A great combo from Mannheim, Germany, also known as Joy & The Hit Kids. They were mixing jazz-rock, krautrock, funk, soul, pop and psychedelic rock, with Hans W. Herkenne (drums, percussion), Albin Metz (trumpet, bass), Roland Heck (organ, piano, vibes, marimba, percussion, vocals), Dieter Kindl (bass, guitar, percussion), Gerd Köthe (saxophone, flute), Klaus Nagel (guitar, woodwind, percussion, flute) and Hans Lingenfelder (guitar). Led by extraordinary vocal skills of female singer Joy Fleming, the band released their debut 'Overground'in 1970 (released under the name 'Turbulence' in UK and 'Joy Unlimited' in the US). Their second album, 'Schmetterlinge' (which means 'Butterflies' in German) along with the debut is the most representative band's material, and certainly worth checking.

Oliver Lieb was particularly influential via the first wave of European club trance that emerged in the 1990's, the melodic and more accessible cousin of techno… and the distinctive futuristic, techy quality of his trance productions also carries over into his downtempo and ambient albums, relatively few in number but exceptionally high in quality. "Constellation" (1993) was his first ambient album release. The title certainly makes explicit the deep space and sci-fi themes but the music itself is sophisticated and understated. The fourteen minute "Dimension X" is an absolutely gorgeous cosmic hymn with exquisitely layered melodic loops in the best Berlin-school ambient tradition and executed with a feather-soft touch. This stunningly accomplished track alone makes the album worth having.

Art Pepper's final recording sessions were comprised of duets with pianist George Cables. Pepper, who splits his time almost evenly here between alto and clarinet, is in surprisingly strong form considering that he only had a month left to live. He is heard at his best on "Goin' Home," "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying," "Isn't She Lovely," and "Lover Man," really pouring out his emotions into the ballads.

One of the most ambitious Euro-disco acts of the late 1970s was Space, which shouldn't be confused with the alternative rock band that recorded Spiders in 1996. By the time that Space was formed in the 1990s, the Euro-disco act heard on Deliverance had long since called it quits. Recorded in London and Paris in 1978, this conceptual, mostly instrumental LP employs a lot of futuristic sci-fi imagery and is quite high-tech for its time. Synthesizer-dominated instrumentals like "Air Force" and "Running in the City" give the impression that Jean-Philippe Iliesco, the album's producer, had been paying close attention to German innovators like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder-and yet, Deliverance has a high-tech energy of its own.

The Bangles combined the chiming riffs and catchy melodies of British Invasion guitar pop with a hint of the energy of new wave. In the process, they became one of the handful of all-female bands of the '80s to win both critical and commercial success. The critical success came first – with their self-titled debut EP and full-length album, All Over the Place – and popular success arrived once they polished their sound, added some synthesizers, and deviated slightly from their trademark jangling guitar hooks. Once they were selling at the platinum level, the Bangles didn't stay together long, but they left several pop gems in their wake.

When Gretchen Wilson released One of the Boys in 2007, she took a left turn and offered as many ballads as she did straight contemporary country-rockers. The album didn’t sell as well as its two predecessors. Wilson went into the studio and cut I Got Your Country Right Here two years later – producing it with Blake Chancey and two tracks with John Rich. She felt it reflected her live shows better than her previous recordings did and would connect better with her audience.

The Empire Brass adds a drummer to its lineup for CLASS BRASS–FIREDANCE, another collection of classical popular hits by one of the world's most renown brass ensembles. Empire is well known for its reliable interpretations of pieces such as Ravel's 'Boléro,' which leads off this collection of primarily dances.

Freddy Kempf is a fast-rising young star of the piano literature known for his outstanding virtuosity and independence. Any complaints about Kempf's music-making concern the issues of mannerisms and characterization. Unfortunately, these complaints rear their heads in Kempf's new Bach recording of two of the six keyboard partitas. First, the good stuff. Kempf has 'flying fingers' and an overall technique that is very impressive; just listen to his dynamic accounts of the Gigues from each Partita.

Accardo's performances are nothing short of spectacular, and (the late) Kurt Masur and the Gewandhaus's performances never disappoint. Most classical audiophiles may be familiar only with Bruch's first violin concerto and the "Scottish Fantasy," but there are two more wonderful violin concertos, a Romance, a Konzertstuck, a Serenade, a piece entitled "Adagio Appassionato" and a piece that was new to me, "In Memoriam," a very beautiful and moving composition that is the last band on the last record.

Whatcha Gonna Do is a solid set of folk with a strong dose of bluegrass and country, sweetly sung by Claire Lynch and delivered with low-key assuredness by her band. While she did write or co-write four of the songs, Lynch is here more an interpreter of work by others. A few of the writers she covers are quite prominent, with Bill Monroe's "My Florida Sunshine" getting a less all-out bluegrass treatment than most would bring to it, and Jesse Winchester dueting with Lynch on his "That's What Makes You Strong."

A major departure from Claire Martin's previous efforts, Take My Heart marked the first time she recorded an album that had very little to do with jazz. The British singer had never been a jazz snob; she always had a healthy appreciation of rock, pop and R&B. But jazz was her foundation – if she interpreted a Tom Waits or Stevie Wonder song, she did so from a jazz perspective.

Well, I've been well and truly Claire Martinned - and it's a good thing to be, I can tell you. With these four from the ‘nineties, which I hadn't heard before, plus the five that I already had, I thought I might have the Linn CM output so far. But I discover that there are a couple more I have to catch up with. With Claire having been showing British female jazz singers how to do it during two decades now, the nineties were her ‘early years', and this package, ranging from her Waiting Game debut (1992), through Devil May Care (1993), Old Boyfriends (1994), to Make This City Ours (1997), provides some intriguing insights.