-
When Janis Joplin died in October 1970 at the early age of 27, thus involuntarily confirming the beatnik adage »live fast, love hard, die young«, it was only a matter of time before she was crowned the “Queen of Rock” Of greater importance than this posthumous entry into rock ’n’ roll’s hall of fame is the recognition... -
With his film "The Graduate", which was crowned with an Oscar and five Golden Globes, director Mike Nichols created far more than just the story of the erotic initiation of the college graduate Benjamin Not only the scenario but also the production modalities were revolutionary For the very first time the crusted morals of the...
-
Out of stock
Andy Bey was one of the most sought-after vocalists in the era of jazz fusion Between 1968 and 1973 he was first choice as a studio singer for Max Roach, Duke Pearson, Horace Silver, Gary Bartz and Stanley Clarke, to mention but a few His warm and engaging baritone voice easily crossed the bridge from conventional blues and gospel...
-
Out of stock
Allen Toussaint had it all around him – the voices and spirits of black music, rhythm ’n’ blues, funk and soul He was born in New Orleans and grew up there, the birthplace of jazz As from 1960, he worked as a record producer and an A&R man at Minit Records, an independent label, which was closely associated with the...
-
Out of stock
The liner notes for "The Inner Mounting Flame" were written by the guru Sri Chinmoy – now that’s a real sales point! The music too burns right from the very first note to the last as though it were licked by the flames of hell fire The wealth of ideas, sheer vitality and supreme soloistic virtuosity of the five top-notch...
-
Out of stock
To attempt to categorise Carlos Santana’s music is, for the prophets of rock music, rather like dancing on the edge of a volcano While the New York Times acclaimed the band as a reincarnation of Dizzy Gillespie’s Cuban-jazz bigband from the end of the Forties, the specialist magazine Rolling Stone spoke of a »methadrine trip...
-
Out of stock
We can thank our lucky stars that Nina Simone was well aware of her musical environment and enjoyed experimenting with it, despite her notorious eccentric personality This was the only reason that so much basic repertoire, traditional blues numbers, black work songs and favourite white show melodies – all filled with a deep soul...
-
After the break-up of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in the summer of 1967, the time seemed ripe for Peter Green, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood to take their leave from raw British rock ’n’ roll The newly established band Fleetwood Mac first turned to black blues, and their art of playing was so similar to that of other groups...
-
Out of stock
The second studio album from Albert King, Born Under A Bad Sign was released in 1967 King's first album for Stax Records would change the face of American music with the modernization of the...
-
Many of Santana’s rock-addict fans could well have understood the inviting word "Welcome" on the white LP cover as an attempt to break away from the spiritual aura of his previous album "Love Devotion Surrender" And the musicians certainly managed to produce a rich Latin feeling, with such titles as "Samba De Sausalito" and...
-
The term 'free jazz' was already in existence – but it had a quite different meaning, namely jazz without paying for an entrance ticket The album "Free Jazz", however, was intended to lend its name to a quite different style of jazz 'Free' playing – now this meant that no one was bound to conventions, you could let your...
-
When someone such as Ry Cooder, who delved deeply into traditional sources, just names his LP "Jazz", it is unlikely that one will hear avant-garde music Actually, in the numbers gathered together here the investigative guitar man dedicated himself more or less to almost forgotten music Historically informed, yet not adhering to...
-
Out of stock
Immortal samba, and its rhythmic relatives, is on the one hand so undemanding that it manages to take off with the simplest of instruments, yet on the other hand it is so concentrated that it can conjure up all manner of fantastic sound coloring With regard to these sessions that were recorded in the Sixties, when bossa nova...
-
Out of stock
For some, "Love Devotion Surrender" is an album where, exceptionally, John McLaughlin plays the piano and organist Jan Hammer plays the drums For others, it is the most spiritual album ever by Carlos Santana And though both disciples were shown the way and inspired by the same guru (Sri Chinmoy) at one and the same time, this...
-
Master of the strings, Al Di Meola, who turn his back on over-ambitious manual dexterity as in "Elegant Gypsy" to concentrate more on musical substance, demonstrates his intensive work with the material in the follow-up album "Casino" For example in "Egyptian Danza", an amalgamation of melodies which circle around one another and...
