Ornette Coleman - The Unprecedented Music Of Ornette Coleman (1968) {2014 Japan Studio Songs Remaster YZSO Series}
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© 1968, 2014 Studio Songs Japan | YZSO-10049 | Mono
Jazz / Free Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative / Post Bop / Saxophone

Recorded in Rome, Italy on February 8, 1968. The disc documents a 1968 performance of the Coleman Quartet in Milan, Italy, and features the interesting lineup of Coleman on alto sax, trumpet, and shanai, Ed Blackwell on drums, and the bass duo of David Izenzon and Charlie Haden. As can be expected, the quartet plays with great care and collective understanding throughout. Opening the date is a touching version of "Lonely Woman" performed in the style, perhaps, of his 1965 trio featuring Izenzon and Charles Moffett.

Larry Young - Contrasts (1967) {2014 Japan SHM-CD Blue Note 24-192 Remaster}
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© 1967, 2014 Universal Japan / Blue Note | BN 75th The Masterworks | TYCJ-81077
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Organ

Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and 24 bit remastering. One of the best Larry Young albums for Blue Note – and a record that really gets at his unique conception and style in the 60s! The session's a key bridge between Larry's soul jazz roots and his more far-reaching experimental work – filled with deep, heavy grooves – yet mixed with playful, personal touches on the Hammond – some of the most unique sounds coming from Blue Note at the time!

Wes Montgomery - Movin' Along (1960) {Riverside Japan VICJ-41166 rel 1997}
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© 1960, 1997 Riverside / Victor Japan | VICJ-41166 | 20bit K2 Super Coding
Jazz / Hard Bop / Guitar

Because it was recorded between two of Wes Montgomery's best-known albums (Incredible Jazz Guitar and So Much Guitar), this particular LP is a bit underrated. The great guitarist is teamed with flutist James Clay (who switches to tenor on Montgomery's "So Do It!"), pianist Victor Feldman, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Louis Hayes for four standards (highlighted by Clifford Brown's "Sandu" and "Body and Soul"), Sam Jones' "Says You," and two Montgomery originals. This is an often overlooked gem.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Bossa Nova U.S.A. (1962) {Essential Jazz Classics EJC55578 rel 2013}
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© 1962, 2013 Columbia / Essential Jazz Classics | EJC55578
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Bossa Nova Jazz / Piano

With the popularization of bossa nova in the early '60s, practically every recording artist had to have at least one bossa nova album. This effort by the Dave Brubeck Quartet is better than most due to the high quality of the compositions, of which the title cut is best-known. The date's two standards ("This Can't Be Love" and "Trolley Song") also fare well on this upbeat session.

Heart & Soul is a compilation album by American blues musician Johnny Adams. Released in 1969 by SSS International, the record was produced by Shelby Singleton and contains much of Adams' 1960s output. Heart & Soul largely blends 1960s gospel, soul, pop, blues, country and funk. "Georgia Morning Dew" has been described as "bouncy country-funk" that provides a "giddy, melancholy counterpart to Adams' throaty proclamations." In 2013, Tucson Weekly called Heart & Soul a collection of Adams' finest work, writing, "As a compilation, Heart & Soul is replete with Adams' astonishingly full-bellied soul—searching and salutatory, dramatic and light—fitting comfortably alongside such classics of the form as Songs in the Key of Life, Going to a Go-Go, What's Going On, and Otis Blue."

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Strictly Personal (1968) {EMI–Liberty 724382965428 rel 1994}
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© 1968, 1994 EMI / Liberty | 7243 8 29654 2 8
Rock / Experimental Rock / Psychedelic / Blues Rock / Proto-Punk / Art Rock

Considered by many to be a substandard effort due to the circumstances of its release (producer Bob Krasnow, the owner of Blue Thumb, the label which debuted with this album, remixed the album while Don Van Vliet and crew were off on a European tour, adding extraneous sound effects like heartbeats and excessive use of psychedelic-era clichés like out-of-phase stereo panning and flanging), 1968's Strictly Personal is actually a terrific album, every bit the equal of Safe As Milk and Trout Mask Replica.

George Russell Sextet - At The Five Spot (1960) {Verve Elite Edition rel 2000}
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© 1960, 2000 Decca / Verve / UMG | 088 112 287-2
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal Music / Third Stream

This limited-edition CD reissue covers six tracks recorded in the studio (since they obviously omit any of the background noise, and the usual out-of-tune piano heard on live dates recorded at the long defunct New York City nightclub is missing). The band includes trumpeter Al Kiger, trombonist David Baker, tenor saxophonist Dave Young, bassist Chuck Israels, and drummer Joe Hunt, along with Russell's sparse piano. Things kick off with a driving take of Miles Davis' "Sippin' at Bells," which features great interaction among the horns.

