Anyone with an antenna out for an exciting, new(ish) piano trio would do well to give Yaniv Taubenhouse a listen. The Israeli-born and now New York-based pianist offers up his third recording, tagged Perpetuation: Moments In Trio Volume Two, bringing to mind Brad Mehldau's five Art of the Trio recordings on Warner Brothers Records, released between 1997 and 2001.
Taubenhouse studied with Mehldau, and the disc's opening title tune has a Mehldau-ian feel, with a persistent but understated rhythm pushing a wandering melody ahead. A lovely, inward mood pervades, with the pianist locked into sonic symbiosis with drummer Jerad Lippi and bassist Rick Rosato…

Def Leppard always had a streak of glam running beneath their heavy rock – listen to "Armageddon It" or "Photograph" for proof – so it's no surprise that when the quintet decided to record a covers album in 2006, they devoted it to the '70s glam and hard rock that inspired them to pick up their guitars and play. What does come as a surprise is that the resulting Yeah! is a sheer delight, a roaring rock & roll record that's their best album since Hysteria.

Paolo Di Sabatinoè uno di quei musicisti che richiamano all’ascolto l’immagine di antichi artigiani, di quelli capaci, con pochi sapienti gesti, apparentemente semplici, di modellare la materia, di crearequalcosa di bello che fino a pochi attimi prima non esisteva. Paolo Di Sabatino è uno dei pianisti italiani musicalmente più preparati e solidi, la cui maturità emerge in tutte le note non suonate, che sono quelle che danno respiro e senso al resto, nella robusta architettura sonora che sostiene le sue composizioni, piccoli gioielli capaci di imprimersi in maniera indelebile nella mente dell’ascoltatore.Una musica che si rivela vero nutrimento dell’anima, giusto per riprendere il senso dell’ultima sua fatica discografica.“Trace Elements”, importante punto di arrivo (e di partenza) nella carriera del pianista, summa della sua concezione della musica e della vita in generale, richiama nel titolo quei micronutrienti necessari allo sviluppo di un organismo.

The opening Overture (Suite) in A minor is one of Telemann's most ambitious concerted works, running to seven distinct dance movements in 30 minutes. The rhythmic shifts in the "Air à l'Italien" are pretty abrupt and really catch your attention. Of the three concertos, the Double Concerto in A minor for flauto dolce and viola da gamba is a standout, owing to its occasionally explosive gestures and knotty emotionalism. All of these works have been recorded numerous times, but most commonly on the standard transverse flute, but only the F major concerto was originally written for flute, and many versions of the Overture in A minor show signs of having been somewhat condensed.

Musicista e compositore di talento, Paolo Di Sabatino inizia all'età di sei anni a suonare sotto la guida del padre, anch'egli cultore di jazz oltre che di musica classica. Diplomato in pianoforte presso il Conservatorio di Bari nel 1990, dotato di una spiccata sensibilità e ricchezza ritmica, nonché di un pianismo intessuto di grazia ed eleganza, il pianista abruzzese emerge per le sue brillanti qualità dal panorama jazzistico italiano.

In 1975, when Bluebird brought out a double-LP reissue of vintage Earl Hines big-band recordings, the producers included a chain of beefy instrumentals from 1941. The Classics Chronological series zeroed in and fleshed out an important part of the picture by compiling all of Hines' 1941 material onto one CD 16 years later. What you get are eight terrific instrumentals interspersed with ten vocal tracks and a pair of fine piano solos. Since the vocal performances were aimed at the general record-buying public, they deviate noticeably from the powerhouse home base of big-band swing infused with intimations of the approaching bebop revolution. Eight instrumentals, then, form the backbone of this volume in the complete recordings of Earl Hines…

No-Man's Tim Bowness is part of this project along with Pendragon's Fudge Smith on drums. Steven Wilson mixed a couple of tracks. This is spacey, atmospheric music with lots of sax and mellotron.
Take 60's/70's influences such as early Genesis, early Floyd, Soft Machine and VDGG and mix them with Rain Tree Crow and King Crimson then throw in some Faust and Greg Lake for good measure. The album moves from delicately sung ballads that are beautiful in the extreme to music that takes a lot of work to gain the benefit from it.

