After the failed experiment of Turbo, Judas Priest toned down the synths and returned to the basics, delivering a straight-ahead, much more typical Priest album with Ram It Down. The band's fan base was still devoted enough to consistently push each new album past the platinum sales mark, and perhaps that's part of the reason Ram It Down generally sounds like it's on autopilot. While there are some well-constructed songs, they tend toward the generic, and the songwriting is pretty lackluster overall, with the up-tempo title track easily standing out as the best tune here. And even though Ram It Down backed away from the territory explored on Turbo, much of the album still has a too-polished, mechanical-sounding production, especially the drums. Lyrically, Ram It Down is firmly entrenched in adolescent theatrics that lack the personality or toughness of Priest's best anthems.

On Blessings and Miracles, his twenty-sixth studio album, music legend and guitar master Carlos Santana delivers one of the most ambitious, inspired and flat-out magical records of his storied career. There’s thrilling feats of bravura musicianship that pair the guitar master with fellow icons like Chick Corea and Steve Winwood, knockout rockers with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Living Colour’s Corey Glover, and genre-bending, hook-filled celebrations featuring Rob Thomas, Chris Stapleton, G-Eazy, American Authors and Ally Brooke, among others. The record also features bravura performances from members of Santana’s touring band (including drummer Cindy Blackman Santana and singer Tommy Anthony), as well as impeccable vocals and keyboards by the guitarist’s son, Salvador Santana, and stunning lead vocals by daughter, Stella Santana.

This set features a very logical matchup. Richie Cole's main influence has long been Phil Woods, so these concert performances pitting the two altoists together have plenty of fire and extroverted improvisations. With pianist John Hicks, bassist Walter Booker and drummer Jimmy Cobb backing the soloists, Woods and Cole really push each other on "Scrapple from the Apple," "Donna Lee" and "Side by Side." Tenor-great Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis sits in on "Save Your Love for Me," the younger altoist has "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" to himself and Cole and Woods have fun on a brief free-form "Naugahyde Reality." It's a generally high-powered and enjoyable set.

East of Eden's second album had to be one of the least commercial albums ever to enter the British Top 30, as well as one of the most stylistically diverse. The term "progressive rock" fit as well as any, yet much of it was rather along the lines of early jazz-rock fusion, with lengthy hard-to-hum instrumental passages. But there was a lot of Eastern influence as well, especially on those pieces that highlighted Dave Arbus' violin and flute. Some of the absurdist humor along the lines of Frank Zappa and the Soft Machine makes itself known too, though East of Eden were more serious than Zappa and less whimsical than the Softs. Indeed, it's a rather sober affair that sometimes approaches gloominess, and like the late '60s/early '70s Soft Machine, it's more oriented toward virtuosic instrumental sections than vocals and lyrics…

Harald Grosskopf is a legendary drummer who was among the first (if not the first) to play drum together with sequencers. He was a regular guest on albums by Klaus Schulze in the second half of the seventies. After he’d joined Ashra, the band headed more into a rock direction, never forgetting their electronic roots. Steve Baltes became a member of Ashra in the nineties. His electronics gave the pioneers a modern approach. Axel Manrico Heilhecker is considered on of Germany’s leading guitarists. They already work together as Sunya Beat (Harald and Axel) and N-Tribe (Harald and Steve).
"Four Times Three" (4x3) is released under their own names. The four tracks on "Four Times Three" all have traces of the great classic Ashra albums…

Alan Bown is most known - certainly in the United States - for his late '60s recordings as leader of a group (actually called the Alan Bown) that played psychedelic pop. The trumpeter had already been recording since 1965, however, with a group called the Alan Bown Set from 1965-1967 in a far more soul-influenced style. This compilation gathers both sides of all five singles the Alan Bown Set released on Pye in the U.K. during that time, along with the seven live songs from the London Swings: Live at the Marquee Club LP they shared with Jimmy James & the Vagabonds, and the French-only single "Jeu De Massacre (The Killing Game)," from the soundtrack of the French film of the same name. The group were in the same general territory as other British combiners of soul, jazz, and blues from the period, such as Georgie Fame and Zoot Money…

For this Milestone LP James Moody leaves his alto at home and mostly sticks to tenor (although he switches to flute on "Cherokee"). Five of the nine selections feature Moody with a five-piece brass section (three trumpets, one trombone and a tuba) and a top-notch rhythm section consisting of pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Mel Lewis. Tom McIntosh's arrangements are functional but unexciting, with only "Au Privave" catching much fire. Best are the four other numbers which showcase the tenorman with only the rhythm section. Not content to be a mere bebop revivalist, Moody is heard throughout pushing himself, and there are some good moments from Barron too.

