Bill Withers & McCoy Tyner at SOUL 1971 (IMS-NET) was a rare and electrifying meeting of two musical powerhouses from different corners of Black American music - soul and jazz - captured during a dynamic moment in cultural history. Produced by Ellis Haizlip, a visionary who created space for Black artists, thinkers, and performers to share their work on their own terms - unfiltered, unapologetic, and with cultural depth. Bill Withers and McCoy Tyner at SOUL in 1971 is like witnessing two branches of the musical tree intertwining - one rooted in jazz legacy, the other blossoming into soul storytelling. It is rich, contemplative, and unforgettable. This live broadcast is bought to you here by Off Beat for your listening pleasure.

Plains Music is an album released in 1991 by Manfred Mann's Plain Music, which was a project initiated by Manfred Mann after he retired his Earth Band in the late 1980s. "This album is called Plains Music, as it consists mainly of the melodies of the North American Plains Indians. We do not pretend that it is in any sense representative of the original ethnic music which was its source material. I tried to make a simple album of plain music, using as few notes as possible and keeping the tracks short and to the point." ~ Manfred Mann Mann recorded some of the album in his homeland, which he had been exiled from for nearly three decades because of his opposition to apartheid. The album was initially released in 1991 and was re-mastered digitally with three additional tracks in 1998.

Astrud Gilberto became an accidental success when her fragile command of English made her the de facto choice to sing "The Girl from Ipanema" at a session led by Stan Getz and her husband, João Gilberto. Of course, despite its overwhelming success, it wasn't clear that she could sustain a career when she recorded her first solo LP, The Astrud Gilberto Album. She had sounded more like an amateurish novelty act than a recording professional, her voice was sweet but fragile, and the Getz/Gilberto album had featured two strong voices, with Gilberto herself an afterthought (albeit a commercially effective afterthought). But The Astrud Gilberto Album was at least as good as Getz/Gilberto (despite what jazz fans say), for several reasons…

Prolific award-winning LA-based music producer/composer lionel Cohen has been insatiably producing music for over thirty years. He has produced countless indie artists, and has scored films for Sony Pictures, Saban Films, Gravitas Ventures, Vertical Entertainment, and Lionsgate, among others. His discipline and creativity have garnered him over 500 IMDb credits, millions of plays on Spotify, and tens of millions of views on YouTube.

Geir Lysne visits Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki - the result is brand new music for jazz orchestra with the NDR Big Band.

James Oscar Smith (December 8, 1928 – February 8, 2005) was an American jazz musician who helped popularize the Hammond B-3 organ, creating a link between jazz and 1960s soul music.

Cellar Music boss Cory Weeds returns with another fine recording backed by the dependently swinging rhythm section of frequent Cellar Music players (pianist Miles Black, bassist John Lee, and drummer Jesse Cahill) and alongside the famously big horn of Jerry Weldon! Weeds is an accomplished and highly stylized tenor man cut from the swinging cloth of Gene Ammons, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, and George Coleman. On 'Meets Jerry Weldon', this winning formula continues. This recording is not sheepish about acknowledging its two-tenor front line influences.

Cut From The Original Analog Master Tapes By Kevin Gray. All Analog Process (AAA). High Quality Vinyl Release. Original Gatefold Design. All runouts are etched. In 1962, legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans collaborated for the first time on record with jazz guitarist Jim Hall to create the landmark album Undercurrent. And even though it is a two-person improvisational affair, it is almost unfathomable that these two giants alone fill up all the grooves on this record. The thoughtful interplay between these two musicians created such a beautiful, lush, and emotional journey that their work influenced many. At the time of this recording, Bill Evans was one of the top jazz pianists (his performance with Miles Davis on Kind Of Blue is still a high-water mark), but he had stopped performing and recording after the death of his peer, bassist Scott LaFaro.

Although the Crusaders could not have known it at the time, their recording of "Street Life" (which features a memorable vocal by Randy Crawford) was a last hurrah for the 20-year old group. Their recordings of the next few years would decline in interest until the band gradually faded away in the '80s. However this particular set is well worth picking up for the 11-minute title cut and there is good playing by the three original members (Wilton Felder on tenor, soprano and electric bass, keyboardist Joe Sample and drummer Stix Hooper) along with guitarist Barry Finnerty; horn and string sections, plus additional guitarists are utilized on Sample's commercial but listenable arrangements.

