilson, Stanley Turrentine, Lou Rawls, and Eddie Harris. 21 tracks total. CD

Funking around something old and something new – as the title says – and a pretty tasty set that has Les on keyboards and vocals, working with a quartet that includes drums, bass, and some nice sax licks from Keith Anderson. The sound's a mixed bag – with some tunes that hit a perfect late 60s Eddie Harris/Les McCann vibe – and others that get a bit mellower and play around the keys, plus one or two vocal numbers that kind of dip down a bit. Overall, though, the feel is fresh enough to warrant our attention, and even the older tunes are remade in some nicer new versions. Titles include "Maleah", "It's You", "Little Blue Volkswagen", "Compared To What", "With These Hands", "Cold Duck Time", and "Zora". CD

Sweet silver cycles from Eddie Harris – a wonderful late 60s album that features lots of lines on the electrified Varitone saxophone, mixed with cool contributions from a shifting lineup of soulful musicians! The set's one of Eddie's real classics from the Atlantic years – completely inventive, but never in a gimmicky way – and a really great bridge between late 60s modes of funk, jazz, and soul – at the same level he'd serve up more famously in his collaborations with Les McCann! There's a lot of that same energy here, but the vibe is even tighter – and Harris really blows us away with his great arrangements, which get a slight bit of help from Arif Mardin. Other players include Melvin Jackson on bass, Seldon Powell on reeds, and Joe Zawinul on keyboards – and titles include "Silver Cycles", "Electric Ballad", "Little Bit", "Free At Last", "Coltrane's View", "Electric Salad", "1974 Blues", and "Smoke Signals". LP, Vinyl record album

Sweet silver cycles from Eddie Harris – a wonderful late 60s album that features lots of lines on the electrified Varitone saxophone, mixed with cool contributions from a shifting lineup of soulful musicians! The set's one of Eddie's real classics from the Atlantic years – completely inventive, but never in a gimmicky way – and a really great bridge between late 60s modes of funk, jazz, and soul – at the same level he'd serve up more famously in his collaborations with Les McCann! There's a lot of that same energy here, but the vibe is even tighter – and Harris really blows us away with his great arrangements, which get a slight bit of help from Arif Mardin. Other players include Melvin Jackson on bass, Seldon Powell on reeds, and Joe Zawinul on keyboards – and titles include "Silver Cycles", "Electric Ballad", "Little Bit", "Free At Last", "Coltrane's View", "Electric Salad", "1974 Blues", and "Smoke Signals". CD

A dozen songs from David "Fathead" Newman, Les McCann & Eddie Harris, Hank Crawford, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Herbie Mann, Ornette Coleman, Mose Allison, John Coltrane, Ray Charles, Yusef Lateef, and Charles Mingus. CD

Here it is, the mother of them all! The set's got 8CDs worth of killer soul, funk, and Rhythm & Blues – all culled from the rich history of the Atlantic records label, and lovingly put together with great notes and everything! Although this sort of set usually tends to be a bit simplistic, this box actually features a beautiful mix of tracks, lots of which are hard to get in any format. It's a lot to go through, but it's worth the trip! We can't even begin to list the tracks here, there's 203(!) of them in all, but some of the artists include the Bar Kays, the Beginning of the End, Archie Bell & The Drells, Ruth Brown, Solomon Burke, the Capitols, Clarence Carter, the Chords, the Cookies, Don Covay, King Curtis, Tyrone Davis, the Drifters, Roberta Flack, King Floyd, Aretha Franklin, Major Harris, Donny Hathaway, the Ikettes, Willis Jackson, Nat Kendricks & The Swans, Barabra Lewis,the Mar-keys, Les McCann & Eddie Harris, Stick McGhee, Otis & Carla, the Persuaders, Percy Sledge, The Spinners, Willie Tee, Joe Tex, Chuck Willis, Betty Wright and loads more! CD

Super-righteous work from William S Fischer – the ultra-hip arranger who was one of the most important forces in the late 60s underground soul jazz scene! Fischer is best known for his work with Eugene McDaniels, Eddie Harris, and Les McCann – almost akin to the sorts of collaborative influence that David Axelrod had with Cannonball Adderley or Lou Rawls, but with a style that was decidedly darker, and trippier. This album's one of the few ever recorded under his own name – originally done for the tripped-out jazz imprint Embryo, and featuring a unique blend of moog, strings, funk, and soul! Billy Cobham plays drums and percussion on the set, Bill Robinson sings on a few numbers, and Walter Sear adds in some extra moog next to Fischer's own work – but the real brilliance comes from the overall concept – funky one minute, laidback and trippy the next, very much in the spirit of some of the righteous crossover funk, soul, and rock recordings coming from McDaniels and Axelrod at the time! Titles include "Patience Is Virtue", "Saigon", "Green Forever", "Chains", "Electrix", "Capsule", and "There's A Light That Shines". LP, Vinyl record album

Throw away your crates and just pack this album under your arm for a gig – and you'll have 16 classic funky tracks to get the party started right! As with other volumes, the focus here is on 70s tracks sampled by hip hoppers during the mid and late 90s – with full sample credits for all tunes, so that you can remember where you remember them from! Titles include "Strollin" by Jack McDuff, "Danube Incident" by Lalo Schifrin, "Born to be Blue" by Jack Bruce, "Lovely Is Today" by Eddie Harris, "Little Lady Maria (skit)" by Ohio Players, "Pastures (skit)" by Ahmad Jamal, "Ready Or Not" by The Delfonics, "Tripping Out" by Curtis Mayfield, "I Can't Stand The Rain" by Ann Peebles, "Vallarta (skit)" by Les McCann, "ET Boogie" by Extra T's, "Sign Song" by Buddy Baker, "American Fruit, African Roots" by Zulema, "Shamboozie" by Bob James, and "The World Is A Place" by Rhythm. LP, Vinyl record album