“Dig It!”   Bill Evans   Fontana Records (French)   A compilation of tracks from the albums “Everybody Digs Bill Evans”, “New Jazz Conceptions” and “Portrait in Jazz”, each originally issued on Riverside in the late fifties.   One of a series of Jazz reissues that each featured a different hip chick posing in front of a jazz legend.   Search the site for Fontana and see others listed here.   Tracks include:   I Love You / Easy Living / Displacement / Waltz For Debby / Autumn Leaves / Someday My Prince Will Come / Tenderly / What Is There To Say? / Oleo

(41 votes, average: 3.41 out of 5)

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“On the Road with Rock ‘n Roll”   Golden Crest Records (1957)     Before Richie Valens, Mando and the Chili Peppers were perhaps the first Mexican-American rock & roll group.   This is their only LP, though they continued to play around their home town of San Antonio into the Sixties.     Their sound was a mix of New Orleans R&B and rock and roll.   In 2004, after nearly 40 years and out of nowhere, the band played at the Ponderosa Stomp Music Festival in New Orleans.

(39 votes, average: 3.13 out of 5)

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Los Forasteros de Monterrey “Polkas Pa’echar Estilo   Cuate’s Records

(56 votes, average: 2.89 out of 5)

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Bernie Witkowski & His Orchestra at the Belmont Ballroom, Garfield, New Jersey   “12 Polka Figure Dances”   Stella Records.

(55 votes, average: 3.36 out of 5)

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“Os Fabulosos Romanticos De Cuba”   Musidisc Records

(48 votes, average: 3.40 out of 5)

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The Cecil Taylor Quintet with John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham, Steve Lacy, Chuck Israels and Louis Hayes.   United Artists   (1958)   Reissued In 1964 as “Coltrane Time.”   Includes “Double Clutching” (Chuck Israels), “Like Someone In Love” (Van Heusen/Burke),   “Shifting Down” (Kenny Dorham), “Just Friends” (Klenner/Lewis).

(47 votes, average: 3.49 out of 5)

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Jerry Colonna At His Best.   Decca Records (1954)   Hear it here.

(55 votes, average: 3.85 out of 5)

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Major Lance “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um” b/w “Sweet Music”   Okeh Records (1964)   Written by Curtis Mayfield.   This single was the follow up to the 1963 hit “Monkey Time,” (also written by Mayfield).

In 1978, Major Lance was convicted of selling cocaine and he spent the next four years in prison.   Upon his release, he began playing the Beach Music circuit on the Carolina coast until 1987 when a heart attack halted his career again.   In 1994, he performed at the Chicago Blues Festival, a show which turned out to be his last.   Major Lance died of heart failure on 3rd September 1994, at the age of 55.

(38 votes, average: 3.34 out of 5)

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A Doublemint Gum sales promotion record (ironically a single). With music by the Doubleaires, of course.

(39 votes, average: 3.41 out of 5)

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“And Awaaay We Go!   With Jackie Gleason   Capitol Records (1954)

(33 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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