In England in the late-'70s/early-'80s, there was quite a market for so-called "library music" records which musicians would throw together, get paid for up front, and the labels (KPM Music, Bruton Music, Music House) would then market the music to radio and TV as license-free background music or theme songs.
Quite a few well-known British musicians participated -- Francis Monkman, Karl Jenkins, Richard Harvey, Basil Kirchin, Ron Geesin, Andrew Jackman, Morris Pert, many others -- as well as a lot of anonymous (or less well known anyway) studio musicians. The music was used in a lot of different places: NFL films, NBA films, British TV shows, sporting events, movie cues....
Because they're old, and because the market has collapsed, and because the licensing was free anyway, these library music discs have started showing up en masse online (YouTube and downloadable). And there are HUNDREDS of them. I've explored a lot of the artists mentioned above, and made a few compilation CDs for my own listening pleasure. It's amazing the QUALITY and QUANTITY of these offerings, which are sorta "forgotten backwaters" in these artists' oeuvres.
Some of it, okay MOST of it sounds like late-'70s generic jazz-rock but there are occasional gems that show genuine genius.
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