| In the Sixties and Seventies, David Axelrod was one of America's most respected producers, arrangers and composers. Credited in some quarters with inventing a whole new genre of music usually attributed to Miles Davis - that of jazz-fusion, his reputation was cemented by his remarkable productions with Cannonball Adderley, David McCallum and Lou Rawls and by the religious albums Mass in F Minor and Release Of An Oath he created with the Electric Prunes. He was talked up by Frank Zappa and Sly Stone; George Harrison wanted him to record for Apple and Allen Ginsberg wanted him to set Howl! to music! His genius began to be re-discovered in the mid-nineties through the sampling by such hip-hop and dance record producers as DJ Shadow. Dr. Dre used a David McCallum cut ('The Edge') for "The Next Episode" from 1999's 2001 Originally released in 1975, and inexplicably out of print for three subsequent decades, Seriously Deep has become a kind of Holy Grail for samplers. Axelrod the composer is un-mistakably present and what has also made the record a particularly sought-after item is the remarkable interplay between Joe Sample's exuberant keyboards and the hypnotically intense drumming of Leon 'Ndugu' Chancler. This is the kind of thing that gets samplers, and indeed anyone with a finely tuned sense of rhythm, very excited indeed
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