... CD

... 78 RPM, Vinyl record

To fans of the group Rush, the title of this record has a very different meaning than the common one – and, no surprise, pianist Brad Mehldau is actually referencing that song by the group here – which he performs on the record, along with some of their other work – and adds in his own music too – all in pursuit of this amazing blend of spirituality informed by progressive rock! The concept is one that's a bit hard to describe in words, and it's also kind of a mindblowing surprise from Mehldau – music we never would have expected from any of his previous records! There's still a current of jazz on the album, but there's all sorts of other things going on too – a guitar solo on one number, heavy drums on another, and even a vocal contribution from Cecile McLorin Salvant, who also sounds nothing like usual. In addition to remakes of "Tom Sawyer" and "Jacob's Ladder", the set also features the titles "Maybe As His Skies Are Wide", "Herr Und Knect", "Cogs IN Cogs", "Voy Correndo Te Encontrar/Racecar", and "Heaven". LP, Vinyl record album

An overdue reunion for Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll (now billed as Tippetts) – and a late 70s session that sounds quite a bit different than their mod soul of the 60s! The format here is still somewhat in a soul-based vein – but the sound is much more 70s, and much more "adult" as well – sometimes smooth, sometimes mellow, with Julie singing in a way that's still heartfelt, but not with the clear nod to American soul of her earlier work. Brian's still playing plenty of keyboards, although not getting in as many licks as on his own albums of the decade – yet still with enough space to help transform some of the best tunes. Titles include "Git Up", "Freedom Highway", "Spirit", "Future Pilot", "Rope Ladder To The Moon", "No Time To Live", and "Nothing Will Be As It Was" – a great English remake of a song by Milton Nascimento! LP, Vinyl record album

Maybe the best album ever from this seminal British jazz rock combo – a record that really has the group stretching out in the expanded space of a concert setting! Colosseum were already one of the best groups to mix jazzy currents and heavy rock modes – but they really set a fire with this brilliant live album – which really gave the group plenty of room to show off their instrumental chops! Immediate Records star Chris Farlowe is on vocals – but the real charm of their sound comes from the tenor and soprano sax work of Dick Heckstall Smith, the Hammond and vibes of Dave Greenslade, and the heavy drums of Jon Hiseman – who really keeps things in the pockage, and provided more than a few funky passages on the album. Titles include "Lost Angeles", "Rope Ladder to The Moon", "Walking In The Park", and a version of Michael Gibbs' "Tanglewood 63". LP, Vinyl record album

A stone 70s classic from the Isley Brothers – a set recorded right at the height of their glory days – at a time when their sound was completely on the money! The cover has the group on stage – a photo taken during their run of arena concerts at the time – but the album's a studio effort throughout, and really shows the group's increasing understanding of the way the right production would bring out all the best elements in both their instrumentation and vocals! In fact, although the groovers are great, the group are maybe at their height with the impeccable production on two ballads – the sublime "Voyage To Atlantis" and "Footsteps In The Dark" – served up alongside the midtempo tune "Tell Me When You Need It Again", another great track that almost has the same power as the other two. But the whole thing's great – in the best Isley Brothers 70s way – and tracks include "Climbin Up The Ladder", "The Pride", and "Go For Your Guns". CD

A stone 70s classic from the Isley Brothers – a set recorded right at the height of their glory days – at a time when their sound was completely on the money! The cover has the group on stage – a photo taken during their run of arena concerts at the time – but the album's a studio effort throughout, and really shows the group's increasing understanding of the way the right production would bring out all the best elements in both their instrumentation and vocals! In fact, although the groovers are great, the group are maybe at their height with the impeccable production on two ballads – the sublime "Voyage To Atlantis" and "Footsteps In The Dark" – served up alongside the midtempo tune "Tell Me When You Need It Again", another great track that almost has the same power as the other two. But the whole thing's great – in the best Isley Brothers 70s way – and tracks include "Climbin Up The Ladder", "The Pride", and "Go For Your Guns". LP, Vinyl record album

