Ace, late-seventies set, warmly buoyant and inimitably baggy, including Space Is The Place.
Six reeds (including John Gilmore and Marshall Allen), three trumpets (including Michael Ray and Eddie Gale), two trombones (with a young Robin Eubanks), the French horn of Vincent Chancey, guitarist Dale Williams, three bassists, four percussionists, singer June Tyson and of course Ra on keyboards.

A deadly, zonked Soul Syndicate excursion on Westbound Train, with Keith Hudson as the Fat Controller. Introducing a young LT — his first recording, he says — stylistically indebted to Dennis Brown.

Tough pan-Caribbean wig-out, complete with twanging guitar and characteristically hot organ; plus The Jamaicans’ lovely version of the Sam Cooke.

Beautiful, heart-wrenching, anti-war roots.
Sublime singing, led by Tony Tuff, over the kind of rhythm you could run for hours.

From 1963, following stints for Jackie McLean on One Step Beyond and Destination… Out!, this is maybe the great trombonist’s best record, with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Tony Williams — all involved with Miles around this time — and Cecil McBee. Four Moncur originals: bold, free, forward-looking music; but expansive and assured, never forced. ‘Some other stuff’; not full of itself, but a bit different. Try The Twins — dedicated to his two brothers — for a better sense of his musical good humour.

Dynamite, previously unissued rocksteady version of the monumental Skatalites scorcher from a few years earlier.

Rollicking, mid-sixties, post-Skatalites ska thriller, led by Bobby Ellis and Roland Alphonso, with slightly different soloing to the original release.
Backed with a charming, forsaken, rare Summertairs: ‘I love you, Errol… come back today… but not too late… Errol, my dear.’

Stone cold murder. Archetypal, slow-mo, eastern-sounds post-ska from Jackie Mittoo, Dizzy Moore, Roland Alphonso and co, around 1965.

Their last Prestige, in 1970, trying out a more extended, jamming, funky style of boogaloo on Cloud Nine and a couple of Sonny Phillips’ tunes, out of five. The Pazant Brothers are in full effect on horns; jazz heroes like Seldon Powell and Bernard Purdie sit in.

Sanctified, southern soul — lost, crying, frank harmonising, and swaying horns and organ — recorded at FAME, Muscle Shoals, in 1964, by cousins Johnny Simon and Ervin Wallace from Atlanta. Lover’s Prayer is a scorcher.
The vinyl is a facsimile of the original LP (on Russell Sims’ Nashville label); the ‘Complete Sims Recordings’ CD from Kent adds ten more sides.

The recording of a performance at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, recycling One for Juan from Jimmy Heath’s Love And Understanding LP for Muse, and Watergate Blues and Smilin’ Billy, both from the Bros’ recent Marchin’ On LP.

‘That was the first Heath Brothers album. Stanley Cowell had started the Strata-East label with Charles Tolliver, and they engaged us to do a record. It was a family affair, and we adopted Stanley because we thought he was amazing. That was a different type of record for us. We recorded it while we were on tour in Oslo, Norway. We used to get on the train and travel around Europe, and we’d be playing in these cabins on the train. Percy played a bass with a cello body that Ray Brown created, Tootie and I played flutes, and Stanley played a chromatic African thumb piano. People would stop and listen to us on these trains going from one country to the next, and it was something that they liked. It was like a chamber-music group. So we decided to include that sound on the record.’

The version of Smilin’ Billy is a show-stopper.