Tom Scott Sneaking in The Back

The last 20 years of this legendary saxman's four-decade solo career have mostly featured fun and funky, energetic pop or smooth jazz dates, with one exception, 1992's straight-ahead date Born Again. Not surprisingly, despite all the solid work he's put forth during that time, that date is the only one that's been truly respected by traditional jazz critics. But now, making his MCG debut with Bebop United, Tom Scott makes a special return to his bebop roots on a live recording – featuring cohorts like Randy Brecker, Gil Goldstein, and Phil Woods – performed at the Manchester Craftsman's Guild in Pittsburgh in May 2002.

The single-disc Tom Scott collection Masterpieces: Best of the GRP Years brings together tracks the influential smooth jazz saxophonist recorded during his time with GRP in the '80s and '90s. These are fluid and soulful crossover recordings culled from both live and studio albums.

Although it isn't the revelation or surprising, extraordinary achievement that his 2010 record Praise & Blame was, Spirit in the Room is another solid, very welcome set of stripped-back interpretations from Tom Jones, produced once again by Ethan Johns, making those comparisons to Johnny Cash's late-period recordings with Rick Rubin all the more fitting. Know that the songbook has changed from classic (spirituals, blues, and traditional numbers) to more contemporary (Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Paul McCartney, the Low Anthem, and others) and that Jones and Johns are both in top form and you've got the picture, along with that same frustration that no matter how fun "What's New Pussycat?" and "Sex Bomb" were, a couple more albums like this along the way would have been rich and rewarding.

Sooner or later labels should just get real. This is not the "best of" Tom Scott. It's just the best of Tom Scott on Columbia. It's the Impulse recordings, the Warner recordings, and the GRP recordings to boot that would really make a representative best-of. To be fair, when this was issued, there wasn't a lot of cross-licensing going on in the music biz, though there is some here. Since it was issued, much consolidation has occurred, and, strangely enough, there has been a lot more cooperation. Perhaps they are all going to become one large conglomerate one day.

The Honeysuckle Breeze was the debut album by saxophonist Tom Scott. The California Dreams were a vocal group who contributed their singing and harmonies. Scott brought in musicians like Mike Melvoin, Carol Kaye, Max Bennett, Lincoln Mayorga, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Gordon and others to this session. Some of the same set of musicians, including Scott, would also play on Gabor Szabo's album Wind, Sky And Diamonds, also featuring The California Dreamers and also released on Impulse, also in 1967. The Honeysuckle Breeze is celebrated in hip-hop circles for Scott's cover of Jefferson Airplane's "Today", which was sampled in the celebrated song by Pete Rock & CL Smooth, "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)", but the album shows a side of Scott that he would abandon eight years later as his music retained funkiness but started to become lightweight. The Honeysuckle Breeze also features covers of The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home", Donovan's "Mellow Yellow", and The Association's "Never My Love". Scott contributes one original song to the album, "Blues For Hari".

Despite the absence of Joe Sample and Larry Carlton, Tom Scott's L.A. Express remains very Crusaders-influenced on Tom Cat – a highly accessible jazz-funk-R&B date that, as commercial as it is, leaves room for inspired blowing courtesy of both the leader and sidemen like electric guitarist Robben Ford and keyboardist Larry Nash. Sweaty, hard-hitting jazz-funk is the rule on such down-home grooves as "Good Evening Mr. & Mrs. America & All the Ships" and "Day Way," which allow the players to let loose, blow, and say what needs to be said. "Love Poem" is a pleasant, likable piece of delicate mood music (but not "Muzak"!) that features wordless vocals by pop-folk singer Joni Mitchell and has a slightly Flora Purim-ish appeal.

American troubadour Tom Russell, regarded as one of the finest songwriters of his generation, returns with October in the Railroad Earth on March 15 via Proper Records. The new studio album comprises ten original Tom Russell songs, including the title track from the Irish film Small Engine Repair and features Bill Kirchen on lead electric guitar, Eliza Gilkyson on backing vocals and the Grammy Award winning Texmaniacs. Russell describes the songs and sound as: “Jack Kerouac meets Johnny Cash…in Bakersfield”.

Recorded across two shows with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in October 2018.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are one of the earliest, most commercially successful, and enduring synth pop groups. Inspired most by the advancements of Kraftwerk and striving at one point "to be ABBA and Stockhausen," they've continually drawn from early electronic music as they've alternately disregarded, mutated, or embraced the conventions of the three-minute pop song. Outside their native England, OMD are known primarily for "Maid of Orleans" and the Pretty in Pink soundtrack smash "If You Leave," yet they scored 18 additional charting U.K. singles in the '80s alone. These hits supported inventive albums such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980), Architecture & Morality (1981), and commercial suicide-turned-cult classic Dazzle Ships (1983)…

Charles Scott Boyer II was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Boyer was best known for co-founding the band Cowboy. Boyer was born Chenango, New York, and moved to Jacksonville, Florida in his youth. After high school, he played in the band the 31st of February. He co-founded Cowboy with songwriter Tommy Talton in 1969, which released four albums and supported the Allman Brothers Band on tour. Boyer's song "Please Be with Me" was later covered by Eric Clapton. After Cowboy's breakup, Boyer continued playing music. He moved to Muscle Shoals, Alabama in 1988 and continued playing in a band called the Decoys until his death in 2018.