-
Thanks to their first-class training in funk and soul while playing in James Brown’s Band, Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker were the obvious choice when it came to participating in George Clinton’s P-Funk empire – the Godfather of Soul had had an enormous influence on Clinton anyway In 1977, Clinton and Bootsy Collins produced...
-
Out of stock
After some hot live performances and subversive jaunts made in the aftershock of Woodstock, Santana and his band entered the calm atmosphere of the recording studio to make their sixth album Taking a look at the blue butterfly on the LP cover, it wasn’t surprising that purist Santana fans scented that the music in this...
-
"Eternity" - Alice Coltrane (org, hp, el-p; perc, arr, cond); Terry Harrington (ts); Jerome Richardson (ss); George Bohanon (tb); Oscar Brashear (tp); Tommy Johnson (tba); Hubert Laws (fl); Charlie Haden (b); Ben Riley (b, dr); Armando Peraza (cga); ao When the brilliant saxophonist John Coltrane died in 1967, the core values of...
-
Out of stock
Commenting on this album in 1962, Billboard magazine wrote: »He seems to be everywhere, everywhere that is but on his usual instrument« Charles Mingus, one of the most impressive musicians in the history of jazz, doesn’t play a single note on the bass for a change, but leads the band from his (blues-)piano – the instrument...
-
With its three compositions by Thelonious Monk, one might call this LP from 1964 “3 Standards and 3 Monks” The 'High Priest' of bebop had reached a further pinnacle in his career and performed with his fantastic, skilful and well-rehearsed quartet at numerous festivals and concerts As if in a dream, the musicians penetrate the...
-
Out of stock
When this LP was released in 1962, it was honoured with the maximum number of stars that Downbeat, the most famous of all jazz magazines, could award And nota bene the recordings were already five years old! Is there any better proof that the composer and arranger Charlie Mingus was ahead of his time As a double bassist he was...
-
Out of stock
When two talented, cussed men such as Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman get together to record an album, you can be sure of an exceptional record filled with great vocals and poetry Nilsson, who is described as a man who performs his songs with one cynical, laughing eye and one nostalgic, tearful eye in Rowohlt’s Rock-Lexikon,...
-
Out of stock
It might be hard to believe but there was once a jazz musician who was well known and well loved even in the global flower-power pop scene – and not just in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury The name was and is Charles Lloyd He appeared in the great concert halls (eg Fillmore West) and skilful marketing launched his LPs into the...
-
Out of stock
It is well known that comparisons seldom get to the root of the matter, but in the case of Lou Reed, for example, they certainly reveal the unassuredness of those people who made them Is he or isn’t he the Chuck Berry or Sergeant Pepper of the Seventies, or is he deliberately building up an image of himself as an ultra-sensitive...
-
Out of stock
In the 1970s, Herbie Hancock’s "Crossings" was to be found on every IKEA record shelf in the student pads of jazz-fusion fans The cover, with its psychedelic touch, also contributed significantly to its popularity – although it was unclear where the crossing was going to take us … Nevertheless, the excellent trumpeter Eddie...
-
Out of stock
The musicians are aiming high with their desire for a “Super Session”, for it’s not something that can be planned Only when the time, place, and audience play along, when one’s lucky star is shining brightly, and the musicians have a good day, then one of music’s great moments might be captured on tape Not forgetting the...
-
Out of stock
Ever since his time with John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra (1971–1973), the drummer Billy Cobham is one of electric fusion jazz’s greatest heroes "Total Eclipse" was the third album he made as a leader within just a few months, and here again he composed all the numbers himself In the opening 'suite' entitled...
-
After his great success as a new discovery through playing on tour and in the studio with Art Blakey’s creative and inspirational group, the Jazz Messengers, Freddie Hubbard made a dozen LPs over 16 years for Blue Note and Impulse under his own direction It was no wonder then that a big record company made him a lucrative offer...
-
Out of stock
The global corporation Columbia recorded and released only two LPs with pianist Bill Evans A meagre result when one considers the numerous concerts that the new trio undertook between 1969 and 1974 Together with Eddie Gomez, a phenomenon on the bass, and drummer Marty Mortell, the three established a firm – and ever better –...
