"Beautiful Music" used to be a genre in the realm of popular music. It's also been called "easy listening" and then morphed into "adult contemporary". But today's adult contemporary is really just soft rock (albeit today's soft rock is harder than a lot of Top 40 was in the late 70s and early 80s). There used to be stations that played "beautiful music" exclusively: Stanley Black, Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Frank Chacksfield, etc. Most of the playlist would be recent contemporary hits covered by choral groups, pianists, and orchestras. During that time, London Records sold a lot of their patented Phase 4 Stereo LP records and reel-to-reel tapes. The series was renowned for it's technical brilliance, using state of the art recording, mixing and mastering techniques. Ronnie Aldrich was among London's best selling artists and Tony D'Amato produced many albums using Aldrich's twin pianos backed by The London Festival Orchestra. These albums were not only known for their technical brilliance (which is still quite impressive even in the 21st century) but also for their glossy, gatefold covers featuring colorful artwork and graphics and maybe a sexy model or two. The two LPs featured on this CD were originally released in 1973 and 1972, respectively.

Trumpeter Chris Botti drops the synthesizers and drum loops of his previous effort, Thousand Kisses Deep, for a more elegant and traditional sound on When I Fall in Love. While Thousand Kisses Deep maximized Botti's penchant for mixing perfect pop songs with his Miles Davis-influenced jazz style, it nonetheless featured many of the electronic and processed sounds predictable on modern smooth jazz releases. By eschewing such "go to" pop-jazz production techniques as drum machines and synthesized strings in favor of the real instruments here, Botti ironically sounds utterly groundbreaking on what is ultimately a straight-ahead orchestral jazz album. While nowhere near as improvisationally adventurous as its predecessors, When I Fall in Love is still a revelation in the tradition of Sketches of Spain, Clifford Brown With Strings, and Wynton Marsalis' Hot House Flowers. Mixing standards and contemporary pop tunes all in a straight-ahead style, Botti gives his minimalist Miles-ian horn sound a chance to breath and be enjoyed on its own.

The success of the Austin Powers movies rekindled an interest in everything groovy, swinging and mod. The Instro Hipsters a Go-Go responded in kind, serving up fun but mostly forgotten instrumentals from the '60s and early '70s that sound equally good in a bachelor pad or discotheque. Instro Hipsters a Go-Go, Vol. 3 is a Wall of Sound made up of twangy surf guitars, tumbling drums, flourishes of strings and brass, and funky organs, especially on classic instrumentals like "Cherokee" and "Raunchy," which have been given mod makeovers here by the Mitch Murray Clan and the Ray McVay Sound. Harry Stoneham's "Mogul/I Spy/The Avengers" nods to the spy movie and TV show fetish of the time, while Shocking Blue's "Ackla Ragh"'s trippy sitars allude to the '60s and '70s fascination with Indian music. Though it's more eclectic than some other volumes in this series, this collection makes for very entertaining mood music that still conjures up this swinging, stylish era.

The success of the Austin Powers movies rekindled an interest in everything groovy, swinging and mod. The Instro Hipsters a Go-Go responded in kind, serving up fun but mostly forgotten instrumentals from the '60s and early '70s that sound equally good in a bachelor pad or discotheque. Instro Hipsters a Go-Go, Vol. 2 is a Wall of Sound made up of twangy surf guitars, tumbling drums, flourishes of brass, and funky organs, exemplified by Excursion's "Switched On," St. Louis Union's "English Tea" and Zoot Money's "Zoot Suite." The Ray McVay Sound's "Revenge" and the Reg Guest Syndicate's "Underworld" sound like gritty spy movie themes, while Purple Fox's "Git Some" and Salon Band's "Disco 2" take things in a mellower direction, but the entire collection makes for very entertaining mood music that still conjures up that swinging, stylish era.

The seemingly bottomless record collection of Nick Saloman from the Bevis Frond has spawned the third in an ongoing series of albums collecting obscure instrumental tracks from the '60s and '70s, and while many of these songs support the popular notion that the hipper and more interesting rock artists of the day were fond of vocal numbers, there are some fun and exciting tunes to be found on this set. Roaring Blue draws its title from the lead-off track, a swinging dance tune by the Sound of Jimmy Nicol, featuring the drummer who briefly replaced an ailing Ringo Starr during a tour in 1964 (this may explain why Nicol's drums are so far up in the mix), while members of the long-running U.K. pop band Blue Mink appear on the track "Beat Party" under the pseudonym the Underground, and John McLaughlin adds guitar licks to "Trans-Love Airways" by Big Jim Sullivan.

Nick Saloman of the Bevis Frond once again invites us to join him in the obscure pleasures of little-known pop, R&B, and jazz instrumental sides of the '60s and '70s with this collection. A number of the selections featured on Return of the Instro-Hipsters are so obscure that even Saloman isn't sure just who is responsible for them (though he offers some educated guesses on the artists behind such names as Sharks, Oliver Bone, and the Masked Phantom), but there are a good share of solid grooves and kicky melodies to be found here from a number of gifted little-knowns. If you went to the movies in the '70s, "Soul Thing" by Tony Newman will sound familiar, while flautist Harold McNair solos over a Dave Brubeck-influenced piano groove on "The Hipster," Jerry Allen demonstrates new uses for game calls on "Fuzzy Duck," Thunder Road's synthesized version of "Peter Gunn" beats Art of Noise's variation on the theme by more than 15 years, "The Brooke Bond Beat" by Cliff Adams may be the most swingin' tea commercial ever, and the Outer Limits serve up some tough, moody rock, appropriately titled "Black Boots".