Baker's Holiday finds Chet Baker effectively paying tribute to Billie Holiday with mellow trumpet solos and occasional vocals. Baker is backed by a full sax section and a four-piece rhythm section that includes pianist Hank Jones; Jimmy Mundy contributed the colorful arrangements. His performance of ten songs associated with Lady Day (most of which he had not recorded previously) is often exquisite.

This is an outstanding album from a gifted singer songwriter. Peter Henry Phillips has the ability to capture depth of emotion in a single line. His intonation and dynamic style comes through on every track on the album. This is the kind of album that I don’t just cover for the site, but gets added to my personal collection and steady rotation for years to come. Peter Henry Phillips arrives on the scene with The Origin, establishing himself as a songwriting force with a gesture toward literary lyricism and malleable melodies.

When Sampha Sisay was three years old, his father brought a piano into the family’s Morden, England home. It wasn’t a grand gesture just a way to get his sons away from the TV. Yet for Sampha, the youngest of five siblings, the instrument became a vessel for his personal growth. It helped enlighten the young boy, offering solace and purpose, commencing a spiritual journey that he’s still navigating. In Sampha’s world, the piano is one of the few things that’s always been there. It’s never gotten sick or faded away from disease. “You would show me I had something some people call a soul,” he sings on “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” a gorgeous ballad and one of many standouts from Process, Sampha’s remarkable debut album.

Throughout years of travelling, John Andrews has documented his life with his home recordings. His first record, Bit By The Fang, found him living in the amish country of Lancaster, PA. On his latest record, Bad Posture, he waves farewell to Pennsylvania and greets the wooded hills of Barrington, NH. These songs were written slowly and quietly throughout the winter, usually late at night next to the wood stove. It was recorded in Andrews' barn with the doors ajar, welcoming the springtime inviting the outside noises in.

Saturday night has long been pop music’s favorite part of the week a time for fighting, fevers, and over-excited group spelling bees. But if the cover of his first solo album is any indication, Tim Darcy likes to spend it alone with his plants. His Saturday Night isn’t about going out on the town, but retreating inside his mind, following his wandering thoughts wherever they lead, even if they take him to some dark places. As frontman for Montreal quartet Ought, Darcy has, over the course of two records, emerged as one of indie rock’s most wily and witty wordsmiths, channeling the daily absurdities and anxieties of modern urban life into twitchy post-punk screeds. By contrast, Saturday Night is more intimate in every way: in scale, in production, and most importantly, in its emotional vocabulary.

Conceived a year before Damon Albarn's Gorillaz burst onto the scene, but signed only four years after, Shaka Ponk are the French electro-punk collective best-known for their digitally animated monkey character, Goz. Formed by web designer Frah and guitarist CC in 2000, the pair experimented with various visual techniques before recruiting bassist Thias and drummer Bobe-OD to complete their lineup. The band quickly earned a reputation as a must-see live outfit thanks to their multi-lingual fusion of rock, funk, hip-hop, and punk with inventive imagery, which they perfected on their own online channel, Monkey TV. In 2005, they signed a deal with Edel Music, and a year later, released their debut album, Loco con da Frenchy Talkin, which was followed by 2009's Bad Porn Movie Trax, and 2011's The Geeks & the Jerkin' Socks, the latter of which featured new recruit, Samaha Sam on lead vocals.

Imelda May has found a new groove, exploring blues, soul, gospel, folk, rock, acoustic, cinematic drama and explosive balladry. She is setting a new course with a collection of the boldest, most personal and intimately autobiographical songs she has ever written. This is the albums she’s always wanted to make. “I’ve called it Life Love Flesh Blood because that encompasses everything,” says Imelda. “It’s all in there: birth, sex, love, divorce and death. It’s the story of my life.

The fully "Remastered Eight-Album Set Features" The Legendary Drummer's Output From Atlantic Records Offered For The First Time Since The '70s. At the dawn of the 1970s, Billy Cobham built his legend with his bandleader debut, Spectrum. Raw, daring and overflowing with adrenalin, the album topped the Billboard Jazz charts. Having played for Miles Davis, Horace Silver and Mose Allison, Billy Cobham had joined the legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971, before signing to Atlantic as a solo artist in 1973. Worshipped today as a titan of drumming, Billy Cobham's career is now in its fifth decade.

Sony Masterworks has released a soundtrack album for the heist thriller Den of Thieves. The album features the film’s original music composed by Cliff Martinez (Drive, Traffic, Solaris, Game Night, Contagion, The Knick). The soundtrack is now available to download on Amazon, where you can also listen to audio samples. Den of Thieves is directed by Christian Gudegast and stars Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Evan Jones, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Cooper Anderson and Maurice Compte. The movie follows an elite crew of bank robbers who sets out to pull off the ultimate heist. The thriller was released last month by STX Entertainment and is currently playing in theaters.

With his astonishingly accomplished guitar playing, Stevie Ray Vaughan ignited the blues revival of the '80s. Vaughan drew equally from bluesmen like Albert King, Otis Rush and Hubert Sumlin and rock & roll players like Jimi Hendrix and Lonnie Mack, as well as the stray jazz guitarist like Kenny Burrell, developing a uniquely eclectic and fiery style that sounded like no other guitarist, regardless of genre. Vaughan bridged the gap between blues and rock like no other artist had since the late '60s. For about seven years, Stevie Ray Vaughan was the leading light in American blues, consistently selling out concerts while his albums regularly went gold. His tragic death in 1990 only emphasized his influence in blues and American rock & roll. This is classic Stevie Ray Vaughan, meticulously remastered from the analog tapes by New York's Sterling Sound. In each set you'll receive Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, Soul to Soul, In Step, plus the posthumous classics Family Style and The Sky Is Crying.

Over the past few months, they’ve been writing jingles for companies like Mountain Dew, Coors Light. Totino’s, and DiGiorno, but without any of them asking for it. “We uncovered this case of Mountain Dew that we had used as a prop in a music video we made a few years back,” says guitarist Billy Jeans. “They’d been in the basement forever, but we cracked into those Dews and they were surprisingly fresh. That was a big inspiration for us.”