Charles Earland - Black Talk! (1969)

Summer of love.  Some men are laying it up, and some men are laying it down.  And some men really know how to lay it down.  How to lay down a full conversation right there on the sax.  How to really wail with that organ.  How to make it bellow.  Mr. Charles Earland, The Mighty Burner, is one such man.  Soul Jazz from the city of brotherly love in the vein of Booker T and the MGs.  When Philadelphia's Charles Earland lays it down, it stays down.

Gary McFarland - The In Sound (1965)

I love me a good lounge album, and this album does not disappoint!  Los Angeles native Gary McFarland only played music for 12 years, yet collaborated with Bill Evans, Stan Getz, Anita O'Day, Johnny Hodges, Gerry Mulligan, and many other jazz legends of the day.  Rocking the vibraphone, McFarland has a sound like no other.  "The In Sound" finds McFarland teaming up with Hungarian pop-rock jazz guitarist Gábor Szabó for a classic lounge-pop sound.  Who knows where McFarland would have taken his jazz sound if his life hadn't been cut short, poisoned by a methadone spiked drink at the famous dockworkers union hangout, 55 Bar.

Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus (1956)

The saxophone colossus!  One of the legendary tenor saxophonists from the bebop/hard bop era.  He played with Miles Davis, he played with John Coltrane, he played with Red Garland, Shelly Manne, Babs Gonzales, Bud Powell, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Dizzy Gillespie, all the greats.  He served jail time, fought off a vicious heroine addiction, and still produces great work to this day.  Awarded the rare crown from the Penguin guide to jazz, this 1956 album may be his all time best.

Harlem Hamfats - Harlem Hamfats, Vol. 1 (1936)

Covered by Count Basie, The Ink Spots, Blind Willie McTell, Howlin' Wolf, and even Jessica Rabbit, these guys were no Hamfats (second rate jazz players) - nor were they from Harlem.  Some of the backing musicians for Memphis Minnie got together and formed this Chicago classic.  A mix of blues, swing-jazz, and dixieland that  you just may recognize.  Give the Weed Smokers Dream a spin...