Mind Band

An Anthology - The Elektra Years is a double-disc, 33-song set that offers a comprehensive overview of Paul Butterfield's eight years with the label. His first two albums, Paul Butterfield Blues Band and East-West, were seminal, groundbreaking records that blurred the boundaries between blues, jazz and rock, suggesting everything from blues-rock to psychedelia. They were stunning achievements which proved difficult to match, but Butterfield's remaining albums for the label all had a few good cuts. An Anthology does a nice job of rounding up those highlights, picking the best moments from uneven records; consequently, it's quite a valuable package for listeners who simply want a sampling from those later albums instead of purchasing them individually. Butterfield's first two albums remain necessary listens in their own right, but this set offers an excellent summary of his entire stint with Elektra.

Islands is the seventh studio album by the Canadian-American rock group the Band. Released in 1977 to mixed reviews, it is the final studio album from the group's original lineup. Primarily composed of previously unreleased songs from the Band's career (including their 1976 cover of "Georgia on My Mind", which was recorded to aid Jimmy Carter in his presidential bid), Islands was released to fulfill the group's contract with Capitol Records, so that the soundtrack to their film The Last Waltz could be released on Warner Bros. Records. In the CD liner notes, Robbie Robertson compares the album to the Who's Odds & Sods.

As a defining point of the U.K. psychedelic/progressive rock crossover, the Open Mind's sole album is the perfect specimen. With a singing style rooted in the freakbeat era, rather than the operatic tenor screams hard rock ushered in, and acidic duel guitars, heavier than those of a typical psychedelic act, The Open Mind filled the gap between the beginning of one era and the end of another. "Magic Potion" is unarguably their greatest moment. Its monotonous rhythm guitar anticipates the stoner rock of Hawkind while double bass drum fills and doom-laden fuzz guitar ragas combine bombastic rock power with Eastern-influenced psychedelia. Magnificent! "Girl, I'm So Alone" - a remake of early Open Mind lineup, mod band the Drag Set's "Get out of My Way" - harks back to a 1967 feel, as do a number of other songs that show the band being not quite as progressive as they intended…

Joe Sample is the golden boy of American fusion-jazz, but his recent project Children of the Sun is not as sunny as the title might imply. Stimulated by a visit to the Caribbean island of St. Croix, he started to look particularly into the subject of slavery – a part of his own family history. Sample has been planning this project since 1995, and will bring his composition to the Berlin audience with the NDR Bigband (the Hamburg Radio Big Band), arranged by Jorg Achim Keller.