An easygoing, long-flowing record from Cedar Walton – one that has the pianist in very relaxed space, playing with a style that's very open, contemplative, and beautiful! There's a bit more sensitivity here than the usual Walton trio date – and despite the cover's emphasis on the other members of the trio, bassist David Williams and drummer Billy Higgins, some of the standout tunes are the ones in which Walton is working out front, almost solo – although when the rhythm duo kicks in, things are pretty great too (we're always huge fans of Higgins' work on drums, especially in the company of Walton.) Titles include "Theme For Ernie", "For All We Know", "Jacob's Ladder", "Bluesville", and "Ojos De Rojo". CD

An easygoing, long-flowing record from Cedar Walton – one that has the pianist in very relaxed space, playing with a style that's very open, contemplative, and beautiful! There's a bit more sensitivity here than the usual Walton trio date – and despite the cover's emphasis on the other members of the trio, bassist David Williams and drummer Billy Higgins, some of the standout tunes are the ones in which Walton is working out front, almost solo – although when the rhythm duo kicks in, things are pretty great too (we're always huge fans of Higgins' work on drums, especially in the company of Walton.) Titles include "Theme For Ernie", "For All We Know", "Jacob's Ladder", "Bluesville", and "Ojos De Rojo". LP, Vinyl record album

A great package that sees the work of Incognito getting remixes and souped up a bit more – jazzy grooves gone dancefloor, served up by a host of great talents from the mid 90s. Titles include "Always There (MAW rmx 96)", "Givin It Up (Rober Sanchez Uplifting club mix)", "Pieces Of A Dream (Roger Sanchez 7 Minutes of Soul mix)", "Still A Friend Of Mine (Bluey's mix for 96)", "Roots (Pete Rock rmx)", "Jump To My Love", "Jacob's Ladder (NuYorican dub)", and "Barumba (Daniel Maunick's mix)". 12 tracks in all. CD

The second great live album from Rush – with versions of "La Villa Strangiato", "Tom Sawyer", "Spirit Of Radio", "Red Barchetta", "Passage To Bangkok", "YYZ", "Closer To The Heart", and "Jacob's Ladder". LP, Vinyl record album

A fantastic combination of players – both musicians who have an incredible ability to be all over their instruments at once, yet always somehow sound completely in control! Drummer Joey Baron's demonstrated this ability for years, but maybe not as strongly as on this recent album with pianist Irene Schweizer – a set that has him matching all the wonderfully dynamic energy we've always loved on her albums for Intakt – sounds that are almost a small separate branch of the European improvising world, because they've got a quality that's so individual and distinct! Irene can keep things surprisingly tuneful, even when free – and Baron opens up the most tuneful side of his percussion talents, really at home in the territory. Titles include "String Fever", "Up The Ladder", "The Open Window", "Saturdays", and "Jungle Beat II". CD

Maybe the grooviest collection of work we've ever seen from the lovely Nancy Sinatra – a set that features some of her hits, but also includes a lot more material that's much more obscure – and which shows that Nancy was a hell of a song stylist, far from the charts! The core of the work features Sinatra's fantastic collaborations with Lee Hazlewood – the producer who created a darkness in her sound that moved her far from simple pop – and who sometimes joined her in duets, with a mature, adult quality that was dripping with sensuality! The set also features some post-Hazlewood material, too – still very cool, and very groovy – a sublime blend of Cali 60s elements and slight country touches. Titles include "So Long Babe", "Sugar Town", "Kind Of Woman", "Machine Gun Kelly", "Arkansas Coal", "Down From Dover", "How Are Things In California", "Some Velvet Morning", "Hello LA Bye Bye Birmingham", "Hook & Ladder", "Happy", "You Only Live Twice", "Sand", "Lightning's Girl", "How Does That Grab You", "Paris Summer", "Jackson", "Lady Bird", and, of course, "These Boots Are Made For Walking". CD

The second album from the immortal Tribe Called Quest – one of the absolute essential hip hop LPs, and a record that should be an anyone's shortlist of the best albums in several subsections of hip hop – just a straight up masterpiece anyway you cut it. The album is so high up on the ladder, we're a loss to add any fresh insight o the critical consensus, so just get it. Classics one after another, steeped in bass note snapping, head nodding funk jazz beatcraft of the first order! "Buggin Out", "Excursions", "Rap Promoter", "Verses From The Abstract", "Check The Rhyme", "Everything Is Fair", "Jazz (We've Got)", "What?", "Scenario" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

