“This isn’t about reproducing an original, it’s much more like a translation. When I absorb and adapt influences and when I write, I follow my own path – and that allows me to be myself. It’s a process from which something new and contemporary can emerge.” This is how Wolfgang Haffner describes the artistic approach in his “Kind of…” album trilogy, all of which have the unmistakable Haffner sound running right through them. After a first adventure in cool jazz, and then a search for musical traditions in Spain, his new destination is Buenos Aires: “From the moment Siggi Loch suggested tango as my third point of departure, I didn’t need any more convincing. Rhythm is the essence of tango, plus catchy melodies which can then be developed – and there’s so much emotion in it too.”

“A great voice, that hits people’s body and soul“ London Jazz News

Them Again is the second album by the Northern Irish band, Them, whose lead singer and songwriter was Van Morrison. The album was released by Decca Records in the UK on 21 January 1966 but it failed to chart. In the U.S. it was released in April 1966 where it peaked at #138 on the Billboard charts.

Them Again is the second album by the Northern Irish band, Them, whose lead singer and songwriter was Van Morrison. The album was released by Decca Records in the UK on 21 January 1966 but it failed to chart. In the U.S. it was released in April 1966 where it peaked at #138 on the Billboard charts.

Coat Of Arms sounds stylistically diverse and technically accomplished, yet the new album is typical of Wishbone Ash’s traditional strengths – a balancing act that is a challenge to Powell every time: “Following the countless songs that we have written throughout the history of Wishbone Ash, my own expectations are extremely high. On the one hand as a composer you try not to repeat yourself in your creative output but to come up with new ideas all the time, on the other you want to remain faithful to your style.

Louise Farrenc was renowned in her lifetime as a pianist, composer and teacher, but it is only recently that her compositions have emerged from many years of neglect, Symphony No. 1 in C minor- cast in the German tradition- is an exceptionally accomplished work, finely orchestrated, lyrical and fiery, and a substantial contribution to the canon. The Grand Variations on a Theme by Count Gallenberg is a showcase for virtuosic elegance, and the two overtures demonstrate real theatrical drama- Overture No. 2 was admired by no less a figure than Hector Berlioz.

"The five songs that follow the performance of the Fourth Symphony (two from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and three from the Rückert-Lieder) date from the time of the Klemperer/Ludwig Das Lied von der Erde, and rank among the finest examples of Mahler singing ever recorded. Christa Ludwig's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen"–the most beautiful song in the world?–is every bit as fine as Janet Baker's more celebrated version on the same label, and Otto Klemperer's unsentimental conducting style suits the music's "innigkeit" ("inwardness") better than Barbirolli's more affectionate approach.

On 'Reincarnation' Baltimore vibesman Warren Wolf reveals an entirely different side to his multi-faceted talents, allowing him to indulge his love for the R&B and soul hits that served as the soundtrack to his formative years in the 1990s. It's also a celebration of a new lease on life, a happiness and contentment that he's discovered through a new marriage and his five beloved children.

For the second volume in his Birmingham Schubert symphony cycle, Edward Gardner turns to the Second and Sixth Symphonies. Composed between December 1814 and March 1815, the Second Symphony is not only a response by Schubert to the works of Beethoven, and especially the Prometheus Overture, but also strives to push the conventional symphonic boundaries, most notably in the extended exposition of the first movement. Completed in February 1818, the Sixth Symphony was the first to be titled "Große Sinfonie" (grand symphony) by Schubert, a mark of his growing confidence in his work in the symphonic idiom. The two Overtures were composed at the same time as the Sixth Symphony, and are clearly modelled on the overtures of Rossini, whose music was all the rage in Vienna at that time.

The plectrum lute duo was one of the most popular ensembles for professional instrumentalists in late 15th-century Western Europe. This recording presents for the first time the bulk of a surviving repertoire that can arguably be considered for the lute duo, performed on two equal plectrum lutes or with a combination of lute and gittern - a smaller member of the lute family. The album, inspired by the Ferrarese virtuoso Pietrobono dal Chitarino (c. 1417–1497), acclaimed in his lifetime as ‘the foremost lutenist in the world’, includes the earliest printed lute duos by Francesco Spinacino and Joan Ambrosio Dalza and the two-voice instrumental works by Johannes Tinctoris. The often highly ornamented instrumental duos are mostly reworkings of songs, some of which are given here in a performance with the singer Grace Newcombe to provide the context for the lute arrangements that follow.

Recorded live at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, London, on 27 November 2013 and 14 October 2015.

Here is a constellation of compositions that pierces the sky and seems to tell the two musicians that this moment belongs only to them. We can feel in the high notes of French pianist Robert Kaddouch and the deep bass of American Gary Peacock the High Line on which Robert has built its harmonic structure: an unstable equilibrium where musicians, like tightrope walkers, increasingly move away from their comfort zone towards a point where only the fall becomes possible, or a spark of genius climbing even higher towards a new High Line.

Almost forty years separate Verklärte Nacht from the Violin Concerto – the former still influenced by the idiom of Brahms and Wagner, the latter deriving from the richness of that later period when Schoenberg managed to combine a multiplicity of approaches within his twelve-note system. Between post-Romantic twilight and ‘classical’ rigour, Isabelle Faust and her most faithful partners offer us an extraordinarily lively interpretation of some of the most remarkable pages in twentieth-century musical literature.

This new CD from Odradek Jazz represents the most significant milestone in Szilárd Mezei’s creative activity with his Septet so far. Mezei explores a multitude of exciting sounds throughout, all of which are strongly connected to his cultural background as well as to his continuous drive to transcend categories and to expand musical boundaries.

When Archbishop Desmond Tutu said “I am because we are”, he was encapsulating the ethos of the South African philosophy, “Ubuntu”, a word which, roughly translated, means “human kindness”. It is this spirit of interconnectedness that inspires jazz artist Gert Zimanowski in his daily life, in his composition, his lyrics, and the way he and his fellow musicians collaborated on this recording. The themes he treats in his lyrics, of equality and justice, are also achieved musically, through a balanced interchange among the fantastic ensemble members that came together for this album. It is music that speaks to the strength of solidarity and hope.