Released to complement Kylie Minogue's 2023 album, Tension, Extension: The Extended Mixes features tracks from the acclaimed record in extended versions. The album appeared digitally as well as physically on double neon-pink, and green-splatter vinyl. Included is a longer version of the viral hit "Padam Padam."© Rich Wilson /TiVo

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Ranging from inner-city soul to orchestral grandeur to a bluesy ballad to easy-listening pleasantries, Extension of a Man was Donny Hathaway's most ambitious LP, the justly titled capstone to his phenomenal career. Coming, however, from one of soul music's most widely talented figures, this wasn't exactly a surprise; both of his previous studio full-lengths, Everything Is Everything and Donny Hathaway, treated soul as merely a starting point to express his multitude of ideas concerning music and arrangement, song and performance. On Extension of a Man, the ambition began and peaked with the opener, a six-minute orchestral piece titled "I Love the Lord; He Heard My Cry, Pts. 1-2." Arranged and orchestrated for 45 musicians by Hathaway himself, it applied the buoyant optimism of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue to a religious context, and segued smoothly into the transcendent "Someday We'll All Be Free," one of Hathaway's most beloved songs. The next two pieces, "Flying Easy" and "Valdez in the Country," were also Hathaway originals, first recorded during the late '60s as part of Chess studio groups; the first is a piece of pop-soul fluff lifted up by his superb reading, the second a smooth jazz-fusion jam with Hathaway illustrating on electric piano his excellent improv capabilities. "Love, Love, Love" and "Come Little Children" were the charting singles, the former a sublime love song heavily influenced by Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Unfortunately, these disparate pieces, brilliant as they are, don't coalesce into a single work as well as on his masterpiece Everything Is Everything, but Hathaway never stops impressing with his conceptions of arrangement and performance. Crippled by depression, he would never release another solo album during the last five years of his life, though among the projects he'd hoped to record was the four-part concerto Life, to be performed by the Boston Pops Symphony Orchestra with him in the conductor's chair, and the score of an epic biblical film.© John Bush /TiVo

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Once Keith Jarrett gets into a concept, he likes to keep those tapes rolling. This two-disc live outpouring from a Standards Trio gig at Munich's Philharmonic Hall was the biggest offering from this group up to that time (it wouldn't hold that distinction for long) -- and once again, Jarrett treats his brace of pop and jazz standards with unpredictable, often eloquently melodic and structural originality. To cite a pair of highlights: "Autumn Leaves" always seems to bring out an endless flow of invention from Jarrett, and "The Song Is You" gets off to a rollicking start and maintains a nearly relentless energy level for 17 minutes, closing with a Spanish vamp. Again, the rapport with his onetime jazz-rock associate, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and bassist Gary Peacock is total; DeJohnette's mastery of shifting cymbal patterns while maintaining the pulse acts on the trio like a loose tether made of carbon steel. There is a considerable amount of Jarrett vocalizing, though; sometimes he sounds like a tortured animal.© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo

This superbly recorded double disc (the original engineer was Eddie Kramer, best-known for his work with Hendrix) captured over a weekend worth of dates in February 1970 at the venerable New York City venue catches the Brit boogie quartet at the peak of their powers. These shows were sandwiched between their triumphant Woodstock set and the release of Cricklewood Green, generally considered the band's best work. They find the group primed through years of roadwork, as well as obviously excited to be playing in front of an appreciative N.Y.C. crowd. Kicking off with one of Bill Graham's patented individual-member intros, the group winds their way through the ominous riff of "Love Like a Man." Mixing extended and rocking versions of blues standards -- like Sonny Boy Williamson classics "Help Me" and "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," as well as Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" -- with two Chuck Berry covers and some nuggets from their own catalog, Ten Years After burns through this show with enormous energy and infectious enthusiasm. Alvin Lee and his flying fingers stay firmly in the spotlight, but the remastered sound is so immaculate you can finally appreciate the contributions of the other, generally overlooked TYA members: Chick Churchill on keyboards and especially Leo Lyons' fluid bass work, along with Ric Lee's jazzy drums. The songs shift into overdrive on the jams -- the longest of which pushes "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes" to 20 minutes -- and amazingly stay interesting for the majority of that time thanks to Lee's sense of flashy dynamics, as he quotes liberally from Hendrix and Cream licks. Detailed liner notes from drummer Lee describe the scene, not only in terms of Ten Years After, but also of the musical camaraderie of the time. Some of this is almost embarrassingly dated -- the drum solo-laden "The Hobbit" is particularly guilty, as are the often-interminable guitar gymnastics -- and the Chuck Berry numbers might have been live crowd-pleasers but don't add much to the originals. Still, this is the best Ten Years After concert album (of the three in the catalog), and proves just how vibrant these boogie boys could be when inspired by the crowd and each other on a perfect night. © Hal Horowitz /TiVo

Pushing to the side the double sax that became his trademark, George Braith turned in his strongest record with Extension. Largely freed from the restraints of the dueling horns, Braith is able to explore the outer reaches of his music. He still remains grounded in soul-jazz -- any guitar-organ combo is bound to have soul-jazz roots -- but he pushes the music toward adventurous hard bop, often with rewarding results. His compositions are fully realized, with interesting melodic statements and plenty of opportunities for him and mainstays Grant Green on guitar and Billy Gardner on organ to stretch out. And when Braith does reach back for the double-sax technique, such as on the title track, it works because its otherwordly tone is better suited to this searching, adventurous music, than on the more basic fare that dominated Two Souls in One. The double horns do make Cole Porter's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" sound a little awkward, but even that song is redeemed by excellent solos. Nevertheless, it's the originals, and the way the quartet of Braith, Green, Gardner, and drummer Clarence Johnston executes them, that make Extension the definitive Braith album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

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Recorded live in a small London club, Undead contains the original "I'm Going Home," the song that brought Ten Years After its first blush of popularity following the Woodstock festival and film in which it was featured. However, the real strength of this album is side one, which contains two extended jazz jams, "I May Be Wrong, But I Won't Be Wrong Always" and Woody Herman's "Woodchopper's Ball," both of which spotlight guitarist Alvin Lee's amazing speed and technique. Side two is less interesting, with an extended slow blues typical of the time, a drum solo feature, and the rock & roll rave-up of "I'm Going Home."© Jim Newsom /TiVo

Duke Ellington was constantly composing new material as well as creating new arrangements of vintage works, as heard on this Columbia LP recorded in 1959. "Perdido" is an extended feature for Clark Terry's virtuoso flügelhorn, though this would be his final studio session as a regular member of the Ellington band. "Copout Extension," a longer version of an earlier work called "Copout," showcases marathon soloist Paul Gonsalves on tenor sax. Among the new pieces, the three-part suite "Duael Fuel" features drummers Jimmy Johnson and Sam Woodyard, though the piece was dropped from the band book after 1960. "Idiom '59" is another new three-part suite, with the elegant clarinet of Russell Procope, clarinetist Jimmy Hamilton's more raucous styling, and finally, the leader paired with Terry (again on flügelhorn). This suite had an even shorter life; it had been premiered at the Newport Jazz Festival earlier in the year, and this was its second and final performance. Ellington's brisk swinging chart of "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" spotlights the matchless alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, who was always as ready to play the blues as he was ballads. "Launching Pad," though credited to Ellington, was actually written by Terry and orchestrated by the pianist. This sassy blues strangely features Ray Nance instead of its composer as the trumpet soloist, along with a quartet consisting of Terry, Britt Woodman, Hamilton, and Gonsalves. Highly recommended.© Ken Dryden /TiVo