today's chillout music (411)

norman connors / saturday night special

Connors' strong Saturday Night Special is most notable for "Valentine Love," a Top Ten black singles hit. The romantic ballad, a duet between Michael Henderson and Jean Carn, arrived in time for February 14 and also peaked on the Top 100 of the pop chart. One can't help but feel that the whole LP is truly Carn's show, as she contributes her rich voice to a number of stylistically varied numbers. Whether belting out in front of industrial-strength funk fusion ("Saturday Night Special"; watch out for Reggie Lucas' needling guitar solo here), sliding through breezy jazz (a rendition of Jobim's "Dindi"), or slipping into some ethereal colorings (a take on Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage"), Carn proves herself to be an extremely versatile vocalist, equally adept with each approach. "Skin Diver," penned by Harry "We Live in Brooklyn, Baby" Whitaker and Dwight Carson, is the best of the lot -- a slowly simmering number that features Carn at her soaring best. Hancock contributes piano to "Kwasi," a painfully brief fusion cut that begins with a two-minute Connors drum solo and ends after another two minutes, just when it begins to really cook.

today's chillout music (410)

steel an' skin / reggae is here once again (12inch)

From the Honest Jon's 'hood -- Ladbroke Grove, late 1970s -- stomping disco, dubwise reggae and regal steel-band. Three-track EP, released in conjunction with EM Records from Japan, who issued the recent Reggae Is Here Once Again.

today's chillout music (409)

jayson lindh / second carneval

today's chillout music (408)

norman connors / dark of light

This is in the stone groove of earlier Connors delights -- New York club music, the nexus where disco and jazz collided and gave birth to a brassy sort of funk. Players abound here: Herbie Hancock, Cecil McBee, Gary Bartz, and Stanley Clarke, to name but a few. Soon after this, Connors had some hits and started making records he figured his "public" wanted to hear.

today's chillout music (407)

david byrne / the catherine wheel

The Catherine Wheel is David Byrne's musical score commissioned by Twyla Tharp for her dance project. The Catherine Wheel premiered September 22, 1981, at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City.The tracks "Big Blue Plymouth", "My Big Hands", "Big Business", and "What a Day That Was", were performed live by Talking Heads in 1982 and 1983; the latter two appear in their Stop Making Sense film, and "What a Day That Was" appears on the album.

today's chillout music (406)

tommy stewart