Reissue of the 2005 album from the acclaimed guitarist, a former member of the Jeff Healey Band and Uncle Kracker/Melissa Etheridge collaborator. Just out of high school, he performed with Healey at prestigious festivals such as the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, and on bills with the Allman Brothers Band, Robert Cray, Gary Moore, Johnny Winter, B.B. King, and sold out shows around the world. Sayce recorded Peace Machine in the autumn of 2005, and released it independently. Philip's style is a blend of David Gilmour, Steve Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix with a touch of Lenny Kravitz.

“While [Pete] Seeger often found and adapted old songs for new situations, he also penned a fair number of new folk songs for use during the folk revival of the mid-20th century. Among them, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” was a lament on cycles of violence that take many to war and then to the grave… To pay tribute to Seeger, the Kronos Quartet enlisted the voices of Sam Amidon, Aoife O’Donovan, and others to tell the tale in a sort of relay, with a new voice for every verse. The result feels like the song is posing a question that a community ponders, rather than being the rumination of a single singer. Indeed, in these challenging and often troubling times, many of us find ourselves wondering ‘when we will ever learn.'”

Giovanni Antonini has been recording the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn with the Alpha label for more than five years. Now the series is enriched by another monument by the Austrian composer: Die Schöpfung (The Creation), recorded in 2019 with the Bavarian Radio Chorus and his own orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico. This great oratorio was inspired by those of Handel, which Haydn heard performed by very large forces during his visits to England. The Creation, composed between September 1796 and April 1798, demanded such a colossal effort of him that he even fell ill just after its first performance; but the work enjoyed immense success. The marriage between the Bavarian chorus, so familiar with this masterpiece, and the period-instrument musicians of Il Giardino Armonico works perfectly, with a vocal trio composed of leading soloists: Anna Lucia Richter, Maximilian Schmitt and Florian Boesch.

Un giorno di regno is the rare case of a musical comedy by Verdi. But his second stage work proved a complete fiasco when unveiled at La Scala, Milan, in 1840 and more than half a century was to pass before he attempted a second comedy with his final opera, Falstaff. Today, conversely, Verdi’s early melodrama giocoso enjoys increasing popularity thanks to its wellspring of musical ideas and effervescent melodies.

Tomasz Stanko is a Polish trumpeter, composer and improviser. Often recording for ECM Records, Stanko is strongly associated with free jazz and the avant-garde. Stanko has since established a reputation as a leading figure not only in Polish jazz, but on the world stage as well, working with many notable musicians, including Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Reggie Workman, Rufus Reid, Lester Bowie, David Murray, Manu Katche and Chico Freeman. In 1984 he was a member of Cecil Taylor's big band.

It may be an all-acoustic affair (with the exception of electric bass), but School of the Arts bristles with fusion energy. That will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with even a few of the names on this project spearheaded by pianist T Lavitz, who first came to attention in 1979 when he joined The Dixie Dregs, guitarist Steve Morse's country-tinged progressive fusion group that released a string of outstanding albums between 1975 and 1982, and still reconvenes on rare occasion to this day.

David Benoit had a slight departure with this 1992 release, performing two previously unheard Bill Evans compositions ("Letter to Evan" and "Knit for Mary F."), Dave Brubeck's "Kathy's Waltz" and a mixture of standards and originals. Most of the tunes are played with small groups (duets to quartets) and such fine players as bassist John Patitucci, drummer Peter Erskine and guitarists Larry Carlton and Peter Sprague make strong contributions. The melodic and mostly straight-ahead music is pleasing, pretty and sometimes swinging, if not all particularly innovative. Worth checking out by jazz listeners.

Allusion to the digital world though it may be, there's a sweet, elegiac undercurrent to the title of Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full, an acknowledgement that it was written and recorded when McCartney was 64, the age he mythologized on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released almost exactly 40 years before Memory…

Ultravox’s Vienna album was originally released in July 1980, their first with Midge Ure on vocals / guitar. Produced by legendary German producer Conny Plank (Neu!, Kraftwerk), it reached number 3 in the UK album chart and top ten in Australia, New Zealand and several European countries.

New York City figured so prominently in Lou Reed's music for so long that it's surprising it took him until 1989 to make an album simply called New York, a set of 14 scenes and sketches that represents the strongest, best-realized set of songs of Reed's solo career. While Reed's 1982 comeback, The Blue Mask, sometimes found him reaching for effects, New York's accumulated details and deft caricatures hit bull's-eye after bull's-eye for 57 minutes, and do so with an easy stride and striking lyrical facility.

Milt Jackson - Mostly Duke (1982) {Pablo OJCCD-968-2 rel 1998}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 256 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 114 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 13 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1982, 1998 Pablo Records / Fantasy | OJCCD-968-2
Jazz / Mainstream Jazz / Vibes

The third of three sets released by Pablo from Milt Jackson's engagement at Ronnie Scott's Club in London in 1982 (this CD first came out in 1991) lives up to its title. The great vibraphonist, pianist Monty Alexander, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Mickey Roker play two standards, the leader's "Used to Be Jackson" and six songs associated with Duke Ellington. The music swings hard, Alexander competes with Bags for solo honors and the music should please all straightahead jazz fans.

Sonny Stitt - Moonlight In Vermont (1977) {Denon Japan 38C38-7046 rel 1983}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 228 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 91 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 9 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1977, 1983 Denon / Nippon Columbia | 38C38-7046
Jazz / Bop / Saxophone

Sonny Stitt, doubling on alto and tenor, is in fine form on this quartet session (a Japanese import CD) with either Barry Harris or Walter Davis on piano, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Tony Williams. The repertoire (bop standards, blues and ballads) is fairly typical and nothing too unusual occurs, but fans of straightahead jazz in general and Sonny Stitt in particular will be satisfied with this above-average effort, highlighted by "It Might as Well Be Spring" and "Constellation."

Robert Palmer’s back catalogue has been shamefully out of print for many years, and only recently have US specialist Culture Factory sought to do something about this, with a few select reissues. However, Island Years 1974-1985 is a rather special box set released only in Japan in 2007, with an exclusive (and excellent) remastering that has never been used anywhere else. It includes all Robert Palmer’s albums originally released on the Island label between 1974 and 1985: Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley (1974), Pressure Drop (1975), Some People Can Do What They Like (1976), Double Fun (1978), Secrets (1979), Clues (1980), Maybe It’s Live (1982 – with original cover), Pride (1983) and Riptide (1985). Each disc is presented in an exquisitely detailed mini LP-style vinyl replica sleeve.