Adrian James

Graeme Edge was the drummer in The Moody Blues. Surprisingly (as he wasn't in the same vein as the Gurvitz brothers), they teamed to develop a couple of superb albums…

Amazing 100 CD Set of containing a plethora of Classic Jazz tunes. New Orleans was the starting point of the collective improvisation. The Jazz for which the city on the Mississippi Delta was to become so famous for developed at the beginning of the 20th century.

Twenty-eight years ago, pissed-off twelve-year-olds around the universe discovered a new planet, a Black Planet. Public Enemy’s aggressive, Benihana beats and incendiary lyrics instilled fear among parents and teachers everywhere, even in the border town of Laredo, Texas, home of the future founders of the Latin-Funk-Soul-Breaks super group, Brownout. The band’s sixth full-length album (out May 25th) Fear of a Brown Planet is a musical manifesto inspired by Public Enemy’s music and revolutionary spirit.

On this album, compiled by former Meat Loaf sideman and one-time Cooper touring guitarist Bob Kulick, members of metal's biggest bands pay tribute to the artist formerly known as Vincent Furnier. New life is breathed into Cooper's classic tunes as hardheads such as Alice in Chains ' Mike Inez, the Who's Roger Daltry, Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, and Slash rework (and add their own distinctive licks to) "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "Billion Dollar Babies," and the anthem for graduating seniors everywhere, "Schools Out." The most unexpected contribution, however, comes from former Deep Purple bassist Glen Hughes, who after spending most of the '90s off the radar screen, wrings out a wickedly dramatic version of "Only Women Bleed," Cooper's dark paean to feminism.

Before becoming a bandleader, pianist/organist/composer Lonnie Liston Smith made essential contributions to important recordings by Roland Kirk, Pharoah Sanders, Gato Barbieri, and Miles Davis. After founding the Cosmic Echoes, he issued six influential electric albums for Flying Dutchman between 1973 and 1977 – including Astral Traveling and Visions of a New World – that established him as a jazz-funk innovator. Between 1978 and 1980, his four Columbia outings – including Exotic Mysteries and Love Is the Answer – consciously stitched together funk, disco, and smooth jazz. After a spiritual awakening, Smith spent the next two decades recording for Dr. Jazz and Startrak Records, through 1998's Transformation. Following that, he turned to session work for 25 years. He started recording under his own name again with Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge on 2023's Lonnie Liston Smith JID017.