Mid period work from Bluey and Incognito – perhaps slipping a bit from the freshness of their initial albums, but still sounding a heck of a lot better than most of the groups on the market! Like previous sets, this one has a jazzy finish that's blended with a tight NuSoul vibe – the inspiration for many of today's underground acts, and often not done nearly as well as it is here. Titles include "Time Has Come", "Jacob's Ladder", "Barumba", "I Hear Your Name", "After The Fall", "One Hundred & Rising", and "Good Love". CD

Rootsy soul from Doris Troy – more of a down-home album than even her American work of earlier years! The set was recorded for the Beatles' Apple label at the end of the 60s – produced by Doris herself, and with a style that mixes in a fair bit of rock influences to a more standard style of soul. There's plenty of traces of late Beatles – in an "Oh Darling" or Let It Be mode, especially in the use of heavy guitars – and although Doris handled production, we also hear plenty of traces of Billy Preston and George Harrison in the mix. Titles include "Special Care", "You Tore Me Up Inside", "Gonna Get My Baby Back", "Jacob's Ladder", "Hurry", "So Far", and "You Give Me Joy Joy". LP, Vinyl record album

A wonderful continuation of the spiritual sounds of bassist Joshua Abrams – an artist who only seems to draw us in deeper and deeper as the years go by – and that's saying a lot, given that we've been listening to his music for almost 20 years! Josh has moved way beyond the bass at this point in his career – and the album also features the leader on guimbri, celeste, clarinet, bells, and even a small harp – played on these longform, spiritual progressions that also feature Jeff Parker on guitar, Hamid Drake on percussion, Ben Boye on chromatic electric autoharp, and Lisa Alvarado on harmonium – the last two of which bring an especially meditative feel to the record! Titles include "By Way Of Odessa", "Spiral Up", "The Ladder", "Traslucent", and "Magnetoception". LP, Vinyl record album

A wild batch of jazz rock tunes – recorded by ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce, along with a host of like-minded luminaries that include Chris Spedding, Harry Beckett, Dick Heckstall-Smith, and John Hisemann. Unlike Bruce's first solo album – Things We Like – which was an all-jazz outing, this album features Bruce singing as well, and an overall approach that has more of a rock-based song structure – yet still many of the expansive styles embraced by the Brit jazz rock generation of the time. Titles include "Rope Ladder To The Moon", "Theme For An Imaginary Western", "Tickets To Water Falls", and "The Clearout". CD

A wild batch of jazz rock tunes – recorded by ex-Cream bassist Jack Bruce, along with a host of like-minded luminaries that include Chris Spedding, Harry Beckett, Dick Heckstall-Smith, and John Hisemann. Unlike Bruce's first solo album – Things We Like – which was an all-jazz outing, this album features Bruce singing as well, and an overall approach that has more of a rock-based song structure – yet still many of the expansive styles embraced by the Brit jazz rock generation of the time. Titles include "Rope Ladder To The Moon", "Theme For An Imaginary Western", "Tickets To Water Falls", and "The Clearout". LP, Vinyl record album

Maybe the best album ever from this seminal British jazz rock combo – a record that really has the group stretching out in the expanded space of a concert setting! Colosseum were already one of the best groups to mix jazzy currents and heavy rock modes – but they really set a fire with this brilliant live album – which really gave the group plenty of room to show off their instrumental chops! Immediate Records star Chris Farlowe is on vocals – but the real charm of their sound comes from the tenor and soprano sax work of Dick Heckstall Smith, the Hammond and vibes of Dave Greenslade, and the heavy drums of Jon Hiseman – who really keeps things in the pockage, and provided more than a few funky passages on the album. Titles include "Lost Angeles", "Rope Ladder to The Moon", "Walking In The Park", and a version of Michael Gibbs' "Tanglewood 63". LP, Vinyl record album

The second great live album from Rush – with versions of "La Villa Strangiato", "Tom Sawyer", "Spirit Of Radio", "Red Barchetta", "Passage To Bangkok", "YYZ", "Closer To The Heart", and "Jacob's Ladder". CD

