Her third Columbia, from 1970.
With Muscle Shoals crew on side one — Roger Hawkins, Eddie Hinton, Barry Beckett and co — and a lineup convening the Armenian oud-plyer Ashod Garabedian, Duane Allman and Alice Coltrane, on side two.
‘I love my country as it dies in war and pain before my eyes. I walk the streets where disrespect has been. The sins of politics, the politics of sin, the heartlessness that darkens my soul… on Christmas.’

Stone-classic country blues album recorded by Pete Welding for Testament in 1970. Just singing and slide guitar, still crackling and luminous with the time Shines knocked around with Robert Johnson in the mid-30s.
“Blues is like death. Blues is when you are lost. Blues is when you are depressed but don’t know why you are depressed.”
It’s a must.

Terrific 1963 date with Charlie Rouse, John Ore and Frankie Dunlop.
Originals and standards; nothing Monk hadn’t recorded before. Bubbling, chewy versions of Hackensack and Rhythm-A-Ning; a fabulous, seven-minute, solo Don’t Blame Me.
As Baroness Nica notes poshly on the sleeve, ‘this is the happiest of albums, leaving one with an extraordinary feeling of elation.’

Mr Pitiful at his most powerful, with the MGs in 1965.

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

From 1964, with Pharoah Sanders sitting in for John Gilmore (away working with Paul Bley, Andrew Hill and Art Blakey); also flautist Harold Murray and the brilliant bassist Alan Silva. The debut of The Shadow World.

Organically funky, laced with avant-garde synth textures, and studded with breakbeats, the second Outernational is Jeff Resnick’s unique, ultra-rare, 1978 promotional recording for the School for American Craftsmen, at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Five tracks of soul jazz and modal fusion — re-modelling Trane, and opening with a variation of Norwegian Wood — by a local group including trumpeter Jeff Tyzik and pianist Sonny Kompanek; then Resnick mostly solo for the second side, when the money ran out, multi-tracking synthesizers on his home set-up, in an engrossing blend of reflective abstraction, grooving electro and spiritualised fourth-world tropicalism.
Bim!

Of all his albums, this was Stan Getz’ favourite. Ours, too.
Freed from the formal orthodoxies of small-group bebop, and revelling in the freedoms opened up by Eddie Sauter’s thrilling strings-based arrangements, lyrical improvisation pours out of the saxophonist (with Lester Young coursing through as per). The music shimmies devil-may-care through jazz, classical, soundtrack, show-tune, and the rest.
Try the dazzling opener. A theme from Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta is mashed into skittering, paranoid funk, with a killer spot for Roy Haynes. And next up, something quite different, a quiet, complexly tender tribute to Getz’s mum, exquisitely proffered. Just a shame Bill Evans wasn’t sitting in.
Original, knockout; very warmly recommended.

Coming after Nothin To Look At Just A Record, with its densely layered trombones, this is Niblock’s second, rarest LP, from 1984: a collaboration with Joseph Celli (who himself had worked with Cage, Oliveros and Ornette), playing oboe and English horn.
Niblock creates seamless, ringing drones by skilfully cutting all Celli’s breaths and pauses. Play it loud, he says, for its viscerality, and to get its ringing overtones rolling around your room.

‘Twelve frenetic bursts of scrapyard detournement, meticulously stitched together with dubbed-out vocals and disjointed drum machines, at the limits of bedroom electronica and DIY. Originally released in 1982 on his own Record Sluts label, in a single run of five hundred copies. Recommended to fans of Suicide, 20 Jazz Funk Greats and early Cabaret Voltaire.’

Kicks off with the rollicking samba Soy Califa; then a ravishing, bittersweet ballad.
Key Dexter.
Recorded the same week as Go!, with the same crew, including Sonny Clark on top form throughout.
Don’t miss Don’t Explain.
In the Blue Note 80 Vinyl series.

Fourth and last of the classic quintet albums with Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams. Mostly written by Herbie and Wayne Shorter — a valediction to hard bop, without the old-school machismo.
LP from Music On Vinyl.

A true lost classic of jazz; heart-stopping turns on baritone saxophone.
‘Chaloff’s masterpiece is both vigorous and moving… Thanks For The Memory is overpoweringly beautiful as Chaloff creates a series of melodic variations which match the improviser’s ideal of fashioning an entirely new song. Stairway To The Stars is almost as fine… This important session has retained all its power’ (The Penguin Guide To Jazz On CD).
Killer band, too — Sonny Clark, Philly Joe Jones, and Leroy Vinnegar.