Three 1965

The third installment of this series devoted to British '60s girl group-like sounds is, like the genre itself, not a match for the best American girl group music. But like its predecessors, it's a fairly good compilation, if more notable for inventive orchestral pop production than for the talents of the singers. Julie Driscoll, represented by the early single "I Know You Love Me Not" (which sounds a little like an experimental Dusty Springfield), is the only fairly well-known name on this 22-track disc, though Twinkle had some success in Britain, and Glenda Collins and Samantha Jones have their enthusiasts.

The New Colony Six started out as one of the better garage bands to come out of the Midwest in the mid-'60s, playing tough British Invasion-style rock & roll (their "At the River's Edge" made it onto the Nuggets box set), and they later evolved into a surprisingly sophisticated and skillful pop group that scored nationwide hits with the singles "Love You So Much" and "Things I'd Like to Say." However, this collection of odds and ends doesn't quite play to either side of the band's personality; in fact, most of the 24 songs aren't actually by the New Colony Six, with 11 tunes by the Raymond John Michael Band (which featured three NC6 alumni, singer Ray Graffia, drummer Chick James, and keyboard man Craig Kemp) and one each by Junior and Graffia, both latter-day Ray Graffia projects…

Jimmy Giuffre 3 & 4 - New York Concerts (1965) {2CD Set Elemental Music 5990425 rel 2014}
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© 1965, 2014 Elemental Music | 5990425
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative / Saxophone / Clarinet

Columbia Records dropped Jimmy Giuffre following 1962’s experimental Free Fall, and he didn’t record another album for nine years. The period in-between has been called his “lost decade,” but the clarinetist-saxophonist kept busy. His forward vision fit right in at the New York Festival of the Avant Garde in 1965, even though he wasn’t completely aligned with the New Thing. Giuffre’s set from the festival was recorded and broadcast once on Columbia University’s radio station, WKCR-FM, along with a session done earlier in the year in a college auditorium. Both sets are being released as New York Concerts, heard for the first time since those broadcasts, and they present some missing pieces of the Giuffre puzzle.

Various Artists - Gathered from Coincidence: The British Folk-Pop Sound of 1965-1966 (2018) {3CD Set, Grapefruit CRSEGBOX043}
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© 1965-66, 2018 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Records | CRSEGBOX043
Rock / Pop / Folk Pop / Folk Rock / Psychedelic Rock

Prior to the early Sixties, folk and pop musicians inhabited largely different worlds. There were folk records that had become crossover pop hits, but in essence there was little or no common ground in terms of instrumentation or ideologies. But in the wake of the British beat/R&B boom (or, if you were in America, the British Invasion) and the emergence of Bob Dylan, such barriers were broken down for good. With British acts making music that, for the first time in nascent pop history, matched the quality of their American counterparts, suddenly everything was grist to the mill and musical cross-pollination was almost de rigueur.

Chet Baker - Lonely Star: The Prestige Sessions (1965) {Prestige PRCD-24172-2 rel 1996}
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© 1965, 1996 Prestige / Fantasy | PRCD-24172-2
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Flugelhorn

In 1964, trumpeter Chet Baker returned to the United States after five sometimes-traumatic years spent overseas (which included a long stay in an Italian jail for drug abuse). Baker recorded prolifically during his first 14 months back in the States, including a set for Colpix, two records for Limelight, and, in a busy three-day period, five albums for Prestige titled Groovin', Comin' On, Cool Burnin', Smokin', and Boppin' With the Chet Baker Quintet. The Prestige sets have been long overlooked and only partially reissued in the past, but in 1997 they reappeared as three CDs.