The fate of the music underground tunnel where radio monopolies were confined these threatening cultural revolutions. Nova catching mix of cult songs like White Rabbit, the acid trip of fifteen years before Jefferson Airplane and Devotion by John McLaughlin, one of the pioneers of jazz-rock fusion. 1981 and the lyrical and modernist breakthroughs of the new wave, Tuxedomoon. And his French electronics Heldon, with already big his New York Material, the group of Bill Laswell, a fellow traveler.
Jazz -funk fans must have been taken aback when multi-instrumentalist and composer Bennie Maupin's Jewel in the Lotus was released by Manfred Eicher's ECM imprint in 1974. For starters, it sounded nothing like Herbie Hancock's Head Hunters recording, which had been released the year before to massive sales and of which Maupin had been such an integral part. Head Hunters has remained one of the most reliable sales entries in Columbia's jazz catalog into the 21st century. By contrast, Jewel in the Lotus sounded like an avant-garde jazz record, but it stood outside that hard-line camp, too, because of its open and purposeful melodies that favored composition and structured improvising over free blowing. Jazz after 1970 began to move in so many directions simultaneously it must have felt like it was tearing itself apart rather than giving birth to so many new and exciting musics…
E Street is an all-star affair led by percussionist Pete Escovedo, the father of drummer/percussionist Sheila E., who also guests on E Street along with several Escovedo siblings, saxophonists John Handy, Gerald Albright and Mel Martin, and pianist/vibraphonist Buddy Montgomery.
E Street seems to expend a great deal of energy going in a lot of different directions - wide-open freeways of Latin rock, lit up with horns and sparkling with guitar, piano, trumpet and of course percussion solos; rolling, soft cha-cha ballads; and new yet familiar byways with covers of Earth Wind & Fire's "Fantasy" and Stevie Wonder's "Another Star" - but it never seems to actually GET anywhere. The only breaks in the placid scenery come from the appropriately titled fiesta jam "Like a Volcano" and the surprisingly stirring, hymn-with-vocals "Lord Remember Me," which closes this set.
Beautiful love ballads from different years in the collection of 2013 "American Heartbreak".
Singer & actress Dee Dee Bridgewater recorded four albums for the Warner Brothers group of labels between 1976 and 1980, one for Atlantic and three for Elektra; for the very first time Robinsongs have combined these Albums on a 2 CD collection.