This date followed Calvin Keys' first, Shawn Neeq, by about two years. Hazy, psychedelic, post-bop is the order of the day here as well, but as most soul-jazz collectors will tell you, there's always a chance for some monster funk on a Black Jazz record so, as predictable as these releases may be on the surface, you never really know until you hear them. In this case, the bomb drops at the beginning of Side Two with "Aunt Lovely." While probably a little too 'out there' for most dance floors, "Aunt Lovely" begins like some of the best funky Grant Green of the era. As the track progresses, though, it gets more than a little hectic – especially during Charles Owens' Pharoah Sanders-esque soprano solo. Kirk Lightsey's overdriven and distorted electric piano only serves to add to this tension later.

One of the most successful, most recorded and most influential jazz players of his time, Cal Tjader is these days a largely overlooked figure in the music’s history. Part of the cause of his lack of recognition is present in the reasons he was so successful. Tjader made no great leaps forward harmonically or rhythmically, but instead showed how jazz and Afro-Cuban music could blend together with the vibraphone as the lead instrument, its percussiveness working very well in that musical context. In doing so, he was followed by many others, his commercial success affording him the opportunity to record a great number of albums.

Aleko (Serge Rachmaninoff); Le Sacre du Printemps / Pt 1: L'Adoration de la Terre (Igor Stravinsky); Le Sacre du Printemps / Pt 2: Le Sacrifice (Igor Stravinsky); The Nutcracker (Suite), Op. 71a, TH. 35 (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski); Pictures at an Exhibition (Modeste Moussorgski); The Sleeping Beauty (Suite), Op. 66a, TH. 234 (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski); Apollon Musagète (1947 Version) / Premier Tableau (Prologue) (Igor Stravinsky); Apollon Musagète (1947 Version) / Second Tableau (Igor Stravinsky); Apollon Musagète (1947 Version) / Second Tableau (Igor Stravinsky); Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30 (Serge Rachmaninoff); Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27 (Serge Rachmaninoff); Swan Lake (Suite), Op. 20a (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski); Violin Concerto in D Major, K075 (Igor Stravinsky); Symphonic Dances, Op. 45 (Serge Rachmaninoff); Serenade for String Orchestra in C Major, Op. 48, TH 48 (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski); Serenade for String Orchestra in C Major, Op. 48, TH. 48 (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski); Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64, TH. 29 (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski); Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, TH. 59 (Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovski).

Following the less than enthusiastic reception of his only full length opera, Copland arranged an orchestral suite from the score. It includes the love duet, the lively square dance, and the stirring and beautiful The Promise of Living drawn from the quintet at the end of the opera's first act. The composer was gratified when the Suite garnered the good reviews he had hoped the opera would inspire. In 1996, Murry Sidlin created a new suite for soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble based on his successful reduced orchestration of the opera, which uses the same scoring as the 13 instrument version of Appalachian Spring.

Copland was interested in exploring various methods of composition that might stimulate his melodic and harmonic ideas. It had been twenty years since he had adapted serialism to his own use. He said that "composing with all twelve notes of the chromatic scale can give one a feeling of freedom. It's like looking at a picture from a different point of view." Copland was the first to admit that he did not keep strictly to the rules of serialism. In fact, the sense of a tonal center is rarely missing in the Quartet.

Copland was drawn to the film, Something Wild, an unusual psychological drama about the feelings of a young girl learning to live with violence and with the moods of the city. The scenario required long stretches of uninterrupted music which Copland later shaped into a symphonic suite to satisfy a commission from the London Symphony Orchestra. The four movements are titled: Skyline, Night Thoughts, Subway Jam, and Toward the Bridge.

Chano Domínguez is one of the most celebrated of jazz pianists and composers. His singular work is defined by his flamenco origins. In more than 40 years of his career, he has dazzled all kinds of audiences, including other musicians spanning both worlds of jazz and flamenco. His interpretive talents are highly sought after for his authentic integration of both jazz and flamenco traditions, working with an extensive range of colleagues such as Paco de Lucía, Enrique Morente, Jorge Pardo, Carles Benavent, Martirio, Wynton Marsalis, Paquito d'Rivera, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Jerry Gonzalez, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Michel Camino, Chucho Valdés, Joe Lovano, and George Mraz, among others.

Great collection of some of Bohannon's many club hits, including several different mixes of the smash hit "Let's Start The Dance".

The trio with Spanish bassist Antonio Miguel and Canadian drummer Owen Howard has been an “invariant” in the life of Berlin-based pianist Benedikt Jahnel, “a constant in a transformational period” as he puts it, and new album The Invariant is issued as the players reach their tenth anniversary as a working unit.

Besides being noteworthy as an astonishingly good all-covers album, Kicking Against the Pricks is notable for the arrival of a new key member for the Seeds, drummer Thomas Wydler. Besides being a fine percussionist, able to perform at both the explosive and restrained levels Cave requires, Wydler also allowed Harvey to concentrate on adding guitar and keyboards live as well as in the studio, a notable bonus. Race reappears briefly to add some guitar while former Birthday Party cohorts Rowland Howard and Tracy Pew guest as well, the latter on some of his last tracks before his untimely death. The selection of songs is quite impressive, ranging from old standards like "Long Black Veil" to everything from John Lee Hooker's "I'm Gonna Kill That Woman" and Gene Pitney's pop aria "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart." Matching the range of material, the Seeds are well on their way to becoming the rock/cabaret/blues showband of Cave's dreams, able to conjure up haunting, winsome atmospheres ("Sleeping Annaleah") as much as higher-volume takes (Roy Orbison's "Running Scared," the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties").