Express Rip

The core of this group – John Surman, Alan Skidmore, Peter Lemer, Tony Reeves, and Jon Hiseman – recorded an LP titled Local Colour for ESP-Disk in 1966. The plan, conceived the year after the 50th anniversary of the recording session, was to reunite the original quintet, which had existed for six months back in '66, but unfortunately Nisar Ahmad (George) Khan, tenor saxophonist on the original album, came down with something and couldn't appear. Alan Skidmore (Lemer bandmate in SOS) was deputized and, as all familiar with his career would expect and you will hear, came through with flying local colors at the concert on February 20, 2018 at noted London jazz club Pizza Express. Four months later, Jon Hiseman passed away at age 73 after battling a brain tumor.

Kraftwerk (German: [ˈkʁaftvɛɐ̯k], lit. "power station") are a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1969 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1974 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet…

In 1977-78, Lee Ritenour recorded three sets for the Japanese JVC label which have each been reissued on CDs. Although the liner notes say that, for contrast, the guitarist teamed up with some of the top East Coast studio players, the date was recorded in Burbank and most of the musicians would eventually move to L.A. With suitably funky playing by guitarist Eric Gale (who works well with Rit), keyboardist Patrice Rushen, bassist Abraham Laboriel, drummer Harvey Mason and percussionist Steve Forman, Ritenour performs six somewhat lightweight numbers, best-known of which is "Sugar Loaf Express."