One of our favorites – with "Spirit Of The Radio", "Entre Nous", "Jacob's Ladder", "Different Strings", and "Freewill". LP, Vinyl record album

An overdue reunion for Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll (now billed as Tippetts) – and a late 70s session that sounds quite a bit different than their mod soul of the 60s! The format here is still somewhat in a soul-based vein – but the sound is much more 70s, and much more "adult" as well – sometimes smooth, sometimes mellow, with Julie singing in a way that's still heartfelt, but not with the clear nod to American soul of her earlier work. Brian's still playing plenty of keyboards, although not getting in as many licks as on his own albums of the decade – yet still with enough space to help transform some of the best tunes. Titles include "Git Up", "Freedom Highway", "Spirit", "Future Pilot", "Rope Ladder To The Moon", "No Time To Live", and "Nothing Will Be As It Was" – a great English remake of a song by Milton Nascimento! CD

Early 80s synthy soul and new wave sounds from Joan Armatrading – really taking her earlier, kind of folk soul based sound confidently into the early 80s keyboard heavy grooves with some pronounced Caribbean flourishes! Lots of punchy rhythms and neon bright 80s sounds, but it's the songs that transcend here – the tunes are always insistent, and Joan's voice is as warm and inviting as ever. Titles include "At The Hop", "I Wanna Hold You", "I'm Lucky", "The Weakness In Me", "No Love", "Romancers", "Ican't Lie To Myself", "Only One" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

A posthumous collection of work from The Faces – a set of some of their best material from the early 70s, served up as a swan song to the great group who was bound to implode at some point in their career! Rod Stewart is amazing here – even more ferocious than on his own early solo work – and the Ronnies, Wood and Laine, are both superb – at a level that always has us trading our old Rolling Stones records for Faces albums – even at a ratio of three to one. Titles include "Cindy Incidentally", "Pineapple & The Monkey", "Flying", "Sweet Lady Mary", "You Can Make Me Dance Sing Or Anything", "Stay With Me", "Had Me A Real Good Time", "Silicone Grown", "Around The Plynth", "Miss Judy's Farm", and "Ooh La La". LP, Vinyl record album

... 78 RPM, Vinyl record

... LP, Vinyl record album

The reedwork of Dave Rempis is in a wonderfully electric setting here – next to the electric bass and electronics of Farida Amadou, and the piano and additional electronics of Jonas Cambien – both players who seem to really bring a lot of different sounds out of Dave's work on alto and tenor saxes! Yet if you know Rempis, you know what a wonderfully adaptive improviser he can be – and the mix of electro and acoustic elements in the record almost seems to take the early experiments of Anthony Braxton and Richard Tietelbaum and push them to a whole new level – maybe in part because the work on the strings of the bass and the tones of the piano seem to widen the color palette of the performance in really great ways. Titles include "Exotropia", "Radiata", "Bladderwort", and "Camelopardalis". CD

Killer work from this jazzy UK combo! Although Colosseum are probably best known as a hard rocking progressive band, they certainly had plenty of jazz touches – and this album spawned the great groover "Elegy", which has become something of a jazzy dancefloor classic over the years! Overall, the record's got some very tight drumming, plenty of hard-wailing organ work, and a basic groove that takes off where the beat groups of the 60s left off – pushing into more expansive, more progressive jazz territory. Chris Farlowe's vocals can be good or bad, depending on the moment – but on the funkier cuts, like "Elegy", "Ropeladder To The Moon", and "The Machine Demands a Sacrifice", they have a sort of madness that makes sense, and which really sounds great. Other tracks include "The Grass Is Greener", "Lost Angeles", "Jumping Off The Sun", and "Butty's Blues". LP, Vinyl record album

A rare session as a leader for trumpeter Jon Eardley – a strong 50s player in Gerry Mulligan's group, one with a tone that is both cool and modern, but also able to move deftly in bop circles! This set features a septet (as might be expected by the title) – with players that include Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, and Milt Gold. Woods is always a treat at this time in his career, and there's enough room on the tracks for everyone to get in reasonably long solos. Titles include "Eard's Word", "Koo Koo", "On The Minute", "Ladders", and "For Leap Year". CD