The Time-Life Treasury of the Blues showcases Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right" (recorded in 1946) and 19 subsequent electric blues classics of the postwar period. These are the powerhouse songs/hits of the era by Bobby Bland, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, and Jimmy Reed. While there is nothing here that the aficionado doesn't already own, these 20 original remastered tracks are the perfect introduction for the blues novice.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and his Missa Solemnis have a lot in common. Both works come from the composer's last decade. Both works are massively scored for soloists, chorus, and orchestra and both aspire to reveal Beethoven's beatific vision in sound. But for their similarities, Beethoven's Ninth and his Missa Solemnis are not the same work. There are crucial musical differences, one is about its themes while the other is about its text, and there is an even more fundamental difference: one is a symphony while the other is a mass. More bluntly put, one is merely the embodiment of the Enlightenment and the other is a setting of the word of God. Which, when you think about it, is quite a big difference. The problem is that Kurt Masur doesn't seem to have thought about it because while his 1972 recording of the Missa Solemnis with his Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is in every way as great as his contemporaneous recording of the Ninth, and it is the same sort of greatness, a secular humanist greatness. Which, as greatness goes, is pretty great; but as superbly sung, superlatively played, and supremely human as Masur's Missa Solemnis is, it lacks spirituality. The true greatness of the Missa Solemnis is its overwhelming sense that the numinous is imminent and for all the real and honest greatness of Masur's recording, one never senses the eternal or the infinite in his Missa Solemnis. Berlin's stereo sound was a bit gray in its day and this digital remastering is only a bit less gray.

In Paris, we sing about women, the Eiffel Tower and the boulevards. In Paname, the loves of bagpipes, the Seine and the bistros of the suburbs. But it is the soul of the same city that beats in the songs taken up in chorus by the whole world when he sings of France in the Roaring Twenties and the post-war period.
Patrick Fremeaux
The sound works of Frémeaux & Associés are produced by the best specialists, benefit from analog and digital restoration recognized worldwide, are the subject of an explanatory booklet in French and a guarantee certificate. The Frémeaux & Associés brand has obtained more than 800 distinctions for its museographic work of safeguarding and disseminating sound heritage.
This album, issued by the world-famous publishers, Frémeaux & Associés, has been restored using the latest technological methods.

Mit „Teifl Eini“ veröffentlicht die österreichische Band Silverfuchs nicht nur ihr erstes Album, sondern zugleich auch eine gewisse Herausforderung für einen Musikrezensenten. Die Gruppe, die aus der Steiermark stammt und zu der Sepp Tieber-Kessler, Steve Muskatelz und Vlado Vesic gehören, siedelt sich musikalisch irgendwo zwischen Blues, Exerimental und Folk an und hat für ihr Erstlingswerk zwölf Titel eingespielt.

The multi-talented Freda Payne is best known for her singing career, yet she has also performed in musicals and acted in movies over the years, and was briefly the host of her own TV talk show. Born Freda Charcilia Payne on September 19, 1942, in Detroit, Michigan, Payne developed an appreciation of music at an early age (due to such sultry jazz singers as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday). Payne's own musical career blossomed soon after, as she began early singing radio commercial jingles, which brought the young vocalist to the attention of several music-biz heavyweights.

Beyond their lifelong interest in keyboard instruments of all types (organ, harpsichord and clavichord in the case of Bach; modern piano as a percussion instrument in the case of Bartók), other shared concerns connect these two giants of classical music who at first glance appear to be polar opposites.

From the makers of Sharon Signs To Cherry Red , further inspired by its own Junkshop Glam series and genre defining box set “All The Young Droogs”, RPM follows up with Super Sonics. A celebration of the multi-faceted British alt. rock/pop scene which flourished 1992-1998, midway through attracting the term Brit Pop. Compiled by DJ, curator and contemporary scenester Martin Green, who ran the London club Smashing during the period. Artists such as Blur, Oasis, Pulp were all attendees, and the club became a breeding ground for many future bands. In parallel Martin compiled and co-produced the genre defining Loungecore compilation The Sound Gallery released on EMI in 1995, using many tracks which had populated the early club sets. Martin tells the full story in the booklet.

