Review by Oleg Trukhanovich

The near-90 minutes of Uncle John’s Band certainly offered me one verb-changing cornucopia of time-proven, literate and swinging yet freshly rendered jazz.

Universal Syncopations is a tapestry of sound woven by steady, practiced hands. Each musician knows when to make way for another’s pass of thread and to contribute his own color when appropriate. The overall effect is unanimous and gifts us with a chunk of unforgettable, life-affirming jazz, its heart in all the right places.

Giant Steps is one of the acknowledged masterworks of jazz and this special two-CD edition was a good idea. These recordings are important as one of the key sessions of modern jazz in 1959 and as recordings that shaped jazz thereafter. Coltrane is on great form from beginning to end, faithfully followed and supported by piano, bass and drums.

Look at You Now is like a mix of the "old" Flower Kings with the more concise stuff they're writing lately. It seems they finally found the right balance and I hope they continue in this path. With no fillers and with an excellent flow, it's a real nice surprise.

The Future Is Now serves as a fine and fitting farewell to, perhaps, Corea’s most popular and musically compelling collective, the likes of which we’re unlikely to hear again.

The quartet's intuitive interplay and improvisational elasticity, bristling with kinetic energy, has an undeniably contemporary feel. The music is steeped in jazz's roots-music traditions for sure, yet bending and shaping the forms to create something wholly personal.

This album might be an important material when talking about the history of Jazz/Fusion. It’s by turns intoxicating and disorienting. It’s a ferocious album from an extraordinary group of musicians, deployed in a most unusual way.

One of the most important records ever made, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme was his pinnacle studio outing, that at once compiled all of the innovations from his past and glimpsed at the future innovations of his final two and a half years. A Love Supreme not only attempts but realizes the ambitious undertaking of Coltrane's concept; his emotional, searching, sometimes prayerful journey is made abundantly clear.

A wonderful collaboration between a horn player and a singer, perhaps the greatest of all time. This delicate, seductive album stands immortalised in time as tribute, a nod to the genius that was Coltrane/Hartman. The more you listen to it, the more subtle genius details reveal themselves to you, in particular how the saxophone helps tell the story with nuance, sensitivity and re-spect.

The musical sensibility of the band and bandleader is breathtaking as they shift from a traditional workout to an avant garde freakout in a blink of an eye. Evans brings orchestral color and texture to the music here. He was a pioneer of the cool sound, and ‘Out of the Cool’ is a fine example of perhaps the greatest contributor to jazz history and his prowess.

The album is a fountain of progressive rock music with compact sound and strict songwriting abilities of the band members in varied and dynamic style. It's obvious how the routine of Peter Hammill, Hugh Banton and Guy Evans raise the album to that high level it deserves to receive in fact.

A very unusual album - almost unique for 1969... except that a lot of unique albums were released in 1969. It is as an unmissable example of Krautrock, unmistakably, an excellent addition to any prog music collection.

A terrific recording of nice, softly swinging standards and a few other things. Steve Gadd is a great brush player and plays them on almost all of this recording. Eddie Gomez plays like you'd expect, awesome. With the background these gentlemen have in so many different kinds of music, it seems like they are relaxing and enjoying each other's playing.

"My Favorite Things" is a remarkable cross of extremism and tact, a demonstration that experimentalism and accessibility can be compatible bedfellows.

"Phallus Dei" is a wonderful debut and I particularly recommended this album to those who like the more psychedelic end of Krautrock. Album is mesmerizing and remains a fine approach to AMON DUUL II musical creativity.

There are only a handful of contemporary guitarists that one must consistently keep abreast of in order to understand the present state of music. Along with Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel is in that tier, so every release is always a thrill.

A stunning collection of songs given new impetus, the meaning hasn’t changed, but the presentation is one of true beauty and regret that we might not see another dawn.

The trio achieves a flawless blend of rhythm, subtlety, and technical brilliance, seamlessly weaving the era’s bossa nova influences with the trio’s signature jazz swing, demonstrating their exceptional ability to infuse familiar styles with fresh energy and creative sophistication. Each track on We Get Requests highlights the musicians’ remarkable synergy. Peterson’s inventive phrasing, Brown’s creative bass lines, and Thigpen’s nuanced rhythms create a vibrant and profound sound that is uniquely their own.

This album is really a dark and freaked out psychedelic mess of free-form songs that filter through many different genres and moods. No fan of Krautrock can be without this recording and is absolutely 100% essential!

"Wolf City" is an excellent album that should be easily enjoyed by most of prog listeners and is perhaps a good introduction to their earlier, more psychedelic stuff.