This US act initially comprised Steve Hayton (guitar/vocals), Cliff Carrison (drums) and Kurt Palomaki (bass/clarinet/vocals). The trio spent its early months on a farm in New York state, before moving location to New Mexico. The promise of work in films brought the group to Europe in 1969, and although such plans were later aborted, they decided to settle in England…

By the sound of Hard Heart Singin', Douglas Fir must have been a smoking little blues-rock combo. They may have existed purely as a bar band, but the Pacific Northwest dives where they honed their sound must have been some pretty trippy little establishments, as evidenced by the brooding, ominous, mildly psychedelic (depending on your definition of the genre) nature of their rock & roll…

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet - Music, You All (1972) {Blue Note-Real Gone Music RGM-0454 rel 2016}
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© 1972, 2016 Blue Note / Capitol / Real Gone Music / Dusty Groove | RGM-0454
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Modern Jazz / Jazz Funk / Saxophone

Killer work from the same sessions that gave the world Cannonball Adderley's classic Black Messiah album – live material from an extended stretch as the Troubadour club in LA – featuring a very righteous, freewheeling version of Cannonball's group! The lineup features some wonderful work on Fender Rhodes from George Duke – who brings a more soulful, spiritual current to the proceedings than Joe Zawinul did in earlier years – a really commanding presence that hints at his brewing solo fame, and which is a very welcome addition to the core lineup, which also includes Cannon on soprano and alto, and brother Nat on cornet!

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Musik für Posaune und Euphonium (1997) {Stockhausen-Verlag No. 44}
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© 1997 Stockhausen-Verlag | Stockhausen 44
Classical / Avant-Garde / Experimental / 20th Century

Since 1991, a complete edition of all recordings in which Karlheinz Stockhausen has personally participated is being released on compact discs. Each CD in this series is identified by Stockhausen's signature followed by an encircled number. The numbers indicate the general historical order of the works. Stockhausen realised the electronic music and participated in these recordings as conductor, performer, sound projectionist, and musical director. He personally mixed down the recordings, mastered them for CDs, wrote the texts and drew the covers.

The best-realized of their classic albums, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour was also the last of the group's albums for almost a decade to be done under reasonably happy and satisfying circumstances – for the last time with this lineup, they went into the studio with a reasonably full song bag and a lot of ambition and brought both as far as time would allow, across close to four months (interrupted by a tour of the United States right in the middle)…

Beth Carvalho is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, cavaquinist, and composer whose name is synonymous with samba, particularly the Mangueira school. Though she began recording with Os Gatos in the mid-'60s, her run of solo albums between 1974's Pra Seu Governo and 1988's Alma Do Brasil is almost unparalleled in Brazilian MPB for their consistently high quality. She has recorded the works of now-legendary samba composers such as Nelson Cavaquinho, Guilherme de Brito, and Cartola, supporting them long before the listening public did; she assisted mightily in making them household names in Brazil…

Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers - Child's Dance (1972) {2014 Japan Prestige Masters Collection 1000 Series UCCO-90294}
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© 1972, 2014 Prestige / Concord / Universal Music Japan | UCCO-90294 / UCCO-9884 (Prestige PR 10047)
Jazz / Hard Bop / Contemporary Jazz / Drums

After several years of few recordings, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers re-emerged with totally new personnel on this Prestige LP. The strongest performance is a quartet feature for the great trumpeter Woody Shaw on "I Can't Get Started," but the other three selections (which include such musicians as George Cables or John Hicks on keyboards, bassist Stanley Clarke and Ramon Morris on reeds) are also worth hearing and sound surprisingly "contemporary" for the time. An interesting set.

One of the great free jazz tenor saxophonists, Frank Wright was a high-energy player with a large tone and a style that made him often sound possessed. On this previously unissued ESP set, he is joined by pianist Bobby Few (who during the latter part of the set hints at his roots in more mainstream jazz), the virtuosic bassist Alan Silva and the powerful drummer Muhammad Ali at the 1974 Moers Jazz Festival. The two selections are continuous, never run out of intensity, and feature some intense playing, particularly from Wright and Ali. Free jazz collectors will definitely want this powerful performance.

The plan was for the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section of bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to join with guitar god Jeff Beck and his singer Rod Stewart in a supergroup of sorts. The plan was derailed when Beck had a motorcycle accident that incapacitated him for 18 months. Stewart then joined pal Ron Wood in the revamped Faces (and pursued a somewhat lucrative solo career), leaving Bogert and Appice to find alternates for their dream band. They recruited guitarist Jim McCarty from Mitch Ryder's disassembling Detroit Wheels, and singer Rusty Day from Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes…

Chico Hamilton - Chico Hamilton And The Players (1976) {2013 Japanese BNLA Series 24-bit Remaster TOCJ-50557}
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© 1976, 2013 Blue Note / EMI Music Japan | TOCJ-50557
Jazz / Hard Bop / Post Bop / Cool

Chico Hamilton in the 70s just can't miss – he's really changed loads from his mellow 50s work in LA, and has a tendency to go for a hard grooving sound – but also one that's slightly left of center than the work of most other 70s jazz drummers – and we mean that in a good way! This cooking set for Blue Note is a great example of that offbeat approach – a tight set of fusion tracks with a warm finish and an edgey approach to the rhythms – awash with some really compelling numbers that will have you hunting down the rest of Chico's work from the decade!

Beth Carvalho is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, cavaquinist, and composer whose name is synonymous with samba, particularly the Mangueira school. Though she began recording with Os Gatos in the mid-'60s, her run of solo albums between 1974's Pra Seu Governo and 1988's Alma Do Brasil is almost unparalleled in Brazilian MPB for their consistently high quality. She has recorded the works of now-legendary samba composers such as Nelson Cavaquinho, Guilherme de Brito, and Cartola, supporting them long before the listening public did; she assisted mightily in making them household names in Brazil…

Light as a Feather is simply the first version, a little over half of what would become Azymuth's fine Outubro album. It opens with the weakest cut, the ten-plus minute faux disco "Jazz Carnival," with awful drum effects and popping, funky-yet cliched basslines by Alex Malheiros. After this there is much to like, however, in the breezy execution of the title track that is nearly as beautiful as Return to Forever's, and features a fine jazz-samba number that evokes both Walter Wanderley and Tom Jobim in Jose Roberto Bertrami's "Fly Over the Horizon," as well as a beautiful version of Toninho Horta's "Dona Olimpia."