Nearness finds acclaimed jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman and pianist Brad Mehldau teaming up for a set of loose yet heartfelt duo performances. Collaborators since they first began playing together in Redman's quartet in the early '90s, Mehldau and Redman have forged their own distinct solo careers. While they have continued to work together in various settings, the duo put a spotlight on their creative friendship with their 2011 tour. Nearness features live performances captured during the European leg of that tour, including tapings in Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway. These are dazzlingly collaborative performances that reveal Redman and Mehldau to be a highly intuitive and harmonically adroit team.

We know that Brahms was a great enthusiast of the keyboard and yet he composed few works exclusively for piano. Accordingly, the Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn and Sonata for Two Pianos are all the more precious with their scores containing the full harmonic complexity and tonal diversity of his music, made sublime by the nimble fingers of Éric Le Sage and Théo Fouchenneret. This is a pivotal milestone in the huge endeavour of producing the Complete Works of Brahms undertaken by B Records since 2017

The claviorganum is not an instrument we hear much from these days, but versions of this cross between a harpsichord and an organ – which could be played individually or together, on one or two manuals – were by no means a rare sight in Europe between the 15th and 18th centuries, with Henry VIII owning several. What's more, it was no Frankenstein creation for mere curiosity's sake, but instead an eminently practical piece of problem-solving, because while the harpsichord is perfectly suited to fast, brilliant passagework, but can neither sustain long notes nor change tone or dynamic, the slightly-less-horizontally-nimble organ counts those latter deficiencies as its key strengths. As for why we haven't seen a resurgence of claviorganum sightings as period performance has gone mainstream, perhaps it's a combination of very few examples having survived in their original state, and the fact that composers of that period rarely specified on their manuscripts as to which keyboard instrument should be used.

Alan Jackson will be releasing a brand new studio album on 14th May including 21 new tracks** This is the first country release in over 5 years. Alan Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all-time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide, with 44 million sold in the United States alone. He has had 66 songs appear on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart; of the 66 titles, and six featured singles, 38 have reached the top five and 35 have claimed the number one spot.

The Belgian composer, Marcel Poot, was one of the most striking musical figures of his time, with a spicy compositional style that exemplified his zest for life. His cycle of seven symphonies, the earliest of which show the influence of Ravel, Stravinsky and jazz, reveal a clear preference for Classical balance and non-programmatic form. Predominantly tonal, the symphonies are notable for their rhythmic energy, colourful orchestration and lyricism. Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4–7 are first recordings.

After the past 18 months, we could all be forgiven for forgetting that our generation doesn't have the monopoly on sitting in mortal peril at the mercy of a powerful and uncontrollable natural force. However we don't. Humankind has of course both been here before, and bequeathed us the art by which to remember it – including many of the texts set by German Baroque composer Philipp Heinrich Erlebach in his Harmonische Freude musikalischer Freunde.
Published in Nuremberg respectively in 1697 and 1710, these two vocal collections contain respectively 50 and 25 arias for one to four solo voices accompanied by instrumental ensemble and basso continuo, setting poems that flit between the moralistic and secular spheres; and while ultimately this is conjecture, they do at least appear to hint at their contemporary context of an era lived against the backdrop of natural disasters including Bubonic Plague, and the superstitious fear provoked in 1680 by the appearance of Europe's largest comet of the seventeenth century – an event perhaps referenced in the line, “Today bloody comets shine, Tomorrow we are free of distress”.

FAT POP ?? “Pop, in old money… you know what I mean?” The new album from Paul Weller was recorded in Spring 2020 whilst unable to hit the road and tour. Locked-down at Black Barn studios, Paul initially recorded vocals, piano and guitar on his own, before sending to the core band to add their parts remotely. Eventually the full band were able to reconvene as restrictions lifted and finish the record.

Simon & Garfunkel quietly slipped Bookends, their fourth album, into the bins with a whisper in March 1968. They are equal collaborators with producer/engineer Roy Halee in a multivalently layered song cycle observing the confusion of those seeking an elusive American Dream, wistfully reflecting on innocence lost forever to the cold winds of change…

Diana Krall paid tribute to her father on Glad Rag Doll, the 2012 album sourced from his collection of 78-rpm records, and, in a sense, its 2015 successor Wallflower is a companion record of sorts, finding the singer revisiting songs from her childhood. Like many kids of the 20th century, she grew up listening to the radio, which meant she was weaned on the soft rock superhits of the '70s – songs that earned sniffy condescension at the time but nevertheless have turned into modern standards due to their continual presence in pop culture (and arguably were treated that way at the time, seeing cover after cover by middlebrow pop singers).

Collection includes 16 albums by American instrumental rock band Los Straitjackets. Los Straitjackets is a Nashville based band known primarily for performing instrumental surf music.

Woody Herman had a breakthrough during the period of time covered by Classics' third Herman CD. The Apr. 12, 1939, session yielded "Woodchopper's Ball," Herman's first hit, and it also featured "Dallas Blues," "Blues Downstairs," and "Blues Upstairs." From then on, Herman's first group would be known as "The Band That Plays the Blues." Other highlights of this enjoyable CD include four titles featuring singer Connie Boswell, the Andrews Sisters guesting on "Begin the Beguine," some vocals by Mary Ann McCall, and the tracks "The Sheik of Araby" and "Farewell Blues." Despite the lack of any major soloists (beyond the leader), things were definitely looking up by August 1939 for Herman.

Frank Borell is one of the well known chill german producers and famous and popular for his mystic chillsound. His projects "Frank Borell, Dreamscape, Mahoroba and Airstream" has become cult status at compilations like Dubai Chill Lounge, Ibiza chill Session, Lounge del Mare, Island of chill and many more. Frank Borell sounds are moving in the area of the soundscapes of Ambient, the world of Chillout to the smooth transition of Lounge-Sounds.

In 1802, realising that he had become irreversibly deaf, Beethoven went through a personal crisis of unprecedented intensity. Mulling suicide in his Heiligenstadt hideaway, he decided to confront his destiny and produced works reflecting his evolution towards hope. This is what Jonas Vitaud demonstrates through a choice of works: from underlying despair of the ‘Tempest’ Sonata, to the calming Op. 33 & 34, and the flamboyant optimism of the ‘Eroica’ Variations.

Typically, rock bio programs for radio are little more than aural versions of Teen Beat, rarely delving beyond the surface appeal of a given artist. Los Angeles-based DJ Jim Ladd's aptly titled Inner View was the first nationally syndicated music and interview program to raise the intelligence bar several notches. Ladd's No One Here Gets Out Alive – originally broadcast on North American radio stations during the late summer of 1979 – is an audio biography of the Doors as told by those who lived it…

Hot on the heels of two successful albums (as leading member of Sonar w. David Torn), Swiss composer and guitarist Stephan Thelen presents his first named RareNoise release, World Dialogue. World Dialogue casts a light on Stephan Thelen's work as a contemporary classical composer. It features four works for String Quartet, composed over the last decade,performed by the Kronos Quartet and the Al Pari Quartet.'World Dialogue', 'Silesia' and 'Chaconne', composed between 2006 and 2018, were performed and recorded by the Al Pari Quartet in Berlin earlier this year. 'Circular Lines' was commissioned then performed in 2017 by the Kronos Quartet as part of their '50 For The Future: The KronosLearning Repertoire' series of commissions.