To make an album with the music of a genius such as Frank Zappa is dangerous! But Bohuslдn Big Band with the guitarist Patrik Ehrnborg and trombone player Nicklas Rydh have done the unbelievable. Material from the -72 albums "Overnight Sensation", "Apostrophe" and "One Size Fits All", with new arrangements. This period was maybe Frank's most commercial period which not at all makes it easier for the musicians. But the Big Band is not only a tight ensemble. Among the brilliant musicians is Mia Kempff, the girl who sings on the album so powerfully. Anna Gustafsson plays marimba totally wonderfully. This is very creative music that boils. Music for both heart and brain. Frank Zappa would have been 61 this year. There is no one left like him. But thanks to this Big Band does the music lives on. This years Big Band album is here to stay!

From their beginnings as an attempt at bold jazz-rock fusion in 1967 through a run as a high-powered R&B/soul-rock singles act with singer David Clayton-Thomas two years later, Blood, Sweat & Tears were always a kind of fascinating experiment, and a commercially successful one at that. The first album from the Clayton-Thomas-fronted band appeared in 1969, spawned four high chart hits, won a Grammy as Album of the Year, and went on to sell some three million units. The next two albums, Blood, Sweat & Tears 3 and 4, generated a few more hits, but the band was gradually running out of creative steam by this point, and when Clayton-Thomas left the group after the fourth album, well, that was the end of the line commercially for Blood, Sweat & Tears. A jazzier, but definitely not as commercial, version of Blood, Sweat & Tears showed up for two of the albums collected in this set, 1972's New Blood and 1973's No Sweat, with the third album here, 1976's More Than Ever, featuring the return of David Clayton-Thomas to the fold.

Eric Gales was hailed as the second coming of Jimi Hendrix when he first hit the blues circuit, an anointment that carries with it impossible pressures, and while Gales is a wonderful guitarist (naturally right-handed, he was taught to play the guitar left-handed, an odd thing, but again, Hendrix-like), he isn't Hendrix, nor will he or anyone ever be. Working out of the power trio format, Gales has more than proven he can play on his many albums, but his voice is average at best, and his songs tend toward the generic, often more like vehicles for guitar leads than actual songs that are crying out to be sung. That's why Ghost Notes is so intriguing, because it's Gales' first all-instrumental album, and therefore it bypasses his weaknesses as a performer and plays to his strengths – the man sure can play guitar.

Lennie Wright from Web and Samurai produced Brainchild's first and only album, so it's no surprise that "Healing of the Lunatic Owl" is in a similar style to both "I Spider" and Samurai's self-titled album. That means early 70's progressive rock dominated by horns and organ. Brainchild is a septet that recorded their sole album Healing Of The Lunatic Owl in western London in 1970 on the A&M label. The album contains sizzling brass rock, which must rank among the best of the genre, but also with the much more obscure and even more brilliant Warm Dust and Galliard. Brainchild's line-up was basically your standard prog quartet, plus a three-man wind instrument section, including flute, sax, trumpet and trombone.

Iceberg from the middle of the 70's were easily one of the best Progressive bands to come from Spain. This band came from Barcelona and consisted of: Max Sune (guitar), Josep Mas Kitflus (keyboards), Primi Sancho (bass) and Jordi Colomer (drums), Angel Riba (voice) could only be heard on the first record. Their style was definitely jazzier but with continuous conversations between the guitars and keyboards in a mixture of fusion and symphonic sounds. The band mixed Return to Forever or The Mahavishnu Orchestra's crazy and energetic music and Santana's more latin one. Iceberg made four studio-albums entitled: "Tutankhamon" (1975), "Coses Nostres" (1976), "Sentiments" (1977) and "Arc-en-Ciel" (1979).

Djabe & Steve Hackett line-up made up for the 2020 and 2021 tour postponed due to Covid in 2022. The musicians eagerly awaited to make music together, so on the tour the band was very much together and gave their best performances of all time. At the final stop of the tour, the band also recorded a video, the post-production of which, as usual, was done by Tamás Barabás and Attila Égerházi. The concert, which can be found on Blu-ray, includes several tracks performed live for the first time. Examples include Lake By The Sea from the Back To Sardinia album, the rock band version of Ace Of Wands from the Voyage Of The Acolyte album, or the Gyor Blues compositions. There are several live versions of Steve Hackett and Djabe compositions previously not released on a Djabe & Steve Hackett live albums. Songs like The Steppes, Witchi Tai To, Gyor and Power Of Wings.

