Music Library: Lee Morgan, Left Banke, Lemon Pipers, Lena Horne, Leo Kottke, Leon Payne, Leonard Cohen, Leroy Jenkins, Les Savy Fav, Lester Bangs,

Lee Morgan - The Cooker (1957), Search For The New Land (1964), Cornbread (1965), and Delightfulee (1966).  Hard bop sax.  Amazing fact that I just learned from Wikipedia: Morgan was 33 when he was murdered in 1972.  So he was all of 19 when The Cooker, his SIXTH album, was released.  Wow.  Anyway, great hard bop if you like hard bop, and you probably do.  I could have sworn I had The Sidewinder, too.

The Left Banke - There's Gonna Be A Storm: The Complete Recordings 1966 - 1969.  Doesn't get more Left Banke-y than this.  This is a rather charming chamber-pop band with a fairly complicated and uninteresting backstory.  Great singles, though.

The Lemon Pipers - "Jelly Jungle" and "Green Tambourine." Two fun psychedelic bubblegum tracks from 1968.

Lena Horne - "Stormy Weather."  I forget where this is from.  Lena Horne's voice is not anywhere close to my favorite.

Leo Kottke - 6- And 12-String Guitar (1971), Essential (1976-1983), That's What (1990), Great Big Boy (1991), and Peculiaroso (1994).  Man, that first Leo Kottke album is a barnburner.  I've heard it thousands of times since I discovered it in the early 90s and it always sounds fresh and new.  It belongs in every music library.  Essential collects some of the more eccentric tracks from Kottke's late 70s-early 80s albums.  The three from the early 90s simultaneously get more eccentric and more approachable as Kottke's later-period sound becomes more developed.  So to recap: 6- And 12-String Guitar is essential.  Essential is not, but it's okay.  That's What, Great Big Boy, and Peculiaroso are a little better than okay, more essential than Essential, but they are not quite essential to any but devoted fans.