“Let’s show the people coast to coast that we here in New Orleans can party! Are you ready to roll ’78 and light up 79?!” These were the words from the buzzing (and probably buzzed) emcee as he introduced the Marshall Tucker band in 1978 at The Warehouse – New Orleans' legendary music hall. The New Year's Eve audience was reported ti be the largest radio audience to hear a broadcast at the time, and the band elevated themselves to the occasion. This rousing legacy recording is sourced from the original 24-track tapes and was mixed in Macon, Georgia in 2019 by Paul Hornsby, the original Capricorn Records producer who recorded and produced their first six gold and platinum albums.

Excellent addition to any fusion music collection
Other than Shakti I have found most other artists listed as Indo / raga jazz fusion don't sound very Indian or raga, rather having the title based on more of a drone that is influenced by such exotica.

Appearing: Ralph Towner, Jan Garbarek & Collin Walcott
Gismonti has been amazingly prolific in making many great albums from early 70's up to mid 90's.

Essential: a masterpiece of jazz fusion music
If there were ever any doubts as to Ralph Towner’s consummate abilities, though one would need to travel far to encounter them, they can only have been put to rest with the release of Blue Sun.

Essential: a masterpiece of jazz fusion music
Released in 1973 prior to the excellent Solstice. Diary is for the most part played solely by Ralph Towner himself and whilst the classical guitar playing is the trademark sound of Towner, the piano and keyboards are much more evident on Diary and by far play the biggest influence to the album.

Essential: a masterpiece of fusion music
Ralph Towner’s Solo Concert holds a special place in my ECM-adoring heart, for it was my introduction to a guitarist whose skills have since become staples of my listening life.

Dale Hawkins, of course, is best known for "Suzie-Q" a Top 30 Billboard hit for him in 1957 that turned into a garage rock standard in the '60s. During that decade, Hawkins was relatively quiet as a record-maker, but he did behind-the-scenes work as a producer before resurfacing in 1969 with LA, Memphis & Tyler, Texas on Bell Records. Named after the three towns it was recorded in, it's a bit easy to overrate LA, Memphis upon its first listen because it comes as a shock that Hawkins was more than a rockabilly cat. He was an early roots rocker, certainly, playing rockabilly but also touching back on its blues and country roots, plus hitting a bunch of stuff in between and don't forget the L.A. in the title, either, since he did give this album several splashes of snazzy showbiz pizzazz reminiscent of Sonny Bono.

In okay Kaya songs, her world looks a lot like ours - Netflix, jetlag, Vegan Peanut Butter and Chocolate ice cream, lonely bowls of Ra men, Diet trends. But unlike ours, each of these vibrates and shimmers with deeper, darker meaning, with existential Dread and desire for understanding. Through norwegian-raised new Yorker kaya's dreamy soft-focus lens, the language of Twitter memes becomes modernist poetry as her breathy contralto voice sings lines like, "if you don't love me at my guttural sound, you don't Deserve me at my guttural sound." This is Sade for nihilists. On the opening track of her new record, watch this Liquid pour itself, out on January 24, 2020, from jagjaguwar, she sings, "I used to fight the feeling, always let it win." as she transforms these feelings, defeats, and victories into songs, the lyrics often involve pools of Sweat, oceans, and other forms of wetness.

Glaswegian psychedelic heavyweights Helicon are soon set to release their second album, the aptly- titled ‘This Can Only Lead to Chaos.’ Arriving January 24th via Fuzz Club, it follows on from their 2017 self-titled debut and a recent three-track ‘Zero Fucks’ EP, released earlier this year. A 9-track effort, it sees the band delve even deeper into their self-confessed “evil psych rock with smatterings of sentient sitar” - coming out of the other end with something more raw and heavy, and far closer to the all-consuming live show that they’ve spent the last decade frying minds with.

Los Angeles-based songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Ethan Gruska presents his long-awaited second solo album, en Garde. en Garde is the follow up to his acclaimed 2017 solo debut SLOWMOTIONARY, which led The Los Angeles Times to proclaim Gruska as "L.A.'s next great songwriter". en Garde was recorded at Sound City Studios and co-produced by Tony Berg. Each of Gruska's compositions tell a vivid story surrounded by deceptively complex yet unrelentingly melodic musical structures. While conventional instruments include guitars, bass, keyboards, drums, occasional brass and strings, the studio itself becomes an instrument to be manipulated, chopped, channeled and utilized to recombine aural textures into almost unrecognizable sounds that manage to soothe as they ebb/flow and invite movement like all classic pop rock.