One of the many jazzmen who started out playing hard bop but went electric during the fusion era, Joe Sample was, in the late '50s, a founding member of the Jazz Crusaders along with trombonist Wayne Henderson, tenor saxman Wilton Felder, and drummer Stix Hooper. The Crusaders' debt to Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers wasn't hard to miss - except that the L.A.-based unit had no trumpeter, and became known for its unique tenor/trombone front line. Sample, a hard-swinging player who could handle chordal and modal/scalar improvisation equally well, stuck to the acoustic piano during The Crusaders' early years - but would place greater emphasis on electric keyboards when the band turned to jazz-funk in the early '70s and dropped "Jazz" from its name.

ENGLAND sound like a cross between YES and GENESIS with a dash of GENTLE GIANT.They present melodic and uplifting music that is at times too light for my tastes…

Danish/Norwegian Eurodance-pop group. Formed in 1994 in Denmark. Best-known for their 1997 breakthrough single "Barbie Girl". They achieved huge success across the globe in the late 1990's and early 2000's, and holds the record as the best selling Danish band with around 33 million records sold…

When singer Sade and her band of the same name were establishing themselves, their record company, Epic, made a point of printing "Pronounced Shar-day" on the record labels of their releases. Soon enough, the music had no problem with the correct pronunciation. With the breakthrough Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten single "Smooth Operator" propelling the debut Sade album, Diamond Life, to the same spot on the Billboard 200 chart in 1985, the band fast came to epitomize soulful, adult-oriented, sophisti-pop…

Ben Webster was not exactly under-recorded during his forty-year playing career but he is among that exclusive hierarchy of jazz artists to whose consistent excellence there can never be an over-abundance of recorded testimony. This album has the merit of offering a nicely balanced and thoughtfully chosen selection of tracks. Four of the tunes are associated with Duke Ellington in whose saxophone section Ben was featured for more than ten years.
Our Blues is a choice example of Ben’s evocative after-hours style of blues playing. An additional bonus is the superior quality of the musicians behind Webster on all these tracks, recorded in Copenhagen between 1968 and 1970.

Shawn Lane's solo debut, Powers of Ten, showcases a phenomenally talented guitarist and musician who, unfortunately, doesn't seem to understand his own limitations. Emerging from digital silence with Steve Vai-like drama, "Not Again," the opening song on the record, is typical of the fusiony guitar-driven instrumentals that make up the bulk of Powers of Ten.

Small Faces were an English rock band from East London. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston. The band is remembered as one of the most acclaimed and influential mod groups of the 1960s with memorable hit songs such as "Itchycoo Park", "Lazy Sunday", "All or Nothing", and "Tin Soldier", as well as their concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake. They later evolved into one of the UK's most successful psychedelic bands until 1969. The Small Faces never disbanded; when Marriott left to form Humble Pie, the remaining three members recuited Ronnie Wood as guitarist, and Rod Stewart as their lead vocalist, both from The Jeff Beck Group, and carried on as Faces, except in North America, where this group's first album (and only their first album) was credited to Small Faces.