Dvořák's two splendidly tuneful serenades are so attractive that you will find the tunes stuck in your head for days afterwards. If this makes you crazy, then you might want to exercise caution before playing them! Each is written for different forces: one for strings, the other for winds (with a single double bass to reinforce the bottom end). The Serenade for Winds is particularly special, being the ultimate example of a form that Czech composers really did better than anyone else. The wind writing has that essential "outdoors" quality, but it's also completely smooth and euphonious. Sir Neville Marriner's band does the music proud. This is one of their best recordings.

Enigmatic, surreal, futuristic and deeply mysterious are the keywords to best describe Zanov’s 3rd album “In Course Of Time”. Legendary French synthesist Zanov, aka Pierre Salkazanov, already started work on this landmark album before his last concert in Villebon (near Paris) in June 1978, followed by some significant changes in 1979.
The tracks of the classic recording ended up on different tapes, the first composition being “Sky Energy”, followed by “Lost message” “Phantasm”, “Infinitude”, and the title track “In course of time”. In the creative process, Zanov made extensive use of the VCS3, ARP2600 & RMI Harmonic Synthesizer (at that time he didn’t yet have the Korg PS3300) and recorded the outcome on the TEAC3340S…

Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup power trio consisting of bassist/singer Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and guitarist/singer Eric Clapton. The band is widely regarded as the world's first successful supergroup. In their career, they sold more than 15 million copies of their albums worldwide. The band made a significant impact on the popular music of the time, and, along with Jimi Hendrix and other notable guitarists and bands, popularised the use of the wah-wah pedal. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Jeff Beck Group, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

Returning to his form of several releases ago, John Martyn found good things to convey to the listener here. The classic love song "Never Let Me Go" is worth the price of admission here alone, but the rest of the cuts have something to recommend them also. Too bad Well Kept Secret turned out to be only a lost, rough-cut gem.

Cold Chisel opened the '80s with their most widely accepted and artfully constructed album, East. Following it up was a tall order for the Aussie quintet, but they did the trick admirably with Circus Animals. (A live album, Swingshift, was released in the period between the two studio discs.) A ten-song stew of the band's signature guitar-and-piano-driven ballads and rockers, it further confirmed Chisel's depth and breadth as a creative unit. From the outset of Circus Animals, the boys come crashing in through the window like a bunch of rowdies with hell-raising on their minds, cranking out the guitar rock rottweiler "You Got Nothing I Want." Singer Jimmy Barnes' wrote the song about the frustration of a recently completed U.S. tour that had imploded ingloriously. As he belts out the number, Barnes' voice sounds like a buzz saw blade that's flown loose and ripped through a bunch of parked cars.

Synthesizer-playing composer Didier Marouani is the founding member of the French synth-pop band Space. He was classically trained as a pianist at the Paris Conservatoire, but recorded his first album as a singer in 1975. Space was formed by Marouani in 1977, after he decided to focus more on composition. The group's biggest international success came later that year with the singles "Magic Fly," which hit the U.K.'s Top Ten and, to a lesser extent, "Carry on Turn Me On," both of which appeared on charts in a number of countries. Space toured and recorded for the next few years and continued to make well-received records, although no singles duplicated the success of "Magic Fly." After several albums, a rift occurred in the band; 1980's Deeper Zone, recorded under the name of Space, was actually an album by band members Roland Romanelli and Jannick Top, who took over and kept the band name, but went relatively unnoticed…

Buddy Guy's music has changed a great deal since this album was recorded in Chicago in 1981. It is possible that Guy has never sounded better than this, tearing into some deep indigo blues, letting his guitar wail loud on every cut, and playing with inspiration, especially on the title cut and "Dedication to the Late T-Bone Walker," a track that seems to spring from some place deep within himself. Nor was he the only one on fire at the sessions. Brother Phil Guy shares the guitar work and contributes vocals to both "Garbage Man Blues" and "Mellow Down." The recording makes no attempt to capture a wide audience. This is Buddy Guy playing and feeling the blues, pure and simple, without any sense of compromise - and it's all the better for it, putting much of the rest of his catalog into perspective. Rarely is the blues this heartfelt - and rarer still is it so well played. If this were his only recorded legacy, he'd still warrant the stature he's achieved.

Cliff Dawson was the lead singer for a band called Pleasure House of Detention which then went on to change it’s name to Zenith. They did one Album for CBS. This album Was Cliffs only solo release, it contains the fantastic duet with Renee Diggs of Starpoint - Never Say Do, The song ”I can love you better” that Boardwalk removed to make way for another track “Never Say I Love You” w become Cliff's signature song in Europe, Reissuing this title gave us the chance to coorect what we feel was a mistake, we added back in both the duet with Renee diggs and I Can Love you better, we also took it to another level by getting John Morales to do a reedit of I can love you better and added it as a bonus track.

This album has a good R&B edge to it on the first 4 tracks and then some solid fusion efforts in the vein of other Valentin albums. Worth it purely for the version of Clove and Cinnamon alone as a jazz funk classic!!

Along with the Specials, Madness were one of the leading bands of the ska revival of the late '70s and early '80s. As their career progressed, Madness branched away from their trademark "nutty sound" and incorporated large elements of Motown, soul, and British pop. Although the band managed one crossover American hit in 1983, they remained a British phenomenon, influencing several successive generations of musicians and becoming one of the most beloved groups the country produced during the '80s. This box set includes the following albums: One Step Beyond… (1979), Absolutely (1980), The Rise And Fall (1982).

Cut at the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival with Stones' bassist Bill Wyman anchoring the rhythm section, the set captures some of the ribald musical repartee that customarily distinguished the pairing of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, though they certainly break no new ground as they roll through their signature songs.

The two albums by Pythagoras sound totally different and a bit simple but very tasteful: the first is cosmic oriented synthesizer music and their second is a wonderful blend of some spacey synthesizer - and classical music with bombastic symphonic rock featuring Arjen Lucassen (who later got fame with his Ayreon project) delivering a Gilmourian guitar solo and Michel Van Wassem (who recently plays in the new Plackband line-up) with some majestic Mellotron eruptions.

Is There Anything About? is the seventh album by British jazz fusion group Brand X. It is the last album to feature longstanding members Robin Lumley and Phil Collins. It was assembled from outtakes from the 1979 sessions. These sessions produced around twenty tracks which became Product (1979), Do They Hurt? (1980) and Is There Anything About? (1982). "Modern, Noisy and Effective" is the backing track to "Soho" with a new keyboard line overdubbed over the top of it. "A Longer April" is just an extended version of "April" from Product, with a bit of synth noise added in the middle. "TMIU-ATGA" is taken from an old cassette tape running in the studio when the band were improvising.

George Duke was an American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He worked with numerous artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and as a professor of music. He first made a name for himself with the album The Jean-Luc Ponty Experience with the George Duke Trio. He was known primarily for thirty-odd solo albums, of which 'A Brazilian Love Affair' from 1980 was his most popular, as well as for his collaborations with other musicians, particularly Frank Zappa.

Chick Corea was involved in a wide variety of projects during the early 1980s, some acoustic, others electric, and everything from solos and duets to orchestral projects. Touchstone really displays quite a bit of diversity with features for flamenco guitarist Paco DeLucia, a one-song ("Compadres") reunion of Return to Forever (with guitarist Al DiMeola, bassist Stanley Clarke, and drummer Lenny White), a spot for alto-great Lee Konitz ("Duende"), and a conventional sextet outing on "Dance of Chance." A bit uneven but with its interesting moments, Touchstone is worth checking out.