This 2-CD set presents the legendary valve trombonist acting as co-leader with Zoot Sims on the January 1956 album "Tonite's Music Today" and as leader of three separate studio groups on the self-titled "Brookmeyer" from October of the same year. He's leader of the BB Quartet on "The Blues - Hot and Cold" from June 1960, and finally shares leadership on "Stan Getz/Bob Brookmeyer" from September 1961.

Aladdin Records, based in Los Angeles, was a very influential label in American music history. This is not the full story of Aladdin Records but it's a very good sampler of the label's output from 1947-1961. It's 50 tracks, 25 tracks on each of the 2CDs in the set, of very good R&B from the period. Each CD is about 60 minutes playing time. The sound is good for recordings of this era. Amos Milburn, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lowell Fulson, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown, Billie Holiday, Shirley & Lee, Gene & Eunic, Bobby Wall, Thurston Harris, The Velvetones and many more.

Living & Dying in ¾ Time is the fourth album by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett and the second major label album in Buffett's Don Gant-produced "Key West phase." It was initially released in February 1974 as Dunhill DS-50132 and later rereleased on Dunhill's successor labels ABC and MCA. It contains the song "Come Monday," his first Top 40 hit single.

This 1979 effort finds B.B. interpreting a number of pop-blues tunes, many of them co-written by Will Jennings and co-producer Joe Sample, with King co-writing two of the songs aboard. Even with a large, contemporary backdrop (including a seven-piece horn section and female backup singers), there's still plenty of room for B.B.'s stinging guitar and stentorian vocals in the mix. Highlights include the gospel-tinged "Better Not Look Down," "Same Old Story (Same Old Song)," "Happy Birthday Blues," "The Beginning of the End" and the title track. As one of B.B.'s more pop-oriented offerings, this succeeds admirably.

This is a delightful recording from a conductor more closely allied than any other to Berlioz's music. With Berlioz the devil is always in the detail; he was an extraordinary orchestrator and capable of writing unidiomatically for instruments–especially the woodwinds–in order to get exactly the sound he wanted. Or rather, sounds, for the whole texture is made up of many layers. Davis understands this as if by instinct, and draws some beautiful playing from the instrumentalists without ever losing sight of the whole picture. It has been said that the French style of phrasing is all foreplay and no climax: the singers bring this teasing quality to their long, flowing lines but with a charmingly English home-counties blush too. Elsie Moris's light tone is a perfect match for Peter Pears' cool, silvery voice in this respect - and the choir too makes a good full sound without ever getting too heavy. The two discs also include some other gems from the pen of this most idiosyncratic of composers.

Born in Wisconsin in 1945, blind blues singer/guitarist Bryan Lee has been based in New Orleans since the beginning of the '80s but he and his band regularly tour and this particular concert was recorded in front of a large, enthusiastic audience at the Spectrum in Montreal in October 2003. The repertoire is a typically ballsy mix of originals like "The Bounce" and "Memphis Bound" and versions of R&B classics such as Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88" and Jimy McCracklin's "The Walk".

82-year old tenor saxophonist Benny Golson has been an active musician all his life, but he has also written numerous jazz classics of the kind you can hum, sing or whistle after hearing them only a couple of times. And one can return to them after 10 – 20 – 30 years only to discover that they sound as fresh and catchy as ever. But what is it in Golson’s music that attracts Jens Søndergaard and Bob Rockwell? Jens explains: “I’ve played with Benny on many occasions over the past 20 years, and I always enjoyed his tunes for their enduring melodic substance. Some years ago I wrote arrangements of some of his tunes for alto, tenor and rhythm section, and it seemed natural to call Bob. We’ve tried to give the compositions a twist. For instance, Along Came Betty turned into a Bossa Nova, Uptown Afterburn went funky, we changed the time signature of Killer Joe to a suggestive 6/4, and Blues March is more Mingus than the usual classic Blakey version”. The two horns sound good together.

Pleasure One is the fourth studio album by the English synthpop band Heaven 17. It was originally released in November 1986, on the label Virgin. It was the band's last studio album chart entry within the UK Top 100.

In this second volume, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Sir Andrew Davis play some of the most characteristic pieces of Charles Ives, an insurance salesman by trade and one of the most precociously original of all American composers.

The 2006 version of The Ultimate Luther Vandross swaps out some of the earlier cuts contained on the 2001 version in favor of later material, such as "Dance with My Father" and he and Beyoncé's version of "The Closer I Get to You". What's baffling is that it leaves out some major hits in favor of a pair of previously unreleased tracks (including the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-produced, Chic-sampling "Shine"), and the ballad Got You Home which could serve as a sequel to Take You Out (from 2001's Luther Vandross), both of which are front-loaded in the sequence. Vandross was clearly one of the greatest singers of all time and this collection shows it.

