Sun Ra's really moving forward with this classic set – refining the sound of his Chicago-based Arkestra, and reaching for new territory that moves him way past familiar jazz modes! The cover bills the group as playing "music from tomorrow's world" – and you can definitely hear that on some titles here, including one number that features Ra on some really haunting celeste, and another that features Marshall Allen making weird noises with his mouthpiece! The group is all greats from the old days – John Gilmore on tenor, Marshall Allen on flute, Pat Patrick on baritone and flute, James Spaulding on alto and flute, Hobart Dotson on trumpet, Charles Davis on baritone, and Ronnie Boykins on bass – and titles include "Hours After", "Saturn", "Ancient Ethiopia", and "Blues At Midnight". This fantastic expanded reissue includes bonus material – some tracks that appeared on the album Sun Sound Pleasure, and other recordings too – titles that include "Hour Of Parting", "Round Midnight", "Hours After", "Velvet", "Enlightenment", "Hours After (single version)", "Great Balls Of Fire (single version)", "Back In Your Own Backyard", and the unreleased tunes "Blues For Saturn", "State Street (alternate)", and "Horoscope (incomplete)". CD

Sun Ra's really moving forward with this classic set – refining the sound of his Chicago-based Arkestra, and reaching for new territory that moves him way past familiar jazz modes! The cover bills the group as playing "music from tomorrow's world" – and you can definitely hear that on some titles here, including one number that features Ra on some really haunting celeste, and another that features Marshall Allen making weird noises with his mouthpiece! The group is all greats from the old days – John Gilmore on tenor, Marshall Allen on flute, Pat Patrick on baritone and flute, James Spaulding on alto and flute, Hobart Dotson on trumpet, Charles Davis on baritone, and Ronnie Boykins on bass – and titles include "Hours After", "Saturn", "Ancient Ethiopia", and "Blues At Midnight". This fantastic expanded reissue includes bonus material – some tracks that appeared on the album Sun Sound Pleasure, and other recordings too – titles that include "Hour Of Parting", "Round Midnight", "Hours After", "Velvet", "Enlightenment", "Hours After (single version)", "Great Balls Of Fire (single version)", "Back In Your Own Backyard", and the unreleased tunes "Blues For Saturn", "State Street (alternate)", and "Horoscope (incomplete)". LP, Vinyl record album

One of the greatest British groups of the 70s – presented here in all their glory – a huge package that includes all their full length albums in one set, plus rare bonus material too! The music here runs from the original quartet lineup through the time when Kevin Godley and Lol Creme stepped out – and 10CC still continued their genius approach to recording, with some of the most inventive studio work of their generation – and unusual, hook-heavy tunes that made for record after record that were full of sonic surprises! The set features all the albums – 10CC, Sheet Music, Original Soundtrack, How Dare You, Deceptive Bends, Live & Let Live, Bloody Tourists, Look Here, Ten Out Of 10, Windows In The Jungle, and Meanwhile – and also comes with 2 extra CDs of rare material – titled Bits We Missed – with 33 more tracks that include "Run Away", "Bee In My Bonnet", "Waterfall", "18 Carat Man Of Means", "Channel Swimmer", "Good News", "Hot To Trot", "Get It While You Can", "I'm So Laid Back I'm Laid Out", "Nothing Can Move Me", "Tomorrow's World Today", "Only Child", and "Don't Squeeze Me Like Toothpaste". CD

