From the 1965 LP Happy Girl, with the knockout lineup of Woody Shaw, Larry Young, Jimmy Woode and Billy Brooks. A fierce modal original by Shaw, Theme From Zoltan was revisited by Young the following year on his classic Blue Note album Unity. Davis’ own composition Mister E features blistering solos by himself, Shaw and Young.

Outstanding Goldwax soul, unreleased at the time.
A once-bitten-twice-shy wailer, backed with some rocking Northern.

A double header from the Detroiter. Both highly-sought-after sides are reissued here for the first time.
Only previously issued as a UK promo 7”, Lend A Hand became one of the biggest ‘modern’ Northern Soul tracks of all-time after spins at venues like the Highland Room at the Blackpool Mecca, and Wigan Casino. The track was first championed by DJ Colin Curtis in 1974.
From 1969, Come See What’s Left Of Me is on the mellower side of Northern Soul, but still a dancer, and another classic. First ushered onto the Northern scene at the Stafford All-Nighters back in 1985.

Hank Jacobs was an accomplished West coast keyboard player, who smashed it with So Far Away in 1964.
One of his four releases on Alton Scott’s LA-based Call Me label, the slamming Elijah Rockin’ With Soul is a Northern favourite; whilst the more sophisticated, cool, sunroof-down East Side is a Popcorn and Lowrider go-to.

Wildly compelling tapestry of free jazz, dubby electronics, marimba grooves, funk, blues and African folk, recorded in Philadelphia in 1972.
‘My ancestors eventually show up in my music every time I play. I’ve always said that my backyard is Africa.’

After two years’ preoccupation with the Miles Davis Quartet, here is Herbie in 1968, ready for the seventies, the old, uptight bebop instincts melting into the balmy, open, innocent textures of fluegelhorn, bass trombone and alto flute, and his own lightly beautiful playing.
‘Classic Vinyl series.’

Recorded in Paris, 1965, at the time of the Vietnam peace talks. ‘Donald Byrd occasionally played with us at the Blue Note, so he came in and helped produce the record.’

Bagpiping meets Partch DIY and the singing of Pandit Pran Nath, at the grass roots of Fluxus, in an empty swimming pool. Long, slowly building drones, lightly processed, with snatches of melody. Check it out.

‘Sangam means ‘meeting place’ in Sanskrit. Don obviously knew exactly what he wanted to do, and Latif immediately understood, his fingers fizzing across the tablas at frightening speed… It was Don who suggested that Latif overdub new tabla parts to enrich and add complexity to the first takes. We could reasonably have expected to spend the night doing this because this was the first time the percussionist had done this. It took him all of five minutes to get used to listening to the first tracks over the headphones before playing them without the slightest mistake. When we got to the timpani, which he was playing for the first time, his keen sense of pitch and tone once again did miracles. During one take, just for the fun of it Latif started to play a fairly slow, disconnected duple time, moving on to three and then four… all the way up to 19 by which time his fingers were whizzing invisibly across the skins, leaving us in awe and him looking as if he didn’t know what the fuss was all about. All this just made Don even keener to impress his musical companion for a day…
‘Of course, the subtleties of this album call for greater analysis, for example the meeting between the Malian doussou n’gouni and Indian tablas, the Hammond organ taking over from the tampura, 5 1/4 time as if it were the easiest thing in the world, the reinvented Indonesian gamelan… and the lyricism of the pocket cornet.’