Camino is guitarist Sean Shibe’s first PENTATONE album, an introspective programme exploring French-Spanish musical borders, a pilgrimage leading from Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante défunte, Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1 and Gnossiennes 1 and 3, Poulenc’s Sarabande, De Falla’s Miller’s Dance and Homaje, pour le Tombeau de Debussy and José’s Pavana triste all the way to Mompou’s Cançons i dansas 6 and 10, as well as his Suite compostelana. Shibe has deliberately granted Mompou a central role on this album, as his music demonstrates that melancholy, aimlessness and a whole host of other feelings are not things to be avoided or fixed or solved, but experiences to be felt deeply: not with sad nostalgia, but with genuine wonder and excitement at what this means for the future. In that respect, Camino also documents Shibe’s personal quest to overcome the challenges of a time dominated by Covid-19, and to ultimately see the world anew.

It's fair to say Holger Wobker is a giant of synthpop. There is a lot of innovation on The Working Model (1983). Side A are some of the best 20 minutes Synthpop has to offer, while second album The Continental (1985) is the less quirky, more rounded go at classic mid-80s pop. A legacy that gained him and Boytronic immortal respect and credibility. When he returned with Autotunes no one really had an idea what still could be expected from this institution. His comeback album is refreshingly cool about whatever expectations there might have been. Holger doesn't attempt to sound like 1983 at all. Even more he does not care about being innovative or up to date to some 2002s sound. He delivers what most synthpop artists fail to do most of the time: A classic sounding synthpop album with some mighty good songs on it…

Rather than play any single complete suite (of the three) that Prokofiev extracted from the complete ballet, Myung-Whun Chung makes his own selection of numbers, roughly following the plot line and including music representative of all the major characters. Although some other collections offer more music, this hour of Romeo and Juliet makes a satisfying presentation on its own. What makes the performance special is the spectacular playing of the Dutch orchestra. Frankly, it's never been done better. From the whiplash virtuosity of the violins to the bite of the trombones and the firm thud of the bass drum, this is the sound the composer must have dreamed of.

Ringo Starr defined his solo career through his collaborations, scoring his first big hit with the assistance of his fellow Fabs and later sustaining himself through his All-Starr Band, so his decision to produce 2010’s Y Not on his own appears to be a big deal…

It is difficult not to love Lena Horne. Recorded when she was 77, this live CD finds the ageless singer sounding as if she were 57 at the most (and the photo of her on the cover makes her look 47). Horne talks the lyrics a little more than in the past but she cuts loose in spots with power, performs superior standards, takes part of a Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn medley as a duet with bassist Ben Brown and is not shy to hold long notes. on six of the songs 11 horns from the Count Basie Orchestra riff and play harmonies behind her; otherwise Horne is joined by her usual quartet with pianist Mike Renzi and guitarist Rodney Jones. The well-rounded set is Lena Horne's most rewarding recording in years.

Highway Butterfly is a 3+ hour tribute collection of Neal Casal’s songs recorded by 41 artists & 130 musicians between February and December 2020, performed by artists including Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Bob Weir, Steve Earle, J Mascis, Shooter Jennings, Hiss Golden Messenger & many more.

On his fourth album with Alter Bridge vocalist Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators, Slash delivers what he describes as their most spontaneous collaboration yet. The perpetually top-hatted guitarist brings some of his inimitable Guns N’ Roses grit to lead single “The River Is Rising” while unleashing hooky, soaring hard rock on “Call Off the Dogs.” Elsewhere, the sentimental “Fill My World” might seem like it’s about a romantic relationship between humans, but Kennedy actually wrote the lyrics from the perspective of his beloved Shih Tzu, Mozart.

Modest Mussorgsky was a man of great friendships and great loyalties. When his friend the Russian painter Victor Hartman died in 1873 of a heart ailment at the age of thirty-nine, Mussorgsky's grief knew no limits. Hartman's drawings and pastels, all in a style très russe, were exhibited in a St. Petersburg gallery shortly after his death, and Mussorgsky decided to pay a musical tribute to his friend by writing a suite for piano, setting to music selected paintings from Hartman's exhibition. This suite, published under the tide Pictures at an Exhibition, became very popular, and acquired an even greater popularity through Maurice Ravel's dazzling orchestration.