This obscure mid-'60s record by Milt Jackson has few surprises, though many jazz fans would be suspicious that the theme from the movie Born Free would turn into a viable jazz vehicle. Jackson's funky treatment of this normally laid-back piece works very well. Jimmy Heath, who plays great tenor sax on several tracks, contributed the funky original "Bring It Home (To Me)" as well as "A Time and a Place," which became one of his better-known compositions. Less successful is his chart of Jackson's somewhat monotonous "Whalepool." Pianist Cedar Walton, a favorite collaborator of the vibraphonist, is the centerpiece of their rendition of Miles Davis' landmark modal tune "So What." Long out of print, this Limelight LP has been reissued in Japan, but this recommended album will be expensive to acquire in either version
This very underrated British band came to prominence in 1980, during the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal era, although their distinctive and accomplished style of heavy music (and inclusion of several lengthly racks) had comparatively little in common with Tygers Of Pan Tang or Saxon style. Their sole, but excellent heavy progressive album (released privately in 1980 on tiny Future Earth Records) contained a solid dose of very energetic and uncompromising hard rock influenced not only by Led Zeppelin, Rainbow and Rush, but also inspired by the music of early Yes. At the time Limelight was probably the only heavy rock band in Britain with Mellotron! This remastered edition was extended by 4 rare tracks taken from two vinyl singles.
Kalita are honoured to release the first ever compilation focusing on the musical career of Julie Coker, the queen of Nigerian television. Here we collate seven of Julie’s most sought-after Afro disco and hauntingly-beautiful Itsekiri highlife recordings.
The Alan Parsons Project were an English rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson. They were accompanied by a varying number of session musicians and some relatively consistent band members such as guitarist Ian Bairnson, arranger Andrew Powell, bassist and vocalist David Paton, drummer Stuart Elliott, and vocalists Lenny Zakatek and Chris Rainbow. Parsons was an audio engineer and producer by profession, but also a musician and a composer. A songwriter by profession, Woolfson was also a composer, a pianist, and a singer. Almost all the songs on the Project's albums are credited to "Woolfson/Parsons". The Best of the Alan Parsons Project, Vol. 2 is a 1987 greatest hits compilation by The Alan Parsons Project.
Charlie Chaplin’s masterful drama about the twilight of a former vaudeville star is among the writer-director’s most touching films. Chaplin plays Calvero, a once beloved musical-comedy performer, now a washed-up alcoholic who lives in a small London flat. A glimmer of hope arrives when he meets a beautiful but melancholy ballerina (Claire Bloom) who lives downstairs. An elegant mix of the comic and the tragic, this poignant movie also features Buster Keaton in an extended cameo, marking the only time the two silent comedy icons appeared in a film together. Made at a time when Chaplin was under attack by the American press and far right, Limelight was scarcely distributed in the United States upon its initial release, but it is now considered one of his essential and most personal works.
The Best of the Alan Parsons Project, Vol. 2 typically picks up where its predecessor left off. With 11 tracks covering seven albums, including Gaudi, Stereotomy, and Vulture Culture, the songs here are a tad weaker than those on the first collection, since some of the albums that these songs originate from were not of this band's finest caliber. The highlights here include both "Prime Time" and "Don't Answer Me" from Ammonia Avenue, and the provocative instrumental "I Robot," the only non-vocal track on the album. All of the selections on this package convey their purpose much better within their former albums, since each song is a link in the album's conceptual chain.
The music on this Onyx release wasn't conceived as a single presentation: the three works were recorded in Seattle, Detroit, and Monmouth (U.K.), over a period spanning almost a year and a half, and there are two violin concertos, performed respectively with the Seattle and Detroit Symphonies, and a programmatic violin-and-piano piece.