After two albums that downplayed their penchant for gothic sounds and mystical lyrics, Uriah Heep brought these elements back to the fore on 1975's Return to Fantasy. The resulting album retains the musical experimentation that marked Sweet Freedom and Wonderworld, but has an overall harder-rocking feel that makes it more consistent than either one of those albums…

Part of his five sessions that featured duets with different trumpeters, pianist Oscar Peterson's matchup with trumpeter Roy Eldridge has its strong moments. Eldridge did not quite have the range of his earlier years, but his competitive streak had not mellowed with age. Peterson pushes Eldridge to his limit and the music is generally quite exciting. Highlights include "Little Jazz," "Sunday," and "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea."

Steve Schroyder's (ex Tangerine Dream) super krautrock band, featuring many guests (from Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, etc.). Recorded in 1975, "Magical Mind" is a psychedelic tour de force for electric guitar tones, Moog synth textures and discreet pulses from percussions. Ethereal soundscapes and freak out kraut-improvisations.

Blow by Blow typifies Jeff Beck's wonderfully unpredictable career. Released in 1975, Beck's fifth effort as a leader and first instrumental album was a marked departure from its more rock-based predecessors…

A sort of a sequel to Gatemouth's 1974 Cajun country & western cowboy album Down South in the Bayou Country, the originally issued Bogalusa Boogie Man consists of 12 tracks performed in more or less that same vein. "Bogalusa Boogie Man" was recorded in Bogalusa, LA, during March of 1975, almost exactly one year after Bayou Country. Material for this project was composed by Danny Morrison, Red Lane, Hoyt Garrick, David Craig, Jerry Hubbard, Pat Rush, Fred Martin, and Little Feat founder Lowell George, whose "Dixie Chicken" features "vocals by everyone around in the studio, including friends and neighbors and the one and only Woody Lee Lewis." George is said to have singled out this version as his all-time favorite.

Blow by Blow typifies Jeff Beck's wonderfully unpredictable career. Released in 1975, Beck's fifth effort as a leader and first instrumental album was a marked departure from its more rock-based predecessors. Only composer/keyboardist Max Middleton returned from Beck's previous lineups. To Beck's credit, Blow by Blow features a tremendous supporting cast…

Sergio Mendes spent the '70s straying very far from his Brazilian roots. The Sergio Mendes album from 1975 is very much in the smooth soul/quiet storm bag and Magic Lady from 1979 is a straight disco record. Neither of the records are the disasters you might have already pegged them as. Sergio Mendes is actually a small pleasure and Magic Lady, while overly smooth, isn't an embarrassment. The best part about Sergio Mendes is the sweetly harmonizing vocals of Bonnie Bowden and Sondra Catton and the laid-back groove that percolates throughout the album. The songs are all covers. Some like the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun" or Donny Hathaway's "Someday We'll All Be Free" have interesting arrangements, while some like Stevie Wonder's "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" have hackneyed or meandering arrangements…

Although it features the beautiful recorder of Leslie Penny and the Chieftains' Paddy Maloney playing the uilean pipe, Ommadawn didn't gain Mike Oldfield the success he was looking for. The album was released in the same year as the David Bedford-arranged Orchestral Tubular Bells and nine months after Oldfield picked up a Grammy award for the original Tubular Bells album…

Subtitled "A Pythagorean Theory Tale," Numbers was a concept album relating to a faraway galaxy, a planet called Polygor, a palace, and its people, the Polygons. So one learned from the album's accompanying booklet. The songs presumably told the tale, but as with so many concept albums, listening to Numbers was like hearing a Broadway cast album without having seen the show - something seemed to be going on, but it was hard to tell what. The setting did allow Cat Stevens to indulge his affection for Middle Ages madrigal music, and individual songs, notably the singles-chart entry "Banapple Gas," were appealing. The lyrics were full of references to home, God, and "the truth," which gave the whole a vaguely spiritual tone, though the key word here is "vague"…

It's been said many times that being difficult to categorize or pigeonhole can be the kiss of death commercially, and no one bears that out more than Phoebe Snow – a pearl of a singer who never caught on because she simply didn't fit neatly into any one category…