Four CD set. An anthology of George Martin's sound productions before the advent of the Beatles; before the collaboration that would change popular music forever. He re-defined the role of producer; pioneering the recording itself as an art form. This edition is testament to a elegant, fearless musical innovator. The surrealistic, sometimes free-form recordings he created with comic geniuses Sellers, Milligan, Cribbins and Ustinov involved sound effects and collage. These madcap sonic adventures, allied to his understanding of the workings of an orchestra, his contacts within the classical fraternity, his love of the romantic and impressionist composers, and his fascination with studio experimentation made George Martin uniquely able to provide a particular objectivity and realise what the ever-curious Beatles, or any artist, would ask of him. As head of Parlophone, determined to explode the label onto the scene, he sought artists of character; taking mobile recording units out to capture Flanders And Swann's two-man show and the irreverent satirical revue, Beyond The Fringe. The Top Five was breached in 1960 both by Matt Monro and by Peter Sellers And Sophia Loren. George Martin's first UK Number One single, and an exemplar, was 'You're Driving Me Crazy' by The Temperance Seven who combined a revival of popular music from the 20s with styles from the Edwardian era.

Caro Emerald came out of nowhere in 2009 with the summertime hit "Back It Up," a catchy jazz-pop song with a dance beat. The follow-up single, "A Night Like This," was an even bigger hit, topping the Dutch charts. By the time Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor came around, Emerald was well established as one of the most exciting new artists to emerge from the Netherlands in some time, and her full-length album debut was eagerly awaited. It includes the smash hit singles "Back It Up" and "A Night Like This," both written by Vincent de Giorgio, David Schreurs, and Jan van Wieringen.

Etta James followed her two deeply jazzy mid-'90s albums of torch songs with Love's Been Rough on Me, a flirtation with Nashville writers. On Life, Love & the Blues, she returns to her blues and soul repertoire, enlivening even the hoariest of tunes ("Spoonful," a gender-flopped "Hoochie Coochie Gal") with her growl. The tinges of funk underpinning "Born Under a Bad Sign" are given full room to stretch on a cover of Sly Stone's "If You Want Me to Stay," and James nearly swipes "The Love You Save May Be Your Own," one of Joe Tex's great preaching ballads, from the master.

Barbra Streisand’s highly anticipated new album, The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume 2, will be available everywhere on June 27, 2025. For this new collection of duets, Barbra collaborated with a stellar group of friends, contemporaries, admirers, and label mates to share the microphone on eleven tracks. The album serves as a long-awaited follow-up to 2014’s #1, Platinum-certified duets collection, Partners. The new album brings together timeless talents, each with their own unique vocal styles – ranging from Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and James Taylor, to Sting, Hozier, Sam Smith, Seal and Josh Groban. Country star Tim McGraw, and jazz influenced chanteuse Laufey, also lend their unique styles to their duets, and a powerful all-star trio, featuring Barbra joining forces with Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande, is also included on this album. The Secret Of Life: Partners, Volume 2 is available on vinyl or CD with photos from Barbra’s personal collection and complete liner notes on each track.

Prince No artist of the rock & roll era compares to singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. He was the rare combination of a visionary pop conceptualist and master musician who could capture the sounds he imagined. This quality fueled his remarkable success throughout the 1980s, a decade in which he authored a string of nine gold, platinum, or multi-platinum albums that included 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984), and Sign 'o' the Times (1987). Ideas came to Prince so quickly that they couldn't be contained on his own records. He masterminded albums by the Time and Sheila E. and gave away hit songs to the Bangles and Sheena Easton, shaping the sound of popular music in the process. There wasn't an area of pop music in the '80s that didn't bear his influence: it could be heard in freaky funk and R&B slow jams, in electro-techno and neo-psychedelic rock, and at the top of the pop charts.

Over a period of five years, Swiss directors Norbert Wiedmer and Peter Guyer documented the activity of legendary producer Manfred Eicher, the founder and driving force behind ECM Records, whose advocacy of progressive jazz and of classical composers like Arvo Pärt, Meredith Monk, Valentin Silvestrov, and György Kurtág changed the landscape of contemporary music in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The film Sounds and Silence: Travels with Manfred Eicher was released in 2009 and this 2011 soundtrack album is made up largely of tracks taken from previously released ECM albums that Eicher produced, some from as early as 1980. Most of the pieces are low-key and understated and feature chamber ensembles, although there are several piano tracks and several featuring orchestra or chorus. The album has a mix of selections from ECM's classical and jazz repertoire, and from the label's specialty, the many pieces that lie somewhere in between the two.