It’s hard to believe this album wasn’t made a long time ago, actually, since blues pianist Pinetop Perkins and drummer and harmonica player Willie "Big Eyes" Smith have worked together frequently in the past 40 some years. Perkins replaced the legendary pianist Otis Spann in Muddy Waters' band in 1969 when Smith was the drummer in the ensemble, and later Perkins and Smith formed the Legendary Blues Band in the 1980s. Perkins was 96 years old when the sessions for Joined at the Hip were recorded, but one wouldn’t know it, and Smith, now out from behind the drum kit (his son, Kenny Smith, plays drums here), concentrates on his harp blowing and handles most of the vocals. The result is a solid Chicago blues record, one that feels like it could have been tracked anytime in the past four decades…

Maquina! were one of the very first pioneers of progressive music in Spain, their 1970 album Why? is considered a classic by many (in the Proto-Prog sub-genre). After Why? the band broke up due to discrepancies in the musical direction and because some members had to leave for the then-compulsory military service. Keyboardist Enric Herrera rescued the project but took a rather different direction, focusing on blues-jazz-rock with a distinctive presence of horns (trumpet and sax). He recruited the trio from the band Crac (Carles Benavent on bass, Emili Baleriola on guitars and Salvador Font on drums) and two German musicians who had established in Barcelona Peter Rohr on sax and Hubert Grilleberger on trumpet. Herrera's idea was to record a double LP in the studio but he could not find the required funding so eventually they settled for recording live in concert, with rather limited resources, which was cheaper…

The first album by Benny Nilsen for Ash International. Benny founded Hazard in 1996 after a couple of years in several local ear-peaking guitar bands. Has since then been taking more and more interest in extreme weather conditions and its effect on humans - field recordings and the perception of time and space as experienced with sound.

Michel Legrand has spent most of his life as a composer in the studios and for films, but this release is a jazz classic. Legrand took 11 famous jazz compositions and arranged them for three different groups. Tenor great Ben Webster, flutist Herbie Mann, four trombonists, and a rhythm section perform pieces by Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Django Reinhardt ("Nuages"), and the Count Basie-associated "Blue and Sentimental." A big band with trumpeters Art Farmer and Donald Byrd and altoist Phil Woods plays "Stompin' at the Savoy," "A Night in Tunisia," and Bix Beiderbecke's "In a Mist." The most famous session has Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Phil Woods, Herbie Mann, pianist Bill Evans, harp, vibes, baritone, and a rhythm section performing music by Thelonious Monk, John Lewis, Jelly Roll Morton ("Wild Man Blues"), and Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz"…

Mister Ed (Eduardo Gomes de Bifteca) studied the recorder and specialised in classical music. In 1987 he graduated from the famous Berklee College of Music. Once moved to New York, Ed met two guys who were looking for a singer with a high voice! Together they formed the rock group Forked Tung and toured through the US and Europe. They had lots of fun but lacked success. Eventually mister Ed found work as a DJ touring US airbases. He always kept his nickname Mr. Ed. This time he earned good money and was able to buy enough gear to atart his own Mr. Ed studio. This he did in Cork, Ireland and that is where he created his first two albums: "Orange Dream" and "Ultra-Beige Dream".

The Rattles performed in Hamburg, and played at the same venues as The Beatles on several occasions in 1962. In 1964 the group recorded "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah", which charted in the UK. In 1968 they recorded their first version of "The Witch", with vocals by Henner Hoier. The band's records sold well in Germany during the 1960s. Their second version of "The Witch" in 1970, this time with vocals by Edna Bejarano, became their only international hit. "The Witch" appeared in the Top 10 on the UK Singles Chart, the top 20 in Austria, and reached the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., the first German record to reach that chart. It eventually sold over one million copies.

John Mayall's debut album, recorded live in December 1964, is a little unjustly overlooked, as it was recorded shortly before the first of the famous guitarists schooled in the Bluesbreakers (Eric Clapton) joined the band. With Roger Dean on guitar (and the rhythm section who'd play on the Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton album, bassist John McVie and drummer Hughie Flint), it has more of a rock/R&B feel, rather like the early Rolling Stones, than the purer bluesier material Mayall would usually stick to in his subsequent recordings. The record doesn't suffer for this, however, moving along quite powerfully, and - unusually for a British R&B/blues band of the time - featuring almost nothing but original material, all penned by Mayall. Nigel Stanger's saxophone adds interesting touches to a few tracks, the songs are quite good…

Just three weeks after the U.S. release of the Beatles' swan song, Abbey Road, Creed Taylor ushered George Benson into the studio to begin a remarkably successful pop-jazz translation of the record (complete with a parody of the famous cover, showing Benson with guitar crossing an Eastern urban street). It is a lyrical album, with a hint of the mystery and a lot of the cohesive concept of the Beatles' original despite the scrambled order of the tunes. Benson is given some room to stretch out on guitar, sometimes in a bluesy groove, and there are more samples of his honeyed vocals than ever before (oddly, his voice would not be heard again by record-buyers until he signed with Warner Bros.). Don Sebesky's arrangements roam freely from baroque strings to a full-throated big band, and Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Fortune, and Hubert Laws get some worthy solo space…