Wax of the Week #33...Armando Sciascia/New Dimensions Quartetto: Digressioni dal Vero (1968)

Choice crime/suspense library record from Sciascia’s own Italian label, perfect for scoring a giallo or a tense holdup scene in a poliziottescho. If I had the time and the players, this is the kind of music I’d like to play in nightclubs.

Wax of the Week #32...The Aquarians: Jungle Grass (1969)

An obscure but appealing Afro-Brazilian style jazz session (only names I recognize are guitarist Joe Pass and pianist Bobby Hutcherson). It even ventures into exotica zones at times. I think I first saw this mentioned on the old Soulstrut forum. Anyway it’s a nice, little record with some cool grooves.

Wax of the Week #31...Antonio Carlos Jobim: Tide (1970)

The guy who wrote “The Girl from Ipanema,” “Água de Beber,” “Insensatez,” “Meditation,” and “Desafinado,” and helped create and disseminate a whole new style of music in the late ’50s, combining the heady winebuzz coolness of west coast jazz with a danceable samba rhythm. Tide was his sixth or seventh studio record, if you count the soundtracks, but leave out the collaborations (Getz/Gilberto, Sinatra, etc.). It definitely has more of a glossy, easy listening sound compared to the more pure and authentic sounds of earlier records, but is still enjoyable. The bossa nova craze in the US had mostly died out by this point, but these original Brazilian artists never stopped creating, and you can find great records by many of them well into the ’80s.

Wax of the Week #30...The Anita Kerr Quartet: We Dig Mancini (1965)

Nice music from nice people for nice people. Kerr, born in Memphis in 1927, started as a backup country singer but by ’65 had a successful group of her own and moved to L.A. to expand her sound. I didn’t know she was behind those Living Voices records on RCA. She eventually moved to Switzerland and went gospel. Did you know Mancini’s Peter Gunn theme had lyrics?

Wax of the Week #29...v/a: Angel Dust (1988)

Savage Pencil, the nom de plume of English underground cartoonist Edwin Pouncey, compiled this classic collection of biker movie soundtrack highlights, nicely packed in a gatefold sleeve with picture disc vinyl and humorous Albini sleeve notes. Besides a few choice Davie Allen fuzz fests, there’s also incidental studio hack tracks, and the immortal lounge singer theme from “Satan’s Sadists.” FTW…

Wax of the Week #28...v/a: All Hell Let Loose (1983)

Italian-only vinyl version of the Neat cassette compilation 60 Minus Plus (minus four songs), and a pretty good New Wave of British Heavy Metal collection. The song by Crucifixion (from Essex) is a re-recorded version of a 1980 single. Alien (from Newcastle) also appeared on the 1982 Neat comp One Take No Dubs. Axis (from Stockton) released a good 1980 single.