Years after any remaining U.S. interest in Lenny Wolf and his Robert Plant sound-alike voice had vanished, the singer and his "band" Kingdom Come (really just a solo vehicle for Wolf) continued to release material marketed mostly in the frontman's German homeland…

2015 release, the 11th album from Nick Moss. Live And Luscious is rock 'n' roll with soul and blues with a groove. Featuring the amazing vocals of Michael Ledbetter and the blazing inventive fretwork of guitar master Nick Moss. Distinct, honest, and intense - a blend of traditional blues and progressive, jam-oriented blues rock. Face-melting guitar solos that rise above the crowded field of pretenders, and a versatile band that brilliantly delivers unparalleled improvisational jams to packed houses night after night, city after city. Live And Luscious was recorded at the Baltic Blues Festival in Eutin, Germany in May of 2015. Nick Moss is a 16 time Blues Music Award nominee with a career that spans the last several decades.

A composer, drummer/percussionist from Finland (Hämeenlinna), one of the core members of The Samurai Of Prog…

Hank Jones has recorded in many different settings over the years, but this bop-third stream session blending a piano trio with a classical string quartet is one of his more unusual sessions. Jones, accompanied by bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Dennis Mackrel, is the primary soloist, though there is space for Reid as well, while the string quartet primarily provides color and contrast for the trio. The ten standards are arranged with flair by Manny Albam. While this sort of date is an acquired taste for some jazz fans, it is by no means a typical "with strings" session, due to Jones' considerable chops and Albam's imaginative charts. Highlights include the brisk bossa nova setting of "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" and the dramatic, upbeat scoring of "Caravan."

The TANA Quartet has joined forces with composer Philip Glass for the premiere of his String Quartet No. 9. This new work is based on his earlier score for the Broadway production of King Lear directed by Sam Gold. This recording also features Glass’s String Quartet No. 8, written in 2018. Almost Schubertian in nature, this quartet is marked by layers of sound and contrasting timbres and rhythms. Glass seems to have entered a third period in his wide-ranging career, characterized by a more classical, introspective approach.

Richard Carpenter is the iconic musician, producer, songwriter and arranger from the Carpenters, the astronomically successful group who have sold more than 90 million albums worldwide. Richard Carpenter's Piano Songbook reimagines the Carpenters' biggest hits - and some choice favorites that inspired them - on solo piano. The album includes some of the most beloved melodies of all time ("Top Of The World" and "We've Only Just Begun") presented in a gloriously relaxing new way.

Music Lab Collective reimagines six ABBA's tracks.

Beauty blooms in adversity. It’s one of the undying clichés of art. Sometimes, it’s a damaging one. It can lead unsuspecting audiences to believe that performers and the emotions they embody are one and the same, and that torment is a necessity for creation; it can lead performers to disregard their own health, believing that their discomfort supposedly serves and ennobles their art; and it glosses over the fact that creativity emerging out of adversity or hardship is generally the exception rather than the rule.

That Baïlèro, a shepherd’s song from the highlands of Auvergne sung in the Occitan dialect of the area, should become a favorite with singers ranging from Victoria de los Angeles to Sarah Brightman by way of Renée Fleming and Karita Mattila, is all because of Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret. As a budding composer in Paris in the 1900s, Canteloube was unable to interest himself in the various musical cliques and currents. Instead he looked for inspiration in Auvergne in central France where he was born, starting to collect the songs of the farmers and shepherds that lived in the mountainous region. But he did so as a composer rather than a musicologist, and between 1923 and 1954 he published a total of thirty Chants d’Auvergne, arranged, harmonized and sumptuously orchestrated.

Another back-to-the-roots campaign for the powerhouse harmonica ace, powered by guitarists Sammy Lawhorn and John Primer and piano patriarch Pinetop Perkins. Cotton attacks nothing but covers, largely of the Chicago subspecies: Little Walter's "My Babe," Jimmy Reed's "Take Out Some Insurance" and "Honest I Do," Muddy Waters' "Clouds in My Heart." Hardly indispensable, but heartfelt.

Secret Agent is a Psy Spy Instro Surf band from Mexico City. Suspected agents: Rick Deliz (Guitar), Rack Aguirre (Bass), Alis Emerson (Drums). Surf grooves w/ Post Punk, Psychedelia, Rockabilly & Spy/Spaghetti Western twang. 'A Pair Of Aces' CD (2020) out on Double Crown Records w/ instros/vocal collaborations w/ singers from Mexico / Spain.

This disc, like the others in this series featuring pianist Jeno Jando, is a world-class recording. Mozart would complete twenty-seven concertos for piano and orchestra during his lifetime, many of them the greatest works for that idiom ever created. No. 25 was Mozart's most symphonic effort in the genre he revolutionized during the 1780s. In many of these brilliant concertos, he pitched the piano and orchestra against each other, but in this masterwork they work together as one instrument to produce something extraordinary, even for Mozart. Concerto No. 16 is also a pleasure to hear, the first movement especially. The thoughtful rondo for piano in A major at the end of this disc is a nice extra that Jando plays wonderfully.