Parma’s Boccanegra is Leo Nucci…The handsome voice, which once seemed on the light side for Verdi’s heavier, darker title roles, now has the apposite color and weight, and it remains surprisingly firm and focused…he’s honest, commanding and deeply moving. Honest commitment distinguishes his colleagues, too. Tamar Iveri…[has] a lovely, full lyric voice with a welcome authority at bottom, steered by fine musicianship…and a lively, sympathetic temperament and presence. Francesco Meli…sings handsomely and looks properly romantic…Roberto Scandiuzzi…makes a fine, idiomatic Fiesco; and Simone Piazzola…gives promise of a major-league Boccanegra to come. Daniele Callegari, in Parma’s pit, lets the score unfold naturally and compellingly. (Opera News)

Kermit Ruffins is the real deal, an authentic New Orleans musician who learned his chops in the streets, marching bands, second lines, funerals. He does everything with feeling. And Christmas songs, new, soulful or traditional are no exception.

Thankfully, there is finally a definitive Jaco Pastorius anthology that offers an accurate portrait of the breadth and depth of his innovative artistry beyond what his contributions to Weather Report and his own Word of Mouth and Trio of Doom (which many would argue are sufficient in and of themselves) would suggest. This two-CD, 28-track collection ranges across the fretless bass inventor's earliest recordings, documented by a live appearance with Wayne Cochran's C.C. Riders and home playing the Cochran standard "Amelia," to his work with underground R&B act Little Beaver and such artists as Pat Metheny, Mike Stern, Joni Mitchell in and out of the studio, Paul Bley, Airto and Flora Purim, Michel Columbier, Brian Melvin, and his diverse projects.

2002's two-CD Whitesnake compilation Here I Go Again: The Whitesnake Collection assembles remastered versions of all three of the band's biggest albums for Geffen – 1984's Slide It In, 1987's blockbuster Whitesnake, and 1989's Slip of the Tongue – as well as non-album mixes and B-sides…

This record, Nuevo Mundo, is a classic testament to creativity of the highest order. In the music contained within it we have a volcanic confluence of modern American music, Peruvian folk motifs and the all-pervasive African roots of both musics. And what Alegria does is funnel the musical lava through his horn whereby he makes a statement that is raw and harking to an ancient future so new that although there are touchstones of the historic past there is also something elementally new, unheard before… and altogether breathtaking.

Consisting of some beautiful standards such as Smoke Gets into Your Eyes, Star Dust, Sunflower, plus some terrific new pieces created by Yamamoto, the music and sonic excellence has definitely surpassed his last album. Recorded in Tokyo in July of 2008. In DXD digital format, the details of the music are just awesome, the dynamics are scary and the musicality is so rich. This explains why extreme high definition is so important - once you've heard it, you cannot go back!

Chuck Mangione, the famed flugelhornist and trumpeter fills his first recording of the 21st century with some wonderfully subdued love songs whose subtle, intimate qualities may surprise those of his fans who best know his boisterous pop hits. More than simply expressing a romantic boy-girl kind of love, Mangione is playing gentle, atmospheric jazz for a wide variety of special people, real and animated. And there is no doubt that the truest love here is that between the artist and some of his old bandmates.

The fourth disc by composer Iraida Yusupova presents two large works performed by brilliant soloists and musicians.

A Very Trainor Christmas is the fourth major-label studio album, and debut Christmas album, by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor, released on October 30, 2020, by Epic Records and her own label, Honest OG Recordings. The album contains cover versions of Christmas standards, such as "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" (1951) and "Last Christmas" (1984), as well as six original recordings. Trainor worked with producers including her brother Justin Trainor and Asa Welch, and co-wrote songs with the former and her other brother Ryan, among others, to create the album. Artists who are featured on A Very Trainor Christmas include Earth, Wind & Fire, Seth MacFarlane, Trainor's cousins Jayden, Jenna & Marcus Toney, and father Gary Trainor. A Target edition of the album includes a cover version of "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (1964) and the original song "I'll Be Home", which first appeared on the Epic EP I'll Be Home for Christmas (2014).

Panzer Division Marduk is the sixth studio album by Swedish black metal band Marduk. It was recorded and mixed at The Abyss in January 1999 and released in June 1999 by Osmose Productions. The theme of the album is fire, as Nightwing was blood, and La Grande Danse Macabre (the band's next studio album) would be death, forming a trilogy of "Blood, Fire, and Death", Marduk's vision of what black metal is, unending grimness (as well as a tribute to the Bathory album Blood Fire Death). Panzer Division Marduk was the last Marduk release by Osmose Productions.The track "502" refers to the 502nd Heavy Tank Battalion, which was involved in the Siege of Leningrad. Part of the lyrics of this songs comes from "Panzerlied", one of the most famous Wehrmacht songs.

Taylor Swift has shared a new ‘Folklore’ live album on streaming services, in line with her new Disney+ documentary. Yesterday, Swift announced ‘folklore: the long pond studio sessions’, a new documentary promising “an intimate concert of the record-breaking ‘Folklore’”. It came out on the streaming service at midnight last night (November 24). Now, she’s shared a live album of the same name, featuring recordings of every ‘Folklore’ song from Aaron Dessner‘s Long Pong studio in Hudson, New York.

The French can swing hard. Let Andre Ceccarelli's 2005 release Avenue des Diables Blues be evidence of this. Frenchmen drummer Ceccarelli and guitarist Bireli Lagrene along with Joey DeFrancesco on Hammond organ display fine technique and wisely executed playing all throughout this Parisian release.