That Cimarron, Emmylou Harris' ninth regular album, was assembled largely from recording sessions held for her previous couple of records is no necessary reflection on its quality. In fact, Cimarron was a typical effort for Harris, presenting her usual mix of country favorites, songs borrowed from the pop/rock arena, and singer/songwriter discoveries…

Featuring some of the finest avant-garde jazz players from Germany and beyond, the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble began life as a loose studio aggregation assembled for a youth-oriented German television show in 1975. Hoping for a contemporary balance between rock and jazz, producer Werner Schretzmeier called upon pianist Wolfgang Dauner, the former leader of Et Cetera, an avant-garde jazz group Schretzmeier had managed until their breakup in 1972. Initially recruiting musicians from his home base of Stuttgart (then a hotbed of avant-garde jazz), Dauner put together a rotating cast of musicians that were at first dubbed the Eleven and a Half Ensemble (after the program's airtime); this group featured guitarist Volker Kriegel (who shared writing and arranging duties with Dauner), drummer Jon Hiseman, trumpeter Ack Van Rooyen, and trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff…

In 2001, Concord Jazz described Live at Otter Crest as a "never-before-released live recording." But, in fact, this CD is actually a reissue of an obscure, little-known LP that originally came out on the Bosco label. When Live at Otter Crest was recorded at an Oregon gig on April 24, 1981, Gene Harris was in semi-retirement - he was still performing, but not very often. And it wasn't until 1985 that the pianist's very productive association with Concord would begin. Because Harris had recorded some overproduced commercial projects in the late '70s, bop's hardcore was calling him a sellout. But on Live at Otter Crest, a 47-year-old Harris is hell-bent for straight-ahead, hard-swinging jazz - funky and earthy, yes, but definitely straight-ahead…

Re-issue of the Australian rock legends Rose Tattoo's debut LP in its original UK album sleeve. Includes the UK Top 75 single "Rock N Roll Outlaw" and the Aussie Top 10 "Bad Boy For Love" plus the original version of "Nice Boys" which was later covered by Guns N Roses. Lyrics to all the songs and liner notes by Kerrang!'s Derek Oliver are a feature of the artwork for this essential album.

Another Ticket is the seventh solo studio album by Eric Clapton. Recorded and produced by Tom Dowd at the Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas with Albert Lee, it was Clapton's last studio album for RSO Records before the label shut down in 1983 as it absorbed to Polydor Records…

After the critical (and commercial) success of her debut two years earlier, Rickie Lee Jones had a lot riding on her sophomore album, Pirates. From the opening track, "We Belong Together," Jones served notice that she was willing to challenge herself and experiment with more unusual, complex song structures…