After reaching an international level of success with Demons and Wizards, Uriah Heep continued to build their fan base by knocking out another album of prog-like metal before the year's end. The end result, The Magician's Birthday, is not as consistent or cohesive as Demons and Wizards but still offers plenty of highlights. It starts dramatically with "Sunrise," a spooky power ballad that alternates quiet organ-led verses with an emotional chorus and guitar-fuelled instrumental breaks topped off by David Byron's operatic wail…

Minoru Muraoka (Japanese: 村岡福夫, born Muraoka Fukuo; 1924 in Miyakonojo – January 2, 2014) was a popular Japanese shakuhachi player. Playing in a jazz fusion style, Muraoka released many albums, both as a solo artist and with several groups, including Zen, the New Dimension Group and the Minoru Muraoka Orchestra…

Tomes are available annotating the importance of this recording. The musical and social impact of Miles Davis, his collaborative efforts with Gil Evans, and in particular their reinvention of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess are indeed profound. However, the most efficient method of extricating the rhetoric and opining is to experience the recording. Few other musical teams would have had the ability to remain true to the undiluted spirit and multifaceted nuance of this epic work…

his is the album that solidified Uriah Heep's reputation as a master of gothic-inflected heavy metal. From short, sharp rock songs to lengthy, musically dense epics, Demons and Wizards finds Uriah Heep covering all the bases with style and power…

Despite the presence of a pair of ballads – one of them ("New Horizons") by Justin Hayward the latter's most romantic number since "Nights in White Satin" – Seventh Sojourn was notable at the time of its release for showing the hardest-rocking sound this band had ever produced on record. It's all relative, of course, compared to their prior work…

An interesting early record of Jimi Hendrix and avant-garde pianist Mike Ephron, sometimes with uncredited percussionists. "Occasionally, too, a Conga drummer would sit in with us, not always able to follow the intricacies of the rhythms I patterned out with my chords and la la la's" (from Mike Ephron's liner notes). La la la's indeed. These are some very unfocused jams, which don't add much to the Jimi Hendrix catalog. Still nice to hear him in such an informal setting…

Italian group formed in the early 70s in the region of Tuscany. The band had its peak in 1971 when they signed with the Italian subsidiary of RCA Records to release an album that was finished only after some time. Also in that year, the band played in festivals in their hometown, Viareggio and still came to opening for Led Zeppelin in Rome for thousands of people. The record is composed of only four but fabulous tracks, being the first a true gem worthy of what we know as Italian Progressive Rock. The track of almost 19 minutes, gives its name to the record and is conducted with extreme perfection with beautiful flute passages throughout its course…

This budget LP is among the many posthumous Jimi Hendrix releases that surfaced in 1972. In the Beginning is an appropriate title for the record, which focuses on some early, lesser known material that Hendrix did in June 1966 before he formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience and enjoyed a major commercial breakthrough with Are You Experienced?…

This album captured the event that more or less shouted the existence of the CTI label - previously little-known outside of musician circles - to the world. Along with veterans such as Stanley Turrentine and Hank Crawford, the album showcased the playing of Billy Cobham - about to emerge from the Mahavishnu Orchestra in a big way (stealing most of that band's energy and excitement with him when he left) - and comparatively new talents such as George Benson. Not all of the music has aged well - "Blues West" was definitely of its time, though it's still a great showcase for Benson's guitar and Freddie Hubbard's trumpet and, perhaps a little less enduringly so, Hubert Laws' flute. But "Fire and Rain" (a great jazz take on James Taylor's song), "Red Clay," and "Sugar" need no justification for a return visit four decades after the fact, with solos and explorations that will always stand the test of time.

Obscured by Clouds is the soundtrack to the Barbet Schroeder film La Vallée, and it plays that way. Of course, it's possible to make the argument that Pink Floyd's music of the early '70s usually played as mood music, similar to film music, but it had structure and a progression…

An interesting rarity, prog rock from South Africa in the early '70s. Other than the African lyrical themes, the music does has African flavour, but is mainly UK-styled prog/folk rock.
This album has actually been released in 3 different versions; the first was in 1972 a year or so after the phenomenal 'African Day' album. In 1973 'Africa She Too Was Cry' was released in the UK (and Europe) by the Charisma label (home of Genesis at the time) with a revised track listing and credited to JoBurg Hawk. In the late 90's an unofficial CD with the same title was released by the Japanese Never Land label. Despite the fact that this was a pirate CD, it was also more of a compilation than a re-issue, as it featured tracks from all 3 Hawk albums…

Thanks in part to the luridly alluring title and the enthusiastically informative liner notes by Bob Koester, this solid collection was many a young musician's introduction to the men who pioneered blues piano in the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt Sykes is the best represented artist here, and his leering vocals are hard to resist: After hearing the ribald metaphor of "Dresser Drawers," you'll never view furniture quite the same way again. His "Kickin' Motor Scooter" is truly a marvel of smiling euphemism, with the song devoted to boasts of how he's "A dangerous motor scooter…A tricky motor scooter!" Other artists, while not always as inventive lyrically, show a wide range of piano styles, from the bouncing syncopated jazz of "Stendahl Stomp" to the trickling upper registers and restrained bass coaxed by Curtis Jones from a battered old piano in "Tin Pan Alley Blues #2"…