Gary Boyle - The Dancer (1977). Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce a new remastered edition of the first solo album by acclaimed guitarist Gary Boyle, founder of Jazz Rock group Isotope. Released in 1978, "The Dancer" was Boyle’s first solo album and followed the final Isotope album, “Deep End”. The recording sessions saw Boyle joined by such celebrated alumni as Robin Lumley, Rod Argent, Dave MacRae, Morris Pert and Simon Phillips. The resulting album is now regarded as a classic Jazz/Rock album…

Drawing on rock, salsa, and jazz, Santana recorded one imaginative, unpredictable gem after another during the 1970s. But Caravanserai is daring even by Santana's high standards. Carlos Santana was obviously very hip to jazz fusion – something the innovative guitarist provides a generous dose of on the largely instrumental Caravanserai. Whether its approach is jazz-rock or simply rock, this album is consistently inspired and quite adventurous. Full of heartfelt, introspective guitar solos, it lacks the immediacy of Santana or Abraxas. Like the type of jazz that influenced it, this pearl (which marked the beginning of keyboardist/composer Tom Coster's highly beneficial membership in the band) requires a number of listenings in order to be absorbed and fully appreciated. But make no mistake: this is one of Santana's finest accomplishments.

This band was supposed to call themselves Soft Heap and include drummer Pip Pyle, but though a tour was booked, he found himself otherwise engaged, and Dave Sheen was hired to accompany fellow Canterbury scenesters Alan Gowen, Hugh Hopper, and Elton Dean on a tour of Europe. Calling themselves Soft Head, they hoped to draw in those frustrated fans of Soft Machine and Gilgamesh. And perhaps they did on this night in France in 1978. But make no mistake, even though Hopper and Dean are present here, this is no pure fusion date with a bunch of knotty harmonics and angular changes riffing around all over the place. This is an electric jazz date, period. Largely this is due to Gowen's compositions and arrangements that walk a tense line between strictly composed elements and improvisation, and the fire of the band themselves, who are - on this night anyway - inspired beyond belief…

Tabletom is a progressive rock group formed in 1976. The band came to be between musicians from the commune in the Malaga country side, which released their first album in 1980 which featured so called Andalusian rock with jazz and local folk elements.
While the Andalusian rock thing was quite prolific in Spain with bands like Triana, Mezquita, Veneno and Imán Califato Independiente rockin' the scene, just to name a few, Tabletom came to the table (no pun intended) with a rather different angle to the scene with a wider spectrum of influences that ranged from Gong, Magma, Soft Machine, Chic Corea and even reggae and Flemish folk…

Archimedes Badkar (Archimedes Bathtub) was a Swedish group formed by percussionist/pianist/composer Per Tjernberg that existed between 1972 -1980, recording four LPs that has since achieved cult status in several camps. Their debut album, "Badrock For Barn I Alla Aldrar" shows an already mature band that tries to integrate ethnic music, jazz, rock and folk. Their style is fairly unique, but imagining a mix of Embryo and Arbete & Fritid would give one a good reference point.

Along with The Matadors, Flamengo were one of the earliest Czech groups that started out in the mid-60's as beat bands and recorded a bunch of singles on legal state apparatchik label. Their then-leader Frantisek Francl was a well regarded fuzzed-up guitarist and wrote most of their track (even if they did a cover of John Mayall's No Reply), but with time, the group changed line-up and with the arrival of the now-legendary vocalist Vladimir Misik and woodwind player Jan Kubik, the group's sound was dramatically affected and started sounding like a brass rock band, with a slightly more jazz twist than the better know US groups. They might be compared best with Colosseum and sometimes Traffic. Their sole album was set to be released in 72 on the state label Supraphon, but apparently was quickly banned by the regime.

In the early 70's, jazz pianist and composer Hiromasa 'Colgen' Suzuki and his self-titled trio (with Kunimitsu Inaba on bass and Hideo Sekine on drums) started working on a project of musicians which should have made a lengthy series of concept albums mixing jazz rock and world music called Rock Joint. Musicians that worked around this albums were more of jazz background and some of the musicians stayed in the line-up of both albums released as Rock Joint projects even though the style of music was slightly different; first 'Rock Joint Biwa' was centered around the japanese instrument biwa, giving a fresh feel to album's early jazz influenced psychedelic rock (conceptually inspired by mythology in the ancient book Furukotofumi), while the second one 'Rock Joint Cither' was oriented around sitar and Indian music (cither being a mistranslation of sitar)…