Zingers from five different nightclub engagements, mostly drawn from Pops’ personal reel-to-reel collection — at Bop City in New York in 1950, Club Hangover in San Francisco in 1952, Storyville in Boston in 1953, Basin Street in New York in 1955 and the Brant Inn in Ontario in 1958 — featuring five different iterations of Armstrong’s All Stars, including such luminaries as Jack Teagarden, Barney Bigard, Earl Hines, Arvell Shaw, Cozy Cole, Marty Napoleon, Milt Hinton, Barrett Deems, Edmond Hall…

Killer Osibisa do-over.
‘Trammy’ was the nickname of trombonist Ron Wilson; but this is Vin Gordon.

The great reggae saxophonist surfing a dazzling array of immortal Glen Brown instrumentals and dubs, like Dirty Harry, Mr Bald Head Aitken, Merry Up, South East Music, Fathers Call, Music From South Side…
GB the Rhythm Master is right up there in the first pantheon of reggae producers, with the Upsetter, Niney and one or two others; stuff like Dirty Harry is the food of gods.
A deeply pleasurable set, warmly recommended.

Killer Duke Reid productions, originally put together in 1969. Also featuring Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond, Rico Rodriguez and full Skatalites crew; Justin Hines, Stranger Cole and Millicent Patsy Todd.

Irresistibly bouncy, pestiferous and nostalgic do-over of the version of One Note Samba/Spanish Flea which Sergio Mendes cut for Herb Alpert, with Lani Hall singing.
Perhaps a shame Homer Simpson wasn’t in Kingston at the time.
The flip-side sets the stage for Lloyd ‘Reggae Feet’ Williams with a quick mashing of the intro to I Can’t Help Myself by the Four Tops into some chords from Rescue Me by Fontella Bass.

A mostly instrumental set recorded at Treasure Isle, but released on the Canadian label Lanarc in 1969 (and tough to find till now).

Breathtaking US roots. A super-heavyweight, high-drama Zap Pow rhythm, with luminous singing by Horace Campbell, on his own label. Second of just two Black Spades. You’d be mad to pass.

Tough mid-seventies steppers from the US, in tow to Johnny Clarke. A one-away for Bev; nothing to do with Jah Shaka (except he’d run it).
Rough dub, too.

Wonderful 1985 recording led by the brilliant cellist Tristan Honsinger, originally released by Data.
With trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, saxophonist Sean Bergen, Jean Jacques Avenel on bass, Michael Vatcher on drums and percussion, and Tiziana Simona Vigni singing.
‘Deceptively vicious little songs with hilarious twists and the kind of intense improvising you’d expect from a band that incorporates players of this calibre.’

‘A studio recording from 1979, previously unreleased. It is primarily structured around pairs of tunes by Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington (or Billy Strayhorn), adding Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman for good measure. The results are stunningly intimate and show the twosome’s capacity for creative interplay at a fairly early stage in its unfolding. Pithecanthropus Erectus gets pared down to its essential walking-bass-ness, while Monk’s Evidence is taken apart, and solo spots by both men are as riveting as one would expect.’