Released in 1976, just as the Kinks ended their notoriously uneven tenure at RCA, The Kinks' Greatest: Celluloid Heroes is a summary of their time at the label. Since they didn't have many genuine hits while at RCA, this winds up being a haphazard sampling of concept albums. Occasionally, an album is accurately represented. For instance, the selections from Muswell Hillbilles are perfect, but considering that nearly half this compilation leans on that terrific record, they would have to be. Apart from that album, the selection is decidedly hit and miss. It isn't that singles are missing – their lone British hit from this time, "Supersonic Rocket Ship," is nowhere to be found – or that albums are overlooked (no Schoolboys in Disgrace), it's that highlights like "Here Comes Yet Another Day" and "Sweet Lady Genevieve" are left on their original albums. AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

State of Confusion gave the Kinks their biggest single in nearly 20 years, but they didn't try to replicate the music hall-tinged pop of "Come Dancing" on its follow-up, Word of Mouth, preferring to concentrate on straight-ahead hard rock. Most of the material was well crafted, but only a few songs were distinctive, particularly the circular, synth-spiked minor hit "Do It Again." AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Arista had made it clear they would not accept any concept albums from the Kinks, and Sleepwalker, their first effort for the label, makes good on the band's promise. Comprised entirely of glossy arena rockers and power ballads, the album is more of a stylistic exercise than a collection of first-rate songs.

Kris Kristofferson had a belated start of a great recording career when he was in his mid thirties, releasing Kristofferson in 1970. The Nashville star distinguished himself from other Country acts, taking on a political stance lyrically that exceeded Nashville standards.

Camel released their second album almost a year to the day after their debut, yet it was a very different set of circumstances that greeted the release of Mirage on 1 March 1974. The band’s debut release on MCA Records had received muted praise and they decided not to exercise their option for a second record. This may have been the end for many bands, or at best slowed their progress. But with a new management team of Geoff Jukes and Max Hole of Gemini Artists guiding them, Camel moved to Decca Records’ Deram label camel and really hit their stride.

BRIDGES is a modern, Nordic jazz project that has a vision to construct musical bridges between Norway and other parts of the world.

"Jimmy Hamilton may not have recorded very often as a leader while he worked with Duke Ellington for a quarter of a century, but his occasional records on his own are worth exploring. This Fresh Sound CD is a compilation of two Urania releases recorded in 1954, including the complete contents of Accent on Clarinet and four songs from Clarinet in High Fi. Hamilton sticks exclusively to clarinet throughout both sessions. On the first, a piano-less date with fellow Ellington veterans Clark Terry and Oscar Pettiford, as well as Osie Johnson, Barry Galbraith, and rhythm guitarist Sidney Gross, the music is drawn from the Ellington songbook, in addition to standards and originals by the participants. Hamilton lets his hair down with a lively extended solo in "I Get a Kick Out of You."

Wings Over America is the monumental live album by Paul McCartney and Wings, originally released in December of 1976. Recorded throughout the band s Wings Over America U.S. tour dates earlier that Spring, the album reached #1 in the US in early 1977. Containing almost two full hours of music, Wings Over America offers a stunning rendition of Maybe I m Amazed, plus Wings classics such as Live and Let Die, My Love, & Let Em In. McCartney also included some Beatles classics into the set list, including Yesterday, The Long and Winding Road and more for the first time since the Beatles had broken up six years earlier.

RAM, originally released in May of 1971, is the only album to be credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney and was Paul’s second post-Beatles LP. It was overshadowed at the time by the drama of the dissolution of The Beatles, as played out in the world’s media. The album topped the charts hitting #1 in the UK and #2 in the US. While RAM polarized critics upon its release, music fans and critics alike since have overwhelmingly embraced it, with Rolling Stone, for example, revising their original review up to 4 stars. Recently RAM has enjoyed even further re-appraisal and acknowledgement including a number of tribute albums.

Ai Shinohara just released August 22nd with the latest work "To The End Of This World" which co-starred with the up-and-coming creators. A dream team by her and Will Lee and Steve Gadd returned to Blue Note Tokyo after a year and three months. For Sugawara, Will and Gadd have been super heroes since she opened her eyes on jazz and fusion when she was in elementary school. I was fascinated by their performance hundreds of times with records, CDs, videos, live, etc. I dreamed that I could play with them someday. That was the first time in February 2017. This live, in addition to the numbers from the commemorative album 'Somehow, Someday, Somewhere', is a stage more than the last time from the last time to the original written down and the cover song surprisingly surprised.

Greatly admired by his contemporaries, Gabriel Dupont (1878-1914) studied with Massenet, then became a disciple of Vierne and Widor; he is one of those composers whose too-brief career prevented them from taking their merited place in the history of music. Despite suffering a chronic bout of tuberculosis in 1901, Dupont managed to enter for the Prix de Rome, obtaining a ‘second prize’ (ahead of Maurice Ravel). This composer has been partly rediscovered over the past few years – mainly his piano works,songs, and some rare chamber works – yet his symphonic music remain salmost entirely unknown.

Josep Colom’s latest album includes Beethoven’s legendary last three piano sonatas (Opp. 109-111) and Bonn genius’ latest piano work, the Bagatelles op.126. Colom’s original and exceptional vision brings out a fresh and different view on Beethoven’s masterpieces, one which creates a single narrative path to weave together the individual movements of these three sonatas and the six bagatelles by means of a fascinating play of analogies and contrasts. The bagatelles act, in a way, as preludes to the sonatas, with transitional passages that stem from the pianist’s own imagination.

David Popper was one of the most important cellists of the 19th century and is remembered for the etudes of his High School of Cello Playing. Popper premiered chamber works by Brahms and championed Schumann’s Cello Concerto, and his own four concertos span an illustrious 50-year career. Each shares a lyrical Romantic spirit: the playful First Concerto, an enjoyable prelude to the more dramatic and virtuosic Second, and the single-movement Third, a masterpiece in melodic compactness. The Fourth Concerto was dedicated to ‘my great colleague’ Alfredo Piatti and is recorded here in its version with piano.

ATMA Classique presents an evocative musical portrait of Canadian composer Ana Sokolović. This new recording features the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, soprano Florie Valiquette, mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó, and vocal ensemble Queen of Puddings Music Theatre. The human voice is at the heart of Sokolović’s work, so that it is fitting that her vocal works Sirens, Tanzer Lieder and Pesma are featured on this ATMA debut recording. Evta, a concerto for violin and ensemble, is included and features Andréa Tyniec as soloist.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote that the cello is an instrument Ive always particularly loved, and this is reflected in the deft way he exploits its colours and techniques in chamber works recorded here that include unpublished gems and a world premiere. The sophisticated Cello Sonata and Sonatina also reveal the composers skill as a pianist, giving equal roles in a symbiotic relationship that tests both players virtuosity. Impressionist flavours in I nottambuli or Night Owls contrast with a Toccata that blends fireworks with lyricism, as does the Jewish soulfulness of the popular Chant hébraïque with the playful Scherzo that uses the English traditional tune Sumer is icumen in.