"Wild Horses" is a song by the Rolling Stones from their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Rolling Stone ranked it number 334 in its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list in 2004…

Virtuosity of those two musicians is incredible to discover. They hitting heavy on beautiful standard "Dear Old Stockholm" with grace and gentleness but having guts to alternate harmony in dignified, balanced way. Uri Caine, as it is my second encounter with his artistry (I've only tried "ThePhiladelphiaExperiment"), astonished me with marvelous and complex technique of phrasing with left hand. The illusion (well…) of whole rhytmic section conveyed in his playing cannot be denied - couple of times I really forgot that there're only piano and trumpet. And this is the most tasteful of this album, how he can focus listeners' attention on his play with this wonderful rhythmic, but also so melodic (and bluesy…) approach.

Lightnin' Hopkins is the star of this live recording, made at an August 1961 concert at the Ash Grove in Hollywood featuring Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (with Big Joe Williams sitting in on three numbers…

Here we have a disc recorded in July of 1996 but not released until September of 2000. Additionally, we have Christopher Hogwood, a conductor who led the Academy of Ancient Music in some of their most successful recordings but who now does not have a steady contract. And we have Andrew Manze, a violinist who was a hired soloist with the Academy at the time of the recording but is now its music director. What does this suggest? It suggests a disc that languished in the record company's vaults until Manze's name and fame got it released.

JSP, one of the U.K.'s most active historical reissue labels, presents an outstanding postwar Chicago blues anthology packed with essential recordings made between 1947 and 1955 by Sunnyland Slim & His Pals. Out of the 104 tracks (not 97 as stated on the front of the packaging), 60 are "by" Sunnyland Slim; the other 44 were released under the names of Johnny Shines, Robert Lockwood, Floyd Jones, Leroy Foster, J.B. Lenoir, Jimmy Rogers, and St. Louis Jimmy. Sunnyland sat in on each of these dates; the enclosed discography denies his presence on the Johnny Shines date, although his piano is clearly audible…

These are mature talents, presented to the world by the Italian branch of Blue Note. It isn't necessary though, because Paolo Fresu and Uri Caine already have quite a name among jazz connoisseurs. They recently released the album Think and we can expect them to tap this source extensively.

In 1985, Atlantic Records released the debut album from FIERCE HEART. Fronted by the extraordinary talents of guitar icon Rex Carroll, the band received high praise in the music press - Guitar Player Magazine, Billboard, Kerrang, Metal Forces and Guitar For The Practicing Musician. Then in 1986, Rex Carroll formed the successful group Whitecross and also played in the critically acclaimed band King James while the New singer for Fierce Heart Robert Reynolds headed up the band Grave Danger from L.A. Following the original Atlantic album release AOR BLVD Records contacted Rex for an official, sanctioned re release. This project became a springboard, with a performance that followed at the Melodic Rock Festival. Fierce Heart was the surprise hit of the festival with fans turning out in droves, demanding the permanent reformation of the band and a new album.

The Ugly Ducklings were probably the best-known Canadian garage rock group of the mid-'60s. Formed in Toronto's famed Yorkville area in 1965, the band flourished in the many coffeehouses around the Yorkville district as a Rolling Stones cover band before becoming the Ugly Ducklings and attracting the attention of the local independent Yorktown Records label. The band recorded a single, "Nothin'," which became a Canadian hit, and opened for the Rolling Stones in 1966 when the Stones played Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. The bandmembers were quickly becoming local heroes, and in 1967 the album Somewhere Outside was released on Yorktown. The album contained nine original compositions as well as two cover songs…