With albums as tightly constructed as Minus the Bear's, it's hard to imagine that there's much left over after the recording process is over and done with. Those knotty, intricate albums come at a cost, and songs that once paid the ultimate price in the name of consistency get a second chance on Lost Loves. Resurrecting songs from the recording sessions that spawned 2007's Planet of Ice, 2010's Omni, and 2012's Infinity Overhead, the collection lovingly compiles these nearly forgotten (or at the very least hard to find) gems into what feels more or less like a complete album. And unlike a lot of odds and ends compilations, which often contain at least a few tracks where it's obvious why they were jettisoned from an album, the quality of the tracks on Lost Loves easily stands up to the rest of the band's body of work.

Ultimate & most wanted japanese rare groove recorded by the saxophonist Jiro Inagaki, one of the main actor of the Japanese Jazz Rock & Progressive scene. In 1963, Jiro Inagaki was recruited by Helen Merrill for her first album recorded in Japan, "In Tokyo" with the Takeshi Inomata's West Liners group, and later formed various jazz band as the All-Stars, The (Black) Rhythm Machine or, of course, The Soul Media. Recorded in 1969 and released under the famous Takt Jazz Series from Nippon Columbia, Head Rock includes psychedelic guitar effects, great drum breaks, acid & electronic organ sounds, performed by The Soul Media, featuring some future japanese jazz great names, such as Ryo Kawasaki (in his first professional appearance), Yasuo Arakawa, Masaru Imada or Tetsuo Fushimi. Titles includes cover & original songs from Hal Galper (The Vamp), and Willie Dixon (an amazing version of Spoonful), five composed by Ryo Kawasaki (Twenty One), Masaru Imada (High Jack), Yasuo Arakawa (The Ground For Peace) and Jiro (Head Rock). All tracks arranged by Jiro Inagaki.

Always aware of the import of even their slightest movement, Manic Street Preachers place a lot of weight on their album titles and 2014's Futurology is designed as a conscious counterpoint to 2013's Rewind the Film. That record wound up closing an era where the Manics looked back toward their own history as a way of moving forward, but Futurology definitively opens a new chapter for the Welsh trio, one where they're pushing into uncharted territory. Never mind that, by most standards this charge toward the future is also predicated on the past, with the group finding fuel within the robotic rhythms of Krautrock and the arty fallout of punk; within the context of the Manics, this is a bracing, necessary shift in direction. All the death disco, free-range electronics, Low homages, and Teutonic grooves, suit the situational politics of the Manics, perhaps even better than the AOR-inspired anthems that have been their stock in trade, but the words – crafted, as ever, by Nicky Wire, who remains obsessed with self-recriminations, injustice and rallying cries – aren't the focus here. Unique among Manics albums, Futurology is primarily about the music, with the surging synthesizers and jagged arrangements providing not an emotional blood-letting or call to arms, but rather an internal journey.

Rising from the ashes of pub rock band Ducks Deluxe, the Motors began life as Status Quo lite, a boogie band with better ideas and hooks than other bands in the same mold. Led by talented singer/songwriters Nick Garvey and Andy McMaster, the Motors' 1977 self-titled debut sounded better on paper than it did on the home stereo. Scoring a semihit with the single "Dancing the Night Away" was a surprise to all, but certainly gave Virgin enough confidence to back a second album. When Approved by the Motors hit the shelves in 1978, the band had become one of the finest pop/rock bands in the U.K., refining their sound (the boogie was nowhere to be found) and writing songs filled with great melodies. Garvey and McMaster's harmonies had become as unique as fellow popsters Difford & Tilbrook's, although the Motors sound was far more gritty than the duo from Squeeze. Even lead guitarist Bram Tchaikovsky and drummer Ricky Slaughter seemed to have an expanded role in the sound of the band. Standout tracks like "Forget About You," "Sensation," "Soul Redeemer," and the beautiful "Today" were the heart and soul of this fabulous sophomore release, and the album even garnered them a bonafide hit with "Airport".

Seventeen-track anthology focuses mostly on their popular 1963-66 recordings, including "Deep Purple," "Whispering," "Stardust," "All Strung Out," several lower-charting items, and some LP tracks. They milked the "Deep Purple" formula too many times, but this is enjoyably frothy pop, and "All Strung Out" is a genuinely soulful, accurate approximation of Phil Spector's work with the Righteous Brothers. The disc also includes Stevens's 1959 solo single "Teach Me Tiger," a bizarre cover of "I Love How You Love Me" (with battling bagpipes and fuzzy guitars), and one undistinguished track each from 1985 and 1996.