The year 1965 was a turning point in the life of John Coltrane. It was at this point that he crossed the line into the free jazz arena that he had been approaching since the early '60s. Besides his landmark Ascension, no album better illustrates this than the awe-inspiring Meditations. Coltrane's regular quartet - McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass), and Elvin Jones (drums) - is expanded here with second drummer Rashied Ali (who assumed Jones' spot after this album) and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. This conglomeration produces some dense textures, especially in the epic first track "The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost." This sonic hurricane is a 13-minute outpouring of spiritual emotion that is at once compelling and exhausting…

The UK band Regal Worm is, first and foremost, the creative vehicle of composer and musician Jarrod Gosling, otherwise known as a member of the bands Skywatchers, I Monster and Henry Fool. Regal Worm sees Jarrod striking out on his own and is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream ever since he listened to his dad's cassettes of Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Mike Oldfield and Rick Wakeman. The debut 'Use and Ornament' was recorded in Jarrod's 'Pig View' studio utilising dangerous vintage machinery (including his prized Mellotron M400).
First thing to strike is Golsling's endless instrumental flexibility, handling guitars, modern and analog synths, piano, bass, percussion, wind instruments, effects and samplers and the list goes on…

This first installment in Classics' multi-volume Reinhardt series is a fine place to start your Django collection. Recorded between 1934-1935, the 23 tracks include many of first sides from the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which Reinhardt formed with frequent cohort and violinist Stephane Grappelli. Cut for the French Ultraphone label, the material includes such top-notch QHCF sides as "I Saw Stars," "I'm Confessin'," and "Dinah." There's also a few numbers Reinhardt cut with the Michel Warlop Orchestra before teaming up with QHCF. And while JSP's Reinhardt discs often beat out many of the Classics titles for sound quality, this early offering ranks as one that stands up just fine.

Rainer Bloss (1946-2015) was a German electronic musician. He collaborated with electronic composer Klaus Schulze in the 1980s to produce several albums, including Audentity (1981), Aphrica (1984), and Drive Inn (1984). Worked as co-writer for Alphaville since mid-90s.

This three disc set is a remaster of the highly successful 2008 release "The Garden". Also a brand new song "Tears from the Garden" and live recordings of songs from "The Garden".
Vocalist, Mark Trueack and Keys man Sean Timms developed the ideas for the band after being introduced by a mutual friend in 1996. This impressive album release by the Australian septet from Adelaide takes them beyond the potential of which they gave notice in More than a Dream, their debut album of 2005. The style, at least on disk one, is firmly in the symphonic and neo-progressive camp with similarities to other modern proponents such as the Flower Kings, modern-day Kaipa, Jadis, Cryptic Vision and Magic Pie…

Jerzy Antczak has made a name for himself as long-time Polish neo-prog band Albion's lead guitarist. This is Jerzy's first solo outing. Still very much in the neo mode, there is also some electronic intentions that push his first solo effort into the crossover genre. The music on "Ego, Georgius" is a blend of exotic Eastern sounds, cosmic themes and lots of guitar hooks, riffs, solos and melodies. Aided by some Albion friends as well as Krzystof Wywra on bass from Millenium, the album really shines on multiple levels, very eclectic and cinematographic.

Trumpeter Nicholas Payton is teamed up with Wessell Anderson (who doubles on sopranino and alto), pianist Peter Martin, bassist Christopher Thomas and drummer Brian Blade for an unusual set of music that shifts between hard bop and New Orleans jazz. While "Rhonda Mile" (which uses the chord changes to "Indiana") is pure bop, other selections combine the two idioms and "Four or Five Times" (listed as an Anderson original but actually a standard from the 1920s) is strictly Dixieland. A highpoint is the 16-minute "He Was a Good Man, Oh Yes He Was" which musically depicts a New Orleans funeral. Throughout, Anderson (particularly on the sopranino which he plays like a clarinet) and Payton work together quite well in the exciting ensembles and show impressive knowlege of earlier forms of jazz while carving out their own individual voices.

A reissue of a rarity record; "Sister, Brother, Lover…." was the only album from Scottish band, Northwind, in 1971. In a Beatles type of story, Northwind started on the club scene before venturing to Germany, picking up some psychedelia and krautrock in Frankfurt. They recorded an album and went around supporting the big guns; Free, Hawkwind, Fleetwood Mac. However, without much support from the management and the label, they soon disbanded. This is an album of powerful rock which edges toward early prog and kraut whilst remaining it’s own, unique thing.

