Tim Phillips Principe

In collaboration with London-based rock drummer Simon Phillips and Germany’s very own NDR Big Band, 21 Spices is the latest offering from the Bombay-bred musical virtuoso Trilok Gurtu. Easily seen as the meeting of two maestros from the world of percussion, this album is a unique concoction of heady rhythms, raw sounds of drums and tabla and the opulence of a philharmonic orchestra.

With only two studio albums to their credit, the need for a Wilson Phillips best-of is in itself questionable, but for casual fans unwilling to spring for the trio's entire catalog, this is certainly the disc to own – all their hits are here, including "Hold On," "The Dream Is Still Alive," "You're in Love" and "Give It Up."

Sugary, commercial pop/rock isn't necessarily a bad thing, and in fact can be fairly enjoyable in the right hands. But Wilson Phillips are much too sweet for their own good. This debut album – which amazingly went five-times platinum during the early 1990s – is about as lightweight and sophomoric as it gets. Chynna Phillips' weak singing on such homogenized, mundane fluff as "Impulsive," "The Dream Is Still Alive," and the chart-topping "Hold On" isn't even remotely convincing. Compared to Phillips' saccharine performances on "You're in Love" (another major hit) and "A Reason to Believe," even Tiffany and Debbie Gibson's debut albums have some bite.

This 25-song compilation doesn't contain exact recording dates, but it can be safely assumed that most or all of this was cut between 1947-1951; about half appeared on singles from that period, while some showed up on a 1963 Crown album (although they were obviously done much earlier), and others weren't released until Ace LP collections in the 1980s. (There's also a previously unissued "Happy Birthday," cut for Modern's Jules Bihari's birthday.) Regardless of the specifics, it's early jump blues from the stage at which it was in transition from jazz to R&B, leaning in some cases closer to jazz than R&B. That may be why Phillips was pretty much a forgotten case by the mid-'50s…

egendary drummer Simon Phillips returns with Protocol V, once again reimagining his adventurous jazz/fusion outfit. Instrumentation is expanded to a quintet format, including saxophone, launching the group into sonic territory familiar to fans of Chick Corea's Elektric Band in the late 1980s. Strands of DNA from other iconic artists like John McLaughlin, Tony Williams, Allan Holdsworth and Jan Hammer are woven throughout. Simon's impressive compositional skills are also on display, culminating in an 11-minute mini-suite called "The Long Road Home."