The history of electronic music slowly inculcating more popular and radio ready sounds has its start a long time off in the distant past. During the twenties there were experiments with process that would result, years later, in any number of divergent compositional and musical ideas. But it was with the Moog Synthesizer that rock music in the States would become most engaged with.

Of course, Sun Ra was using electric keyboards prior to most rock oriented performers, it actually took a former member of the Weavers, a vanilla folk group, to introduce the synthesizer to everyone from Bay Area players to George Harrison.

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Simply figuring out what incarnation of Caroliner one is having assault ear drums is difficult enough. Making it all the way through a recording is even more difficult, though.

As a latter day member of LAFMS, Caroliner doesn’t possess some of the traits common with better known groups from the collective. For instance, while there is a sense of repetition amidst the various compositions making up any long player from the group, there’s no semblance of a kraut influence. That, of course, doesn’t have any bearing on Caroliner’s membership (that’s probably not the right temr) in LAFMS, but it does set them apart.

But so too does the mythology behind the band.

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Seattle goes grunge

hip hop explodes in L.A.

raves shake warehouses

When mentioning guitar within the world of jazz, it’d be understandable if most folks thought of the electrified version – or even old tyme, hollow bodies that were amplified in some way as opposed to nylon stringed instruments we might associate more with classical styles. Michael Gregory Jackson, who recorded under his first and middle name to alleviate the obvious confusion, seemed to enjoy working with whatever guitar he had, not just electric. And on his first date as a session leader, the 1976 Clarity, listeners will find Jackson’s inclination towards the inclusion of that nylon stringed instrument to jive pretty well with the supporting music.

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Willie Bobo might not be the best known name in jazz percussion, but he serves as the connective tissue between the nascent Latin Jazz thing spawned during the fifties and the eventually inclusion of live percussion in hip hop. That’s a lot of ground to cover, but Bobo did it all himself – well, kinda.

Growing up in Spanish Harlem granted Bobo an early audience with Mongo Santamaria, probably the best known Latin Jazz drummer in recorded history apart from Tito Puente, who we’ll get to. Being associated with such a huge name in the business immediately allowed for Bobo to record as a session man as well as working alongside his avowed mentor.

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Being born in Middletown, Ohio assures a person of one thing. If you’re not Amish, you’re going to be necessitated to move elsewhere in order to pursue just about anything in life. There’s nothing wrong with horse drawn buggies, cheese and well wrought furniture. But there’s not too much else to get into around that part of Ohio – especially if you’re interested in music and specifically jazz music.

Realizing all of that, pianist Dave Burrell high-tailed it out of town to attend school in Hawaii for a bit prior to transferring to Boston’s Berklee School of Music. It’s not surprising that an student from that latter institution would go on to work with some difficult musics. But before even that happened on a large school, Burrell would perform on any number of important free jazz dates and eventually met trombonist Grachan Moncur III.

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The story behind Kool and the Gang is one of commercial realization. And while the word commercial has become something of a displeasing thing to those practicing musicians who value their independence (which is frequently accompanied by obsolescence), angling at success shouldn’t really ever be thought of as a negative unless there’re some totally abandoned principals along the way. And that can’t be said about Kool and his Gang.

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After last years Down River Revival, it’s not too big a surprise that the folks behind Chicago’s Numero Group have again reached back into a studio’s archives to unloose another installment in the Local Customs series. The second disc, Lone Star Lowlands, works to compile the top crop of recordings coming out of Mickey Rouse’s studio down there in Beaumont, Texas. And anyone with even a passing knowledge of music from Texas during the sixties and seventies should be pretty jazzed up this compilation.

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Asiko is a mountain range in Greece. Pinpointing the reason for a Lagos, Nigeria based funk and rock ensemble using the name to perform under is probably lost to time. And even if were properly explained, the reasoning behind it all would most likely be relatively convoluted. Whatever the case, though, Asiko Rock Group issued a self titled album during the late seventies, which has been reissued by the venerable and ever dusty Academy LPs. Of course, the imprint’s website doesn’t sport too much information about the release, nor do the interwebs offer up anything in the way of edification. That, though, might have to do with the relative lack of quality spread out over the album’s seven tracks.

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Greensleeves is responsible for issuing a huge number of latter day dancehall stuff, just before the genre fell off into an abyss of violence and other nonsense. Papa Dimes might not be a musical high point, but comes in a far sight more entertaining than all the digital trickery that followed.