This album is broken into two sections. The majority of the disc is devoted to archive recordings of the Second Esquire Jazz Concert. The legendary event took place on January 17, 1945, in New Orleans, New York, and Los Angeles. The concert featured many of the day's best-known jazz performers: Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and more. The second section of the album highlights a performance by Louis Armstrong at the Winter Garden Theater in New York on June 19, 1947. This particular performance by Armstrong commemorated the world debut of the film New Orleans.

This portentous tribute to Domenikos Theotokopoulos (16th-century painter "El Greco") divides its ten tracks among as many separate movements (complete with a disc-closing "Epilogue") and explores them with all the excitement of a day at the art gallery (this concept was, in fact, inspired by the National Gallery of Greece's efforts to obtain El Greco's "St. Peter"). Which means it's very studious, very meticulous, and very good for you, but ultimately the (very few) thrills here are intrinsic at best and not really all that thrilling. Composer, arranger, producer, and performer Vangelis gooses up the action with occasional bombast, but the overall tone of El Greco's classical new age is as solemn and washed-out as a centuries-old painting.

Sonus Umbra came to life in 1991, formed by a group of physics and math students in Mexico City who drew from their shared love for all things dark, hard rocking and melodic. 30 years later, now based in Chicago and including some of the most accomplished veteran musicians of the Chicago rock music scene, the band continues casting shadows made of sound.
Sonus Umbra has played many progressive rock festivals in North America, including RoSfest, ProgDay, FestivAlterNativo, Progtoberfest and Terra Incognita, toured Mexico and Canada with Discipline, and shared stages along the way with the likes of Spock’s Beard, PFM, Stick Men, Haken, Thank You Scientist, Necromonkey, Deus Ex Machina, Tiles and Glass Hammer…

The former Muddy Waters drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith turns in an enjoyable, but unremarkable, set of Chicago blues with Bag Full of Blues. Supported by Pinetop Perkins and Fabulous Thunderbirds harpist Kim Wilson, Smith runs through a set of mid-tempo blues, combining some competent originals with covers like "Baby Please Don't Go." There's not many solos - Wilson mainly shines, while guitarists James Wheeler, Nick Moss, and Gareth Best all contribute small, pithy leads - but the grooves are nice and relaxed. Bag Full of Blues may not be a jaw-dropper, but it does have some fine moments.

John Coltrane's Crescent from the spring of 1964 is an epic album, showing his meditative side that would serve as a perfect prelude to his immortal work A Love Supreme. His finest quartet with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones supports the somewhat softer side of Coltrane, and while not completely in ballad style, the focus and accessible tone of this recording work wonders for anyone willing to sit back and let this music enrich and wash over you. While not quite at the "sheets of sound" unfettered music he would make before his passing in 1967, there are hints of this group stretching out in restrained dynamics, playing as lovely a progressive jazz as heard anywhere in any time period. The highlights come at the top with the reverent, ruminating, and free ballad "Crescent," with a patient Coltrane acquiescing to swinging…

Woodwind-player Seppo "Paroni" Paakkunainen has had a long career as a session musician, band leader and arranger, with a stylistic spectrum encompassing rock, pop, jazz, folk and classical. On the progressive front he has been the driving force behind the progressive folk group Karelia, while his horns have graced the albums of, among others, Wigwam, Jukka Tolonen and Pekka Pohjola. His first bonafide solo album, "Plastic Maailma", is a kind of sweep through those many styles, progressive in the sense that styles are juxtaposed and explored with little prejudice. Four instrumentals join six vocal numbers where the gruff vocals of Harri Saksala alternate with the purer voice of pop-chanteuse Arja Saijonmaa, criticising consumerism, poking fun at contemporary sexual mores or singing praises to Nordic egalitarianism with the kind of sincerity that makes it hard to distinguish seriousness from levity…

The series of timeless Chill tunes selected by the spiritual guide of the Chillout genre, Mr. José Padilla. Straight from his endless collection, José serves up a strictly personal selection of tracks, riding times and seasons and evoking positive feelings in a blend of various musical styles ranging from classic to contemporary sounds.