Canadian songstress Sarah Slean first joined forces with Symphony Nova Scotia in April 2012, in an electrifying, groundbreaking collaboration that earned rave reviews and three standing ovations, and was broadcast nationwide by CBC. One of the highlights of the performance was "Lamento", a new work by Canadian star composer Christos Hatzis that was praised as “marvelously colorful and dramatic” (Chronicle Herald, Halifax). In 2018, Symphony Nova Scotia jumped at the chance to work with Sarah again, this time as part of Bernhard Gueller’s "Bucket List”, celebrating his final season as Symphony Nova Scotia’s Music Director (2002-2018). For this new collaboration, Symphony Nova Scotia and the Thunder Bay Symphony co-commissioned another work for Sarah from Christos Hatzis – this time titled "Ecstasy", a counterpoint to "Lamento". Audience reviews called the project “magical” and “a match made in heaven.” Now, Symphony Nova Scotia, Bernhard Gueller, Sarah Slean, Christos Hatzis, and producer Jeff Reilly are proud to release both recordings on one album.

This collection delves yet deeper into the archives of country blues, uncovering hidden gems by artists shrouded in mystery. From classic renditions of blues standards to intriguing novelty songs, this is a must-listen for any blues connoisseur.

Boasting fellow Chicago blues dynamo James Cotton on both harmonica and lead vocals, The Blues Never Die! is one of Otis Spann's most inspired albums. When this session was recorded for Prestige's Bluesville subsidiary in 1964, Spann was still best known for playing acoustic piano in Muddy Waters' band. But The Blues Never Die! (which Fantasy reissued on CD in 1990 on its Original Blues Classics imprint) shows that he was as great a leader as he was a sideman. From Willie Dixon's "I'm Ready" (a Chess gem Spann had played numerous times with Waters) and Elmore James' "Dust My Broom" to Cotton's spirited "Feelin' Good" and Spann's dark-humored "Must Have Been the Devil," Spann and Cotton enjoy a very strong rapport on this consistently rewarding date.

Chopin’s mazurkas are perhaps the most elusive branch of his output. Their most obvious and dangerous challenges to performers lie in their rhythmic subtlety. Of all his music, none is more intimately linked with the accents and inflections of the Polish language, but this isn’t to say that only Poles can do them justice. What they do require, though, is a rhythmic buoyancy and flexibility of line which transcends all national characteristics. Like Chopin himself, they are compounded of irony and paradox. The role of the second beat is crucial to all of them, and to their specific identity as dance music (though Chopin’s were never intended for dancing), yet if they’re to succeed in performance the pianist must neutralise the divisive menace of the bar-line, so that the last thing we think of is counting.

Elton John's Christmas Party is a Christmas-themed compilation album from British singer-songwriter Elton John. It features his 1973 Christmas single, "Step into Christmas", and a new duet with Joss Stone, "Calling It Christmas". According to John's introduction in the liner notes, as opposed to doing an album of his versions of already famous songs, he chose to do a compilation with some of his favorite holiday songs by other artists…

Morning Music is a compilation album by The Residents, released June 25th 2010 on the Robot Selling Device. It contains a hand-picked selection of previously released Residents tracks, designed to be listened to in the morning. It was released physically for the first time in a newly remastered CD edition by Klanggalerie, April 2021.

Ready for an adventure running parallel to their lives in common units, the quartet boarded a starship to set off on an astral expedition. The mission began perfectly, according to plan. From the very first measures, the travellers were released from the Earth's gravity. Very quickly, their home planet appeared tiny and distant, before disappearing completely. Comets and novae lit the way through the fathomless depths of interstellar space. Their preliminary, in-depth studies of seventies jazz-funk were a great source of inspiration. Very early on, they knew that this sonic esthetic would allow them to travel even farther, navigating only with organic instruments and no digital backing or enhancements.

Atlantic has thus far been very slow to reissue its six valuable Gary Burton records. This particular set is the most accessible of the group, for it matches the advanced vibraphonist with the classic violinist Stephane Grappelli in a quartet also including electric bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bill Goodwin. The music alternates between standards and originals (including Swallow's famous "Eiderdown"), and both Grappelli and Burton prove to be flexible enough to have much common ground despite a 35-year difference in age. A frequently delightful set.

Retailing at around $90 for less than three hours of music, this Japanese import seems designed to test the most die-hard King Crimson fan. That's not the half of it, because the truth is, it's also a very good set, up to a point. The most notable element here is the presence of the first decent body of concert work by the early 1972 lineup of Boz Burrell-Mel Collins-Ian Wallace, which was the band that most fans ever got to see, among all of the early incarnations of the group. Add on the presence of a killer early performance by the John Wetton-Bill Bruford band, and one of the earlier extant shows of the group's original lineup, from the Marquee Club, and the package seems unbeatable – and pretty much, it is…

As one might expect, whole concertos dedicated to the tango style and idiom dig a little deeper than shorter pieces intended for use on the dance floor. Astor Piazzolla was one who took the tango far beyond its roots, and the creation of a concerto in which guitar and bandoneon engage in solistic dialogue seems a logical extension of Piazzolla’s ambitions for the tango as concert music.

ABBA (/ˈæbə/ AB-ə, Swedish: [ˈâbːa]) are a Swedish pop group formed in Stockholm in 1972 by Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The group's name is an acronym of the first letters of their first names. They became one of the most commercially successful acts in the history of popular music, topping the charts worldwide from 1974 to 1983. In 1974 ABBA were Sweden's first winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Waterloo", which in 2005 was chosen as the best song in the competition's history as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the contest…

All right, he's made a record with his wife and a record with his pickup band where democracy is allegedly the conceit even if it never sounds that way, so he returns to a solo effort, making the most disjointed album he ever cut. There's a certain fascination to its fragmented nature, not just because it's decidedly on the softer side of things, but because his desire for homegrown eccentricity has been fused with his inclination for bombastic art rock à la Abbey Roa…

Venus Records 20th Anniversary Grand Cru Classé en 1992.
Eddie Higgins Trio, Steve Kuhn Trio, Stefano Bollani Trio, Ken Peplowski & Bill Charlap, Eric Alexander Quartet and many others.

British-born blues-rock guitarist Snowy White first became interested in music at age 11, when he heard urban blues performers like B.B. King, Otis Rush, and Buddy Guy, and was inspired to create his own clean, hard-edged style of British blues. After moving to London in the early '70s, White spent the decade forging his sound and playing with like-minded artists such as Pink Floyd, Peter Green, and Thin Lizzy. In 1979 Thin Lizzy asked White to join them as a full-time bandmember; he did, touring and recording Chinatown and The Renegade with them. In pursuit of different musical directions, White left Thin Lizzy in 1982. Joined by drummer Richard Bailey, bassist Kuma Harada, and keyboardist Godfrey Wang, he recorded his solo debut, White Flames. Its "Bird of Paradise" single became an international hit, reaching number three on the U.K. charts.

Featuring the fabulous virtuoso pianist Stephen Gosling, "Encomia" is a collection of tributes to many of Zorn's musical heroes.The first "Book of Preludes" consists of three impressionistic pieces in the tradition of Debussy and Ravel that pay tribute to the legendary ballet dancer Nijinsky, the author Novalis creator of the prose poem, and the Hellenistic 3rd century poet Nossis. "Encomia" is a suite of tributes to five of Zorn’smusical heroes that run the gamut of styles from minimalism to maximalism. Violinist Chris Otto joins Stephen Gosling for the final piece, a new composition for violin and piano inspired by the writings of Sigmund Freud. A remarkable program of some of the most beautiful music Zorn has ever written.