Sun Ra's really moving forward with this classic set – refining the sound of his Chicago-based Arkestra, and reaching for new territory that moves him way past familiar jazz modes! The cover bills the group as playing "music from tomorrow's world" – and you can definitely hear that on some titles here, including one number that features Ra on some really haunting celeste, and another that features Marshall Allen making weird noises with his mouthpiece! The group is all greats from the old days – John Gilmore on tenor, Marshall Allen on flute, Pat Patrick on baritone and flute, James Spaulding on alto and flute, Hobart Dotson on trumpet, Charles Davis on baritone, and Ronnie Boykins on bass – and titles include "Hours After", "Saturn", "Ancient Ethiopia", and "Blues At Midnight". This fantastic expanded reissue includes bonus material – some tracks that appeared on the album Sun Sound Pleasure, and other recordings too – titles that include "Hour Of Parting", "Round Midnight", "Hours After", "Velvet", "Enlightenment", "Hours After (single version)", "Great Balls Of Fire (single version)", "Back In Your Own Backyard", and the unreleased tunes "Blues For Saturn", "State Street (alternate)", and "Horoscope (incomplete)". LP, Vinyl record album

Herb Alpert's first-ever album – a runaway hit that was the birthplace of so many groovy things – not just the start of the Tijuana Brass sound, also the birth of A&M Records! The album's the first to feature Herb's trademark take on the Mexican band style – done here with a bit more "jaunty" pop stylings than in later years, including a "rocking" electric bass that kicks along nicely at the bottom of some of the more chart-oriented tunes. The first full album on A&M – and the beginning of an empire – with titles that include "The Lonely Bull", "El Lobo", "Desafinado", "Mexico", "Never On Sunday", and "Struttin With Maria". LP, Vinyl record album

There's nothing too comfy here, as drummer Tim Carman kicks up a gritty groove right from the very first note – working next to the organ of Ken Clark and guitar of Steve Fell – all in a stripped-down style that partly aims for the glory days of Hammond hero work on Prestige Records in the 60s, but which also maybe has a bit of a soul instrumental vibe as well! Tim's drums are nice and tight, leaving Clark's fingers on the keys and feet on the bass to really open things up – flowing and glowing with all these great changes, on titles that include "Cookin With Gran", "Southpaw", "If You've Got It Flaunt It", "First Mind", "Do That Thing", "Dumpty Dumb", and "Chicken Noodle Man". LP, Vinyl record album

Seminal early work from guitarist Charlie Christian – tracks that really preface the development of bop in the 40s – recorded at the birthplace of that movement, the legendary Minton's Playhouse in Harlem! Christian's sense of tone and timing is amazing – even sharper and bolder than his already-famous work with Benny Goodman, laid out here with a deftness that really paves the way for the kind of fast-thinking, fast-moving creativity of bop – in a combo that also includes Thelonious Monk on piano and Kenny Clarke on drums! There's still a bit of older swing style guitar work at points, but Christian's command of single-note lines is definitely bop-like riffing too. LP, Vinyl record album

A set that pays tribute to the glory days of European sound library music, and which is particularly heavy on modes from the early 80s – that point when library funk was stripped down a lot more from the fuller bands of the previous decade, and relied heavily on beats and keyboards! There's plenty of both here – and the tune are all instrumental, and have enough vibrancy to also allow room for solos from time to time – partly jazz, but mostly cinematic, and with a warmth that also shows a bit of an influence from fusion! Titles include "Skipass", "Voxon", "Studio 70", "Synthporn", "Blitz", "Redemption", and "Killing". LP, Vinyl record album

Featuring Kirk Brown, Harrison Bankhead, Hammid Drake, Reto Weber, Mike Allemana, and Joe Jenkins. CD

A solo performance from groundbreaking saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, but one that's got sort of a "phantom" partner in Peter Brotzmann – as Mats works here from the boxed set of musical scores that Brotzmann originally created for his Chicago Tentet! Gustafsson plays selections from "Box 1" and "Box 2" – all set up by cards that cue the action for his improvisation – not a real set of musical notations, but ideas conveyed by images – which Mats then delivers on sopranino, soprano, alto, baritone, and bass saxophones – plus a few saxophone mouthpieces as well! There's few folks who can create such a range of sounds in such a setting – and the whole thing is not only a testament to Gustafsson's ongoing solo skills, but also his ability to relate to a key contemporary like Brotzmann. CD

