Bob James is a prolific, best-selling, Grammy-winning composer, arranger, producer, and pianist. Along with Grover Washington, Jr., he is known as one of the fathers of smooth and contemporary jazz. His music seamlessly melds genres from bop to pop, from classical to R&B via relatively simple, accessible, and elegant melodies with rich harmonies and multiple sonic textures, often anchored by lithe, funky grooves. In addition to gold- and platinum-selling albums on his own and in various collaborations, he issued four numerically titled albums for CTI in the mid-'70s that successfully melded jazz, pop, and classical styles with sharp arrangements, accessible melodies, and funky grooves. Those four albums are all considered shining examples of early jazz-funk and have been abundantly sampled by hip-hop DJs and producers…

It's no wonder that mandolinist David Grisman came up with the name "Dawg Music" to describe his style of playing, which draws from bluegrass, jazz, and many other forms of music. This 1978 recording has long been a favorite of Grisman's fans, as all of the compositions and performances have stood the test of time. Grisman's lively "Dawg's Bull" and guitarist Tony Rice's upbeat "Devlin'" set a high standard at the opening of the album, yet the remaining tracks continue to meet the high watermark of the first two songs. In addition to Rice's presence throughout the recording, Grisman utilizes five different bassists (only one song, "Dawgology," features two of them together), violinist Darol Anger, mandolinist Mike Marshall, and on two selections, the jazz violin master Stéphane Grappelli.

During the mid-seventies, the Hamburg-based band Novalis established themselves as leaders in the field of German-language romantic rock. The quartet called itself Novalis after the most important German poet of early romanticism. They created a rock music of poetic, lyrical with german lyrics and instrumental beauty. Their music, a heavy organ rock, was compared to the sounds of bands such King Crimson and Pink Floyd. They released a few albums of lush, keyboard-dominant prog rock during the seventies. The keyboards created majestic layers on which the guitar builds airy melodies.

Fever is a studio album by American musician Roy Ayers. It was released in 1979 through Polydor Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Sigma Sound Studios and Electric Lady Studios in New York City, and at Record Plant in Los Angeles. Production was handled by Ayers himself with co-production by Carla Vaughn. The album peaked at number 67 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and at number 25 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart in the United States. Its lead single, "Love Will Bring Us Back Together", reached peak position #41 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

Recording sessions for tracks that appear on this album took place on May 26, 1958, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio and September 9, 1958, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The sessions for tracks on the album in mid-1958, along with the Milestones sessions from earlier that year, were seen by many music writers as elemental in Miles Davis' transition from bebop to the modal style of jazz and were viewed as precursors to his best-known work, Kind of Blue.

Released in 1979, Roberto Cacciapaglia's second release, Sei Note In Logica, embraces his minimal classical leanings. While his first album, The Ann Steel Record, also from that same year is a retro-future pop album Sei Note In Logica is an avant-garde systems composition for voices, orchestra and computer. He takes a six note melodic phrase and runs it through every possible musical combination with a choir of female vocalists (including the processed spoken voice of Ann Steel) and the instrumentation of marimbas, strings, woodwinds and computer-based electronics. Its emphasis on repetition and rhythm puts Cacciapaglia rightfully in a more well known circle of minimalist composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. The album makes for a beautifully epic piece of economic means.

Wood leads a pickup band that includes, on various cuts, fellow Rolling Stones Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, plus Mick Fleetwood, Dave Mason, and other notables. The highlight is a then-unreleased Bob Dylan song called "Seven Days," where the rough-voiced Wood sounds uncannily like Mr. D himself.

Although with Fluid Rustle, Eberhard Weber continued to draw upon the Watership Down references that cast 1977’s Silent Feet into such lovely relief, I hesitate to call it program music. Neither are the titles mere frames; they are also the open windows within those frames. Like the rabbits in Adams’s novel, each instrument in “Quiet Departures” is its own vivid personality in a vast warren of possibilities. Such strong metaphorical ties are there to be unraveled, one fiber at a time, by every strike of Gary Burton’s vibes. The introduction of Norma Winstone (in her first non-Azimuth ECM appearance) and Bonnie Herman represents an exciting tectonic shift in Weber’s geology, urging us through an atmospheric tunnel. At its end: a brightly lit solo from Burton, swaying comfortably in Weber’s hammock.

It's often been said that if an R&B act didn't have a lot of dancefloor appeal in the late '70s, it could forget about being commercially successful. That isn't necessarily true; Frankie Beverly's Maze, just to give one example, was never a dancefloor favorite – and yet, all of its late-'70s albums went gold. Nonetheless, having disco appeal certainly didn't hurt. When Brainstorm's second album, Journey to the Light, failed to sell, some people reasoned that it was due to a shortage of up-tempo material. So with its third and final album, Funky Entertainment, the Detroit band decided to go for maximum disco appeal and make up-tempo songs a top priority.

Having compromised on her Arista debut and gotten a hit single for her trouble, Jennifer Warnes took charge of the recording of her second Arista album, co-producing it and writing three songs, including the title track. It was hard to miss the point when Warnes covered Dionne Warwick's 1963 hit "Don't Make Me Over" (written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David) that she was finished with having people tell her what to do. On her own, her taste was impeccable, her song choices including the work of Jesse Winchester, Bob Dylan, and Stephen Foster, and her own songwriting was good, too. She also managed to satisfy the commercial expectations aroused by her previous album, with "I Know a Heartache When I See One" rising into the country Top Ten and the pop and adult contemporary Top 40. (She also made it into all three charts with "Don't Make Me Over" and into the pop and AC charts with "When the Feeling Comes Around.") She proved an adept producer, achieving a smooth pop/rock sound. With session stars like Andrew Gold aboard, Warnes succeeded in making what sounded like the great lost Linda Ronstadt album.