BGP Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Lonnie Liston Smith's third LP with the Cosmic Echoes, from 1974, was the second to mark his discovery of the success-driving formula that was spiritual jazz-funk. The record's impact has indeed resounded through the decades, like a chakra-prodding gong. Though for all its crystal-clear recording and effortless performances, Expansions is perhaps best known as a precursory informant on clubland, prophesying some of the most storied developments in electronic dance music and its uses of jazz. The phasy drums on 'Shadows', zilling fills of 'Voodoo Woman', and of course the banging suspensions of 'Expansions', have been sampled the world over by electronica musicians - a trend which begun not long after the record's release on Flying Dutchman.

Review: First released back in 1973, Flying Dutchman aver their grand standing on the parapet that is the New York jazz scene with a timely new reissue of Leon Thomas' 'Just In Time To See The Sun', which now appears with a different B-side counterpart. Shaker-uppers, these sonic sailers are! Where As 'Just In Time...' itself first surfaced as the B-side to a stirring album cut 'Never Let Me Go' - which also graced the pimpin' Tennessee blues-jazz musician's later record Full Circle - it now comes paired with the pentatonic skiffle 'China Doll'. FD's new curative duopoly on Thomas' bellowing sound flaunts the singer and musician's deep range, contrasting the styptic funk explosions of the titular Santana cover on the A with the shaker-laden Orientalist groove on the B.