After I retired from Warner Bros. our French affiliate did a showcase for their hottest local band at the Conga Room in L.A. and I was as eager to check them out as I would have been had I still been working at the company.

NoJazz totally rocked the house with the eclectic mix of world beat, trip hop, electronic and jazz traditions. They're huge all over Europe, in an underground sort of way, but Warners never picked them up for America. In fact, they stopped making jazz albums altogether.