Jay Leonhart on bass and vocals, Joe Beck and Mark Elf on guitar, Ted Rosenthal on piano, and Michael Leonhart on trumpet. CD

A great little set – way more than you might think from the cover! Ostensibly, this one's a cash-in album for the mid 70s Star Wars soundtrack craze – but since it's handled by trumpet genius Don Ellis, it's got a surprisingly funky feel – with many tracks that recall his own great soundtrack work of the time, especially the nice electric current in his grooves. In fact, the album only has two tracks from the Star Wars soundtrack – despite the fact that the logo for the movie is displayed largely on the cover – and all other tracks are originals by Ellis, handled with a sweet mix of electric funk and funky jazz soloing! Lots of nice keyboards, and titles include "Star Wars", "Orion's Sword", "Eros", "Lyra", "Ursa", "Vulcan", "Crypton" and "Arcturas". CD

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

... 12-inch, Vinyl record

Features work by Eddie & The Showmen, Tom Starr & The Galaxies, The Challengers, The Original Surfaries, The Sentinals, and The Crossfires! LP, Vinyl record album

2 rare Sun Ra Saturn albums back to back on one CD! Cosmic Tones is one of the Ra's greatest albums for Saturn – a record that has him playing clavioline and echoey "cosmic side drums" with a great spacey sound that was probably arrived at through some primitive reverb and echo techniques! The overall effect is everything you'd imagined about Sun Ra – a mixture of hardbop, soul jazz, and some spacey musings that are definitely out of this world! Titles include "Moon Dance", "Voice of Space", and "Adventure Equation". Art Forms features material recorded in New York in 1961, and released on Saturn in 1965 – but whatever the date, it's still light years ahead of its time! Ra plays piano, as usual, but he also works with some beautiful instruments of his own creation – including the strangely wonderful Sun Harp, the Dragon Drum, and the Spiral Percussion Gong. The percussion instruments are heard to great effect on the track "Solar Drums" – which has an echoey percussive sound that's really wonderful! The rest of the group includes John Gilmore, Ronnie Boykins, Pat Patrick, Clifford Thornton, Marshall Allen, and Clifford Jarvis – classic Ra players all of them – and other titles include "Lights On A Satellite", "Kosmos In Blue", and "Cluster Of Galaxies". CD

The legendary Chess Records is best known as a home to important blues, soul, and gospel records from the postwar years – but back in the 50s, the label also did a pretty great job with the harder side of the rock and roll spectrum too! Maybe that's no surprise, given that the Chess Brothers always had a great ear for new and unusual music – to a point where they sometimes issued work that wasn't recorded in their Chicago studios, which is the case with a fair bit of the cuts on this collection – many of which hail from points farther south, from territory that was bristling with new energy from rockabilly pioneers at the time! There's a few more familiar Chess artists mixed in here with more obscure artists who only issued singles for the label – and the massive 33 track package comes with very detailed notes on all the tracks within. Titles include "Run Rose" by Billy Miranda, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by Don & Bob, "The Story Of My Life" by Big Al Downing, "So Long Goodbye" by JC Hill, "Baby Bye Bye" by Dickie & The Gees, "Make Believe Wedding Bells" by Dick Glasser, "I Found My Girl" by The Kents, "6:15" by The Galaxies, "I Am Ready" by Bobby Dean, "See You Soon Baboon" by Dale Hawkins, "No More" by Bobby Charles, and That's All You Gotta Do" by Jack Ford. CD

A beautifully earthy performance – and a set that not only has the three members of the trio on their trademark instruments, but also picking up a wide range of other elements too! Joe Morris is perhaps the most striking here – as in addition to guitar, he also uses banjo, fiddle, bass, banjouke, pocket trumpet, and even a bit of whistles – a sonic sense of variety that's matched by Parker's use of shakuhachi, sintir, n'goni, and thumb piano – all instruments that he plays with the same deeply spiritual currents of his work on bass! Hamid Drake sticks mostly to percussion – a range of drums, cymbals, and gongs – but overall, his performance feels as open and organic as the others – far beyond both standard and free jazz, into a mode that almost works in some ethnographic currents as well. The whole record's as poetic as the title – and tracks include "Profound Branches", "The Sky Was Purple Blue", "Energy Of Patience", "The Rhythm Of Butterflies", "Endless Galaxies", and "Grass Beneath The Cracked Shells". CD

Round, warm sounds from bassist Charnett Moffett – working here on both acoustic and electric bass, always with that laidback sense of flow that always made his older work so great! Moffett seems to shape each tune in a different way – and he's joined in this pursuit by guitarist Stanley Jordan, who reminds us of his wonderful sense of tone throughout – and by pianist Cyrus Chestnut, who's on most of the tracks on the set – save for a few that feature Jordan on piano. Jeff Tain Watts handles most of the drums – and tenor legend Pharoah Sanders makes a surprising appearance on three of the album's best tracks. Titles include "Music From Our Soul", "Freedom", "We Are Here To Play", "Love In The Galaxies", "Freedom Swing", "Sound World Suite", and "Celestial Dimensions". CD