A landmark album – not only for Bob James, but for CTI and the Fender Rhodes as well! This is the album where all the magic starts – the first of many extremely successful albums that Bob recorded during the 70s under his own name, and almost the birthplace of the modern hip hop keyboard sample line! The album's stuffed with great numbers – including a sublime reading of "Feel Like Making Love", and the classic "Nautilus" – a slow, dark, funky tune that's worth the price of the album alone! Other tracks include "Valley Of The Shadows", "Night On Bald Mountain", and "Soulero". LP, Vinyl record album

The layers here come from the wonderful interplay between the guitar of Julian Lage and his trio members Jorge Roeder on bass and Dave King on drums – both musicians who lay back nicely, and find a way to resonate with those trademark chromatic notes that Lage seems to spin out effortlessly! The album's billed as a precursor to the previous View With A Room album – looser and more exploratory than that one, but also pretty darn great on its own. Titles include "The Layers", "Mantra", "Everything Helps", "This World", "Missing Voices", and "Double Southpaw". LP, Vinyl record album

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A pretty amazing bit of lost soundtrack/sound library grooves from Alan Parker – a KPM/DeWolfe library composer and player whose work has appeared on obscure film and television projects, legendary recordings such as Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire De Melody Nelson and so much more! This great little Finder's Keeper's soundtrack EP features his theme and other bits recorded for the 1983 TV series One Summer – with strains of melodious folk guitar arpeggios, to a jittery post-punk action vibe, to forlorn harmonica and more. Really cool stuff! 6 short tracks including "One Summer (Billy & Icky)", "Billy & Jo", "The Tollbooth", "Southport", "Roller Coaster", "Lime Street (End Titles)" and "Please Close The Gate". 7-inch, Vinyl record

Sun Ra's really moving forward with this classic set – refining the sound of his Chicago-based Arkestra, and reaching for new territory that moves him way past familiar jazz modes! The cover bills the group as playing "music from tomorrow's world" – and you can definitely hear that on some titles here, including one number that features Ra on some really haunting celeste, and another that features Marshall Allen making weird noises with his mouthpiece! The group is all greats from the old days – John Gilmore on tenor, Marshall Allen on flute, Pat Patrick on baritone and flute, James Spaulding on alto and flute, Hobart Dotson on trumpet, Charles Davis on baritone, and Ronnie Boykins on bass – and titles include "Hours After", "Saturn", "Ancient Ethiopia", and "Blues At Midnight". CD

The layers here come from the wonderful interplay between the guitar of Julian Lage and his trio members Jorge Roeder on bass and Dave King on drums – both musicians who lay back nicely, and find a way to resonate with those trademark chromatic notes that Lage seems to spin out effortlessly! The album's billed as a precursor to the previous View With A Room album – looser and more exploratory than that one, but also pretty darn great on its own. Titles include "The Layers", "Mantra", "Everything Helps", "This World", "Missing Voices", and "Double Southpaw". CD

George Freeman on guitar with Vince Willis on piano and vocals, Jack Zara on bass, and Kevin Patrick on drums. CD

The start of a legend – a record that may well be called the birthplace of the Strata East record label – as the let features both trumpeter Charles Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell, working together in an early version of the Music Inc group that would be one of the key acts on Strata East during the 70s! The set came at a time when both Tolliver and Cowell had been working in Max Roach's groundbreaking group of the late 60s – getting plenty of training from Max, but also, along with Gary Bartz, opening up with all these new spiritual ideas and fresh compositions – to a point where there's already a very mature, focused vibe on this early set! The rest of the group features Steve Novosel on bass and Jimmy Hopps on drums – and together, the musicians soar beautifully on a set of all original tunes by Tolliver – some of which you'll recognize from later readings, but which are already in a perfect modal, spiritual groove here. Tracks include "Spur", "The Ringer", "Mother Wit", "Plight", and "On The Nile". LP, Vinyl record album