An essential soul album produced by Stevie Wonder (as Scorbu Productions), Minnie Riperton’s Perfect Angel is best known for its international hit “Lovin’ You.” The album crucially featured […]
1974
Sounding something like Neil Young in Japan, Niningashi’s 1974 private press debut Heavy Way is a long-lost Japanese acid folk holy grail that has now been lovingly reissued […]
Pianist and Hammond B-3 master Shirley Scott aka the “Queen of the Organ” has released music on some of the greatest jazz labels including Impulse!, Prestige, Blue Note, […]
The undisputed Queen of Reggae, Marcia Griffiths released her debut solo album in 1974 after a decade of singing professionally in Byron Lee and the Dragonaires band, recording […]
Legendary jazz keyboardist George Duke’s first fusion album arrived in 1974 on MPS Records. A valued sideman at this point in his career, Duke had been a key […]
The Main Ingredient was a Harlem based soul group composed of lead singer Donald McPherson, Luther Simmons, Jr., and Panama-born Tony Silvester. They got their name came from […]
Isis was a pioneering all-female rock band from New York formed in 1972 by Carol MacDonald (vocals/guitar) and Ginger Bianco (drums), former members of 1960s rock band Goldie […]
Bargain bin spiritual jazz isn’t something that pops up very often and rarely is it actually good… Illuminations features probably one of the strangest musical pairings we’ve come […]
Released a few months after Gram Parsons died of an overdose at the Joshua Tree Hotel in late 1973, Grievous Angel is the Flying Burrito Bros. founder’s second […]
Nino And Radiah is the 1974 cult classic album from Italian-born French singer-songwriter Nino Ferrer and American model, singer, actress Radiah Frye. The duo are a perfect musical […]
Bluejeans & Moonbeams is the ninth studio album by the enigmatic singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and visual artist Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, and his Magic Band, recorded […]
Building on the trippy, psychedelics inspired prog rock of his previous album, the wizard Todd Rundgren delivers another impossibly creative and structurally daring double LP filled with pop […]
Drummer/Keyboardist Jack DeJohnette delivers his trippiest solo outing to date on cult classic Sorcery with an all-star cast including Headhunters / Mwandishi legend Bennie Maupin, Bitches Brew bass […]
A glam rock classic, Sparks’ third album Kimono My House broke the band through to the mainstream, peaking at No. 4 in the UK. The two Japanese women […]
Plastic Ono Band, Harry Nilsson, Elton John, and a “lost weekend” in Los Angeles away from Yoko and family life make for a winning combination on John Lennon’s […]
Can’s first album following the departure of vocalist Damo Suzuki is an experimental trip featuring looping hypnotic grooves that, at times, sound like proto-electronic-dance music. Guitarist Michael Karoli […]
Gil Scott-Heron was barely twenty-one years old when he signed a record deal with legendary Impulse! producer Bob Thiele’s Flying Dutchman imprint. Thiele had gotten a hold of […]
Kraftwerk’s first attempt at radio-friendly music was a 22-minute long track meant to capture the feeling of a car journey along Germany’s first autobahn, the A 555 from […]
William Howard “Monk” Montgomery is widely known as the man who “de-bastardized the Fender bass.” Monk worked with Lionel Hampton’s orchestra in the early 50’s and legitimized the […]
One of the great underrated Miles albums, Get Up With It pushes forward with the full force, sophistication, groove, and beautiful chaos of Miles’ electrified wah-wah trumpet and […]
How many great Eberhard Weber albums are there on ECM? A good amount… The Colours Of Chloë once again showcases upright bassist Eberhard Weber’s mastery of composition, space, […]
New Age flute and saxophone player Paul Horn goes soul/fusion jazz-funk with a collection of choice covers of some of the best Stevie Wonder, David Crosby, Joni Mitchell, […]
Jazz legend Ramsey Lewis plays Fender Rhodes and Arp synthesizer on his 1974 jazz-funk hit Sun Goddess. The pianist is joined by his former drummer Maurice White, members […]
Les McCann’s drum break classic Layers was conceived in his mind long before the tapes were rolling at Joel Dorn’s Regent Sound Studios in New York. With just […]
The last EWF release before the group broke into superstardom with That’s The Way Of The World, Open Our Eyes is a stripped back, jazz, funk and R&B classic […]
Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson’s Winter In America was the duo’s first and only release on legendary independent jazz label Strata-East. Praised for its influence on hip-hop and neo […]
Lucio Battisti released a slew of successful rock and pop albums in the late 60’s and early 70’s, but it would take him a few years before the […]
You probably know Patrice Rushen from her 1982 hit “Forget Me Nots” and the countless other R&B and disco classics she put out on Elektra in the late […]
Between was an instrumental krautrock group in the 70’s formed by composers Peter Michael Hamel and Ulrich Stranz with the purpose of creating “music between the worlds.” While […]
Batsumi’s self-titled debut is a powerful statement against the apartheid state of South Africa. The album was recorded in the segregated township of Soweto just outside Johannesburg, the […]
Recorded shortly after Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band broke up, Love, Love continues right where the group left off with two long tracks of deep, avant-garde fusion. The Mwandishi […]
An all-time jazz classic, Joe Henderson’s The Elements is a beautiful meeting of five singular talents propelled to cosmic dimensions by the one and only Alice ‘Swami Turiyasangitananda’ Coltrane. […]
Famously deleted from the catalogue of Asylum Records, with David Geffen pointedly trying to erase it from history, No Other is the lost and recently found masterpiece by […]
One of our favorite ECM records, The Jewel In The Lotus is the debut solo album from master bass clarinetist Bennie Maupin. Though not a household name, Maupin […]
Pharoah Sanders’ final album for Impulse! is a joyous message of love for all times. “Love is Everywhere” begins with a gorgeous bass vamp followed by steadily cascading […]
Sensations’ Fix is the brainchild of Italian musician Franco Falsini. In the sixties, Falsini developed his musical chops playing in a beat style band in Florence before moving […]
Recently reissued by Far Out Recordings, the 1974 debut LP from Ana Mazzotti is a little known Brazilian classic. Dubbed a “Super Musician” by fellow Brazilian virtuoso Hermeto […]
Overshadowed by the exceedingly sought after India that came before it, along with the more experimental records that came into fruition during the Tropicália explosion of the late […]
One of our many favorites from the legendary Oakland-based label Black Jazz, double bassist Henry Franklin’s The Skipper At Home takes off right where his solo debut The […]
L.A. Turnaround was recorded a year after the dissolution of Bert Jansch’s group Pentangle, and saw the artist at a shifting point in his life and sound. The […]
Maria Monti, a talented Italian folk singer and actor who appeared in films by Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Leone, was backed by some incredible talent on her fifth […]
Blacks and Blues was recorded in 1973 when American jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey was just 23 years old, two years after becoming the first African-American female instrumentalist signed […]
This record finds Neil at a crossroads musically somewhere between country, rock and blues. While the title suggests summer breezy, On The Beach finds Neil in a more […]
