One look at the backgrounds of the members of Can (jazz pedigrees, students of Karlheinz Stockhausen, WDR Studio etc.) and the last thing you'd think is that they were a rock band. Similarly, listening to their music, you'd also probably have to stretch the concept of rock ‘n' roll to fit them in. Krautrock was Germany's answer to the psychedelic and progressive music of the late 1960s, and certainly a unique idiom in and of itself. But Can's post-psychedelic groove had much more to do with the avant-garde, even by krautrock's standards.

Raised in the high desert outside of Los Angeles, legend has it that a young Frank Zappa (b. 1940) was granted a long-distance phone call for his fifteenth birthday: the recipient was 20th century composer and musical pioneer Edgard Varèse (actually his wife). Zappa's first release was in late 1966. Credited to The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! was a sprawling double-album with little precedent; it shunned the burgeoning hippie vibe of the West Coast for something far stranger: a mélange of music styles, ranging from highbrow classicism to down-in-the-gutter rock ‘n' roll.

Just 17 years old when he joined Miles Davis's quintet in 1962, drummer Anthony "Tony" Williams had spent his earliest years playing in the clubs of Boston. His debut as a band leader was the 1964 release Life Time for the Blue Note label. By the end of the decade though, Williams was headed in a completely different direction. New York City was fertile ground at the time and seeds of jazz fusion were being sown. Williams (among many others) jammed with Jimi Hendrix, and there's little doubt of the guitarist's influence on what would follow.