Elvin Jones - Puttin' It Together (1968) {2014 Japan SHM-CD Blue Note 24-192 Remaster}
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© 1968, 2014 Universal Japan / Blue Note | BN 75th The Masterworks | UCCQ-5051
Jazz / Post Bop / Modal Music / Avant-Garde Jazz / Drums

Features the high-fidelity SHM-CD format (compatible with standard CD player) and the latest 24bit 192kHz remastering. Proof that Elvin Jones wasn't just riding on the laurels of the Great One during his years with John Coltrane – as the album's a breakout date that has Jones firmly establishing his own voice in jazz! There's an explosive power here that makes us think that Elvin must have really just been biding his time with Coltrane – waiting for the chance to try out his own new ideas in music, and finding the perfect accompanists here in a trio that includes Jimmy Garrison on bass and a young Joe Farrell on tenor, soprano sax, and flute! The lack of a piano in the group really makes for a sense of new freedom that's totally great – not dreamy, melodic piano-less work, as in some of the LA groups of earlier years – but a searing, soaring intensity that Farrell was a perfect choice to head up.

Jan Boerman - The Complete Tape Music (1998) {5CD Set Donemus CV NEAR 04-08 rec 1959-1997}
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© 1959-97, 1998 Donemus Composers' Voice / NEAR | CV-NEAR 04~08
Classical / Musique Concrète / Electronic / Electroacoustic Music / Experimental

Jan Boerman (born 30 June 1923) has been a composer working in electronic music studios since 1959. He was born in The Hague. The Delft Polytechnic in Utrecht, from which the Institute of Sonology was developed, housed the first electronic music studio in the Netherlands after the Philips laboratory in Eindhoven, which was not generally open to composers.

Any project in the works for two decades is bound to generate its fair share of myths and so it is with Neil Young's Archives, a series of a multi-disc box sets chronicling Young's history. Originally envisioned in the late '80s as a Decade II, the project quickly mutated into a monster covering every little corner of Neil's career. With its escalation came delays, so many that it sometimes seemed that the project never really existed; it was just a shared fantasy between Neil and his faithful…

Completely Well was B.B. King's breakthrough album in 1969, which finally got him the long-deserved acclaim that was no less than his due. It contained his signature number, "The Thrill Is Gone," and eight other tunes, six of them emanating from King's pen, usually in a co-writing situation. Hardliners point to the horn charts and the overdubbed strings as the beginning of the end of King's old style that so identifiably earmarked his early sides for the Bihari Brothers and his later tracks for ABC, but this is truly the album that made the world sit up and take notice of B.B. King. The plus points include loose arrangements and a small combo behind him that never dwarfs the proceedings or gets in the way. King, for his part, sounds like he's having a ball, playing and singing at peak power. This is certainly not the place to start your B.B. King collection, but it's a nice stop along the way before you finish it.

Grant Green - Feelin' The Spirit plus 1 (1962) {Blue Note Japan, CP32-9527, Early Press, rel 1987}
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© 1962,1987 Blue Note / Toshiba EMI Japan | CP32-9527
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Guitar

Soulful, spiritual work from guitarist Grant Green – an exploration of older tunes with a hip Blue Note 60s soul jazz approach! The album features Grant working in a quartet with Herbie Hancock, Billy Higgins, and Butch Warren – plus some added tambourine on a number of tracks – and the overall approach is extremely laidback and open, with Green soloing in a personal style that's a bit less frenetic than some of his other work of the period.

Wes Montgomery - Live '61 (1961) {Magnetic Records MRCD 124}
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© 1961 Magnetic Records | MRCD 124
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Guitar Jazz

Universally acknowledged as one of the greatest guitarists in the history of jazz, Wes Montgomery virtually defined modern jazz guitar during the 1950s and ’60s. His unique idiomatic conception to the instrument and the power of his soloing influenced generations of players who followed him; guitar icons such as George Benson, Pat Martino, Larry Coryell, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour and Russell Malone.

Freddie McCoy - Spider Man (1965) {Universal Japan Remaster 2012}
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© 2012 Universal Japan / Prestige | UCCO-90112
Jazz / Cool / Soul Jazz / Vibes

A striking little set from vibesman Freddie McCoy – not just for the cool superhero image on the front cover, but also for the tight grooves underneath! The album's one of McCoy's most unified for Prestige – as all tracks feature a core quartet with Freddie on vibes, Charlie Wilson on piano, Steve Davis on bass, and Rudy Lawless on drums – not your usual Prestige players, and all musicians who really make the album sparkle! There's a bold soul jazz vibe running through the set – similar to some of Freddie's other work, but a bit more open too – and titles include a groovy take on "Girl From Ipanema", plus the soul jazz classics "Speak Out, Deagan!" and "Hav' Mercy" – as well as the cuts "Yesterdays" and "Spider Man".

Chico Hamilton - Man From Two Worlds (1964) {Impulse! GRP11272 rel 1993}
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© 1962-63, 1993 Impulse! / MCA / GRP | GRP11272
Jazz / Cool / Post Bop / Modal Music / Drums

A pivotal album for Chico – one that has him working with his hip group that included Charles Lloyd and Gabor Szabo, both of whom take Chico into a modal mode that would completely transform his sound! Lloyd's the center star on the album's version of his own "Forest Flower" – done here in "sunrise" and "sunset" passages – but it's really Chico's increasingly offbeat sense of rhythm that allows Lloyd and Szabo to develop their intense solos and searching grooves.