-
Out of stock
Of the three ‘incarnations’ by the spiritually inspired Mahavishnu Orchestra, the first is the most full-bodied The enlightened John McLaughlin and his musicians were immortalized through their début album “The Inner Mounting Flame”, which was included in the list of the 100 Best Jazz Albums; a short time later they...
-
It was certainly a motley crew that came together with Elvin Jones, the legendary ex-Coltrane drummer, in the NYC Atlantic Studio in March 1966 His trumpeter brother Thad was first class, but Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) on the piano, Don Moore on the bass and sax player Hank Mobley, who always came up as second choice behind...
-
"Just As I Am" – anyone who sets off on a late career can already have earned himself quite a reputation, although in the case of Bill Withers it had had nothing to do with music at this stage Withers served for many years with the US Navy, had a job as a milkman, and installed toilets in jets for American aeroplane construction...
-
Out of stock
What connects celebrity chefs and pop stars is their fine nose for ingredients, especially when hot and spicy ones are mixed with milder elements to create an aromatic result A combination of 'sweet' and 'funky' is the secret of Al Green’s gloriously sentimental and sensual pop songs, which in the sexually free Seventies were...
-
Out of stock
Except for the taping of a live performance at the Portland Festival, Miles Davis’s discography for 1966 only lists the recordings made for the LP "Miles Smiles"! How strange when one considers the usual large output of Miles and his ensembles for Columbia Records in the Sixties The bass player Ron Carter was best suited for the...
-
By the time he was aged 22, Ry Cooder was already a veteran of the music business and in great demand as a studio musician and sideman Shortly after signing a contract with Warner Music in 1969, he released his first album under his own name, placing his confidence in the musical talent he had developed since being a child and on...
-
t was John Lewis, pianist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, who brought Ornette Coleman to the renowned Atlantic label, having heard him play in Los Angeles »Ornette Coleman is doing the only really new thing in jazz …« he reportedly said The present initial Atlantic album was released just in time to coincide with the New York...
-
Out of stock
It's 1964 and the first Berlin Jazz Festival is about to reach its absolute peak: the final concert on the night of Friday, 25th September by Miles Davis And the European subsidiary of Columbia Records, CBS, couldn’t wait to release this legendary event on LP The new quintet, for the first time with Wayne Shorter on the tenor...
-
Patti Smith, »the first published poet to move her poetry completely into rock 'n' roll and to entice experimental rock fans into the forbidden cinema of her hallucinatory fantasy« (New York Times), began her musical career unconventionally It took off at a poetry reading where she was backed by Lenny Kaye on guitar; later star...
-
Out of stock
It was a clever move by George Avakian, producer at Atlantic Records, to record live the Charles Lloyd Quartet during their appearance in Monterey, and to release the LP under the title “Forest Flower” Although the hippy flower-power movement tended towards a rather different musical genre at the end of the Sixties, they...
-
Out of stock
"Pithecanthropus Erectus" - Jackie McLean (as); JR Monterose (ts); Mal Waldron (p); Charlie Mingus (b); Willie Jones (dr) It was a fairly ordinary quintet that entered the Audio-Video Studios in New York City on 30 January 1956: one tenor saxophone, one alto saxophone, a pianist, a drummer and you guessed: an extraordinary man...
-
Out of stock
Ballads &...
-
Out of stock
Aerial...
-
Out of stock
After his early avant-garde years with Blue Note Records, Herbie Hancock achieved much success with pop music fans by gradually turning towards a mixture of Afro-American styles in which he combined soul, jazz and funk Having composed the soundtrack to Bill Cosby’s animated children’s show "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" and...
-
Out of stock
With all the exultation about the reconciliation between the capitalistic USA and the socialistic island state of Cuba, it is easy to oversee that the musical fusion between the two countries took place decades ago Afro Cuban jazz, in which the interpretation and rhythms of swing and bebop are united with all imaginable rhythms...
2016 Commercial Drive, Vancouver B.C. V5N 4A9 | Everyday 11:00 am - 7:00 pm
