Whats on your turntable tonight?

Terry Riley "Descending Moonshine Dervishes"!!!

Toto- Hydra
Great album, every track IMHO. Sounds great too.

Bob Brookmeyer/Jim Hall/Jimmy Raney - "The Street Swingers" [World Pacific] Two-guitar lineup features Brookmeyer switching off between piano and the valve trombone he made his name on. (He also penned the conspicuously wordy liners.) With Bill Crow bass and Osie Johnson drums.
Anthony & The Imperials - "Reflections" [Veep] No more 'Little', but just as much Randazzo.
Yusef Lateef - "Jazz 'Round The World" [Impulse!]
Love - "Four Sail" [Elektra] The last good one.
The Impressions - "The Young Mods' Forgotten Story" [Curtom]
Gordon Lightfoot - "Lightfoot!" [UA]
Gordon Lightfoot - "The Way I Feel" [UA]
Gordon Lightfoot - "Did She Mention My Name?" [UA]
Chet Atkins - "Caribbean Guitar" [RCA]
Chet Atkins - "A Session With Chet Atkins" [RCA]
Big Bill Broonzy & Washboard Sam - (same) [Chess]
Max Roach - "Award Winning Drummer" [Time] With an unusual lineup of Booker Little trumpet, George Coleman tenor sax, Ray Draper tuba, and Art Davis bass (no piano), I'm guessing from about 1960. Contrary to the title this is in no way a drumcentric record.
The Jazz Crusaders - "Give Peace A Chance" [Pacific Jazz/Liberty] Side two is worthwhile originals.
Ramsey Lewis Trio - "Stretching Out" [Argo]
Woody Herman & The Thundering Herd - "Concerto For Herd" [Verve] At the Monterrey Jazz Festival.
Oscar Peterson - "Soul Espanol" [Limelight]
Art Farmer Quartet - "Perception" [Argo]
Quincy Jones & His Orchestra - "The Quintessence" [Impulse!]
Ralph Marterie & His Marlboro Men - "Music For A Private Eye" [Mercury Wing] Superlative big band arrangements of cloak'n'dagger TV themes of the day, again circa 1960. If the Jones record channels the Duke (without actually containing any of his compositions), then this powerhouse calls to mind the Count.
Milt Jackson - "Olinga" [CTI] Could this 1974 session be the worst sounding record RVG ever made? I don't know when he switched his studio over to solid-state (before this, I would think, so presumably he should've already been practiced in it), however this suffocating report from the inside of a non-kingsize pillow sounds like a collateral casualty. With Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, Micky Roker and Jimmy Heath, so the band's not the problem. The liners quote Milt in a not so veiled brushoff of ex-MJQ leader/bandmate John Lewis: "...[I'm playing] my own kind of music - plain, straight, swingin' jazz or bebop or whatever you want to call it. No more hangups with conductors and symphony orchestras. That was never my thing, just a gig." Then Creed Taylor goes and overdubs Bob James 12-piece string arrangements on two of the cuts.

Concrete Blonde Mexican Heartbeat- concert album picked it up to on a whim and am really liking what they do on it.

Okay, so maybe Milt Jackson's "Olinga" ('74), awful as it sounds, wasn't an exceptionally bad-sounding RVG record of the period after all...I pulled out two other CTI RVGs for comparison: Soprano saxophonist Joe Farrell's "Moon Germs" ('72), with Herbie Hancock electric piano, Stanley Clarke bass and Jack DeJohnette drums, sounds if anything even worse, truly cramped and zero extension in either direction; and the Soul Flutes "Trust In Me" ('68), not really a jazz record but mood music featuring Hancock, Eric Gale, Bucky Pizzarelli, Ron Carter, Grady Tate and Ray Barretto among others, however significantly bigger- and better-sounding (must be tubes), if still fairly turgid overall...I guess demonstrating that the sainted Mr. van G is best appreciated earlier, and on other labels.