Urban Soul is a contemporary Jazz-Funk, Smooth Jazz group. The members are well known Jazz musicians like Jóhann Asmundsson, Michael Landau, Bill Champlin, Jonathan Fritzén. Their new album TWO is released by the independent Swedish label Prophone.

In 1980, guitarist and composer Eric Gale came off the commercial success of 1979's Part of You (produced by Ralph MacDonald) and didn't do the obvious thing. Rather than make another record that swung for the smooth jazz fences, he made a darker, deeper, funkier, and bluesier album with legendary New Orleans producer Allen Toussaint. The sessions included the cream of the Crescent City's jazz-funk crop as well as mates Charlie Earland, Grover Washington, Jr., and Idris Muhammad, three of soul-jazz's greatest lights – with special guest Arthur Blythe on the Charlie Parker nugget "Au Privave" as a curve ball. Toussaint wrote four of the album's seven tracks, and they range from the murky blue soul-jazz of "You Got My Life in Your Hands" to the sweet, boudoir-perfect urban-styled title track.

This is George Howard's first album. It is a very outstanding recording and one of the most prolific recordings of the 1980's.

Every once in a while a band comes around that defies definition, a band so inimitable in its approach to music that it turns a genre on its head and leaves one wondering, “WHAT WAS THAT?!” Well, that's exactly what Sweden's best kept secret, Dirty Loops, has done with their debut album, Loopified.

Desire is an album by jazz musician Tom Scott, recorded live to two tracks on June 30 and July 1, 1982 in Hollywood. Billboard magazine called it "predictably broad-based fusion, with nods to contemporary black, pop and rock instrumental styles.

In My Wildest Dreams is a 1992 album by keyboardist Tom Grant featuring David Grant and Wayne Braithwaite. My Wildest Dreams is a sunny fusion date whose fantasies are more in the nature of pastel reveries than wild' noirish nightmares.

The original Banda Black Rio were one of the great Brazilian bands of the 1970s and 80s. Formed by saxophonist Oberdan Magalhães, they were pioneers of the country’s soul, samba and funk movement, and played a key role in Rio’s black music scene in the days of the military dictatorship. The band stopped playing after Oberdan’s death in 1984, but have now been revived by his son William, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who wrote or co-wrote every track on a set that’s remarkable mostly for the number of celebrities who agreed to join in. Left to themselves, as on the title track, the band play cool, tight and rhythmic jazz-funk with a Brazilian edge, mixing brass with keyboards and guitar.

Jeff Lorber shows us this magnificent production with a star of the saxophone as is Eric Marienthal. A fresh, powerful and dynamic cd with excellent arrangements. A cd with lot of life. Marienthal always intense and the recording is enriched with the vocal participation of Leroy Ousborne, Eric Jordan and Jeff Pescetto, Super singers.

Italian acid jazz collective Jestofunk began in 1992 as the collaboration between DJs/producers MozArt and Blade; after issuing their debut single "I'm Gonna Love You," the duo recruited American house vocalist CeCe Rogers for the follow-up, 1993's "Say It Again." Jestofunk's debut album Love in a Black Dimension appeared a year later, with DJ/producer Farias signing on for 1999's Universal Mother.

Hummingbird were a British band, formed in 1974 by Bobby Tench of The Jeff Beck Group. The band recorded three albums which were released by A&M Records in the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe and employed Ian Samwell as their producer. The original line-up included members of the second Jeff Beck Group, vocalist and guitarist Bobby Tench, keyboardist Max Middleton, bassist Clive Chaman, drummer Conrad Isidore and second guitarist Bernie Holland. At the start of sessions for their first album they were joined by Jeff Beck for a brief period but he did not contribute to the album and left to work on his own project. After the first album Bernie Holland was replaced by guitarist Robert Ahwai and drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie replaced Isidore on the next two albums, vocalists Madeline Bell and Liza Strike were brought in to complement the band.

Hummingbird were a British band, formed in 1974 by Bobby Tench of The Jeff Beck Group. The band recorded three albums which were released by A&M Records in the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe and employed Ian Samwell as their producer. The original line-up included members of the second Jeff Beck Group, vocalist and guitarist Bobby Tench, keyboardist Max Middleton, bassist Clive Chaman, drummer Conrad Isidore and second guitarist Bernie Holland. At the start of sessions for their first album they were joined by Jeff Beck for a brief period but he did not contribute to the album and left to work on his own project. After the first album Bernie Holland was replaced by guitarist Robert Ahwai and drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie replaced Isidore on the next two albums, vocalists Madeline Bell and Liza Strike were brought in to complement the band.

This was, in fact, the second release by the spin-off of the 2nd Jeff Beck Group. Keyboardist Max Middleton, bassist Clive Chaman, and Vocalist, Guitarist Bobble Tench remain from that wonderful band. On this 2nd release, they have a new drummer in seasoned funk, R&B, and jazz drummer Bernard Purdie, and add guitarist Robert Ahwai. This is a solid session of funkie, jazzie rock, but the drop off from the 1st self titled, Hummingbird release, is in the songs. The primary songwriter on that 1st release was the drummer, Conrad Isadore. Without his tropical vision, style and imagery, we are left with a fairly mundane R&B Rock workout. But these guys are great musicians, and they take this so-so material and make it fun and powerful.

Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author, known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s. His collaborative efforts with musician Brian Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues, and soul, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. His own term for himself was "bluesologist", which he defined as "a scientist who is concerned with the origin of the blues." His music, most notably on Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul.