Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies, a Various Artists Compilation. Released 1970 on Warner Bros. Records. This 3xLP set promotes Warner Brothers and Reprise artists, accenting neurotic and humorous tunes from the two labels' roster of artists.

One of Les McCann's greatest albums, Much Les encapsulates much of what McCann did best in his early years, while adding a few novel embellishments - like a string section and Latin percussionists - that enhance his core sound. The results are winning, likable, and consistently engaging, making for an underrated classic. McCann is joined on every cut by his trio of the time, bassist Leroy Vinnegar (who contributes "Doin' That Thing") and drummer Donald Dean, who offers solid, laid-back support. However, it's actually the string section that provides the dominant flavor of McCann's accompaniment; of the six tracks, they appear on all three slow songs, plus - in an offbeat touch - the laid-back soul-jazz of "Doin' That Thing," giving it an almost movie soundtrack feel…

This material is the English version of East’s first album, Játékok which was released in 1981. East is one of the most beloved prog acts from Hungary (if not the most). While the rest of the world was into New Wave, Marillion carried the prog torch for Great Britain and points west. Guitarist János Varga, keyboardist Géza Pálvölgyi, singer Miklós Zareczky, bassist Péter Móczán and percussionist István Király decided to pick up the prog banner for Eastern Europe. In 1981, they released their debut album "Játékok." The English translation is games. Oddly, they did release an English version, but it was titled "Blue Paradise." It was a well-received debut, and is still highly regarded.

When The Omega Syndicate burst onto the scene in 2004 with their exhilarating debut “Analogue Waves” they quickly made quite an impression and many friends into the bargain. In a UK scene often accused of being lacklustre and amateurish, The Omega Syndicate have flown in the face of any such criticism with their exciting and dynamic fresh sounding take on the traditional Berlin School sound. Although they are creating long tracks with synths, sequencers and Mellotrons, what they produce is wholly original and while it can be said firmly and squarely to be “Berlin School”, it doesn’t always sound like a clone of Schulze or Tangerine Dream.

Jimmy Page and Robert Plant shocked fans when they reunited for MTV's Unledded special in October 1994 — and sent them into a state of bliss when they decided to take their renewed partnership on the road for a lengthy world tour, starting Feb. 26, 1995, in Pensacola, Fla. As they'd made clear by dissolving the band after drummer John Bonham's death in 1980, Page and Plant weren't interested in suggesting a Led Zeppelin reunion, and they drew a further line between their new project and the past by neglecting to invite former Zep bassist John Paul Jones. Still, for those who'd been hoping for updated yet still recognizable takes on Zeppelin classics, the 1995 tour's configuration — featuring a six-piece rock band, 29 British classical string players and 11 Egyptian folk musicians — still had to come as something of a surprise.

Recorded for radio broadcast, this performance features drummer Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers live at Rutgers University in 1969. Featured in the Messengers are trumpeter Woody Shaw, tenor saxophonist Carlos Garnett, pianist George Cables, and bassist Scotty Holt. Although recorded during a transitional period for Blakey, as well as for jazz in general with the burgeoning fusion movement, this is nonetheless a swaggering performance of propulsive, edgy post-bop that equals any of Blakey's previous studio efforts. Here we get a burning take on Shaw's "The Moontrane," an expansive version of "'Round About Midnight," a supremely funky reading of the Blakey classic "Moanin'," and more.

Taped for FM broadcast soon after the release of Herbie Hancock's groundbreaking "Man-Child" album. Recorded at Omaha Civic Auditorium, 17th November 1975.

Recorded at Boston Symphony Hall, January 26, 1972. Presenting the guitar genius of John McLaughlin, accompanied by Jan Hammer (keyboards), Jerry Goodman (violin), Rick Laird (bass) and Billy Cobham (drums), this remarkable set, performed live at Boston's Symphony Hall, MA on 26th January 1972, for broadcast on WNEW-FM radio a few months after the release of their innovative debut album, The Inner Mounting Flame - powerful and exhilarating.

Originally Broadcast By National Public Radio In 1988.Sun Ra & Arkestra, live from Petrillo Music Shell, Chicago Jazz Festival, Chicago, IL on September 3rd 1988. When Le Sony'r Ra, better known as Sun Ra, first moved to Chicago he famously took his epiphanic trip to Saturn. This legendary jam with the Arkestra, during the Chicago Free Jazz Festival, at Petrillo Music Shell on September 3rd 1988, broadcast on National Public Radio, shows the afrofuturist in all his glory. Performative, cathartic, and liberating, we are taken on a fantastical jazz journey.

Opening with "Three Time Loser," from Rod Stewart's post-Faces LP, Atlantic Crossing, this historic live show comes from the first solo tour Stewart had embarked upon after leaving the group he had attained his music industry fame with. His all-star band now featured former Vanilla Fudge/ Cactus drummer Carmine Appice, session keyboard John Jarvis (who had worked with Art Garfunkel and Ringo Starr), former Family guitarist Jim Cregan (who stayed on as Stewart's musical director and guitarist for almost 20 years), and Billy Peek, who had been the lead guitarist in Chuck Berry's UK touring band, among other engagements. • Stewart offers a healthy mix of solo hits with "You Wear It Well," "Tonight's The Night (Gonna Be Alright)," "Maggie May," and "The Killing Of Georgie (Pts 1 and 2), and Faces classics ("Stay With Me "). He also performs a selection of covers, among them The Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart Of Mine," Check Berry's "Sweet Little Rock 'N' Roller," Jimi Hendrix's beautiful ballad "Angel," and The Beatles' swansong rocker, "Get Back". Rod had departed from the Faces two years prior, but this show was very much still in the Faces-sounding tradition.

Nate Young and John Olson as Wolf Eyes have worked with pretty much everybody from alternative rockers like Sonic Youth and Andrew W.K. to fellow noise totems like Merzbow, Black Dice and Prurient or the experimental hip hop-adjacent duo Model Home, yet there are few artists as formidable or as apparently well suited to their sound as the legendary saxophonist Anthony Braxton, with whom they first collaborated at a music festival in Quebec in the spring of 2005. Braxton had reportedly cleared out their merchandise table a year earlier at a festival in Sweden upon his first introduction to the band, and at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville the following May he found time to sit in on their set between his own scheduled performances with Fred Firth and his sextet, as part of an event curated by the Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore. The resulting album was released in 2006 as the critically acclaimed Black Vomit, with Olson stating ‘his language on the saxophone is just insane. There is nothing he can’t do on the horn. It was a perfect match’ while Braxton remarked Wolf Eyes to him ‘felt like family immediately. The communication was immediate’.

“And the violin dances Furiant, carried away by an irresistible ardour”. Beyond the intrinsic character of gypsy music, which constantly moves back and forth between melancholy and joy, dance is the obvious thread running through this album. It creates a bond through its intensity and infinite rhythmic contrasts, revealing a wide range of emotions. One dance can contain an entire life, with its laughter, its tears, its perpetual movement, its ruptures, its unpredictability in the passage from one emotional state to another…

Following his Rossini recital (Alpha 791), Florian Sempey shares another of his passions: his enthusiasm for the world of knights and medieval narrative. For him, “a mysterious force emanates from castles and other antique buildings; their ancient stones have always fascinated me.” Ferrum Splendidum (the Latin for ‘Resplendent Metal’) recalls the singer’s ancestors, who were blacksmiths in the Périgord region. Though not following in that family tradition, Sempey concentrated instead on forging and moulding the metal of his brilliant baritone voice.

New Orleans outfit GALACTIC has a well earned reputation as one of the most exhilarating live acts around. Last year the band released the critically acclaimed genre defying sonic tribute to the Big Easy entitled YA-KA-MAY, which The Boston Globe described as "an album that showcases a breathtaking array of New Orleans talent, from old-school R&B legends to influential underground hip-hop artists" and the Huffington Post proclaimed as “NOT your grandparents' New Orleans record!” Now the celebrated outfit offers up a rollicking live counterpart to YA-KA-MAY with The Other Side Of Midnight: Live In New Orleans out 5/3 via Anti- Records.

The Great Old Ones stand as harbingers of cosmic nightmares and arcane melodies. Forged in the ancient mists of Bordeaux, France, their evocative soundscapes transcend mere music, invoking the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos. Prepare to embark on an odyssey of the soul with their latest offering, Kadath. In this seven-track masterpiece, the band delves into Lovecraft's "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," guiding listeners through the doomed dreams of Randolph Carter and his quest for the elusive, magnificent city denied to him by malevolent gods. Traversing the perilous Dreamlands, Carter's journey is one of both awe and dread, his path marked by phantasmal realms and crawling chaos…