…but an interesting contrast is the other large-scale effort in the list—Rubinstein’s 2nd symphony (‘Ocean’). It’s significantly longer than ‘A Sea Symphony,’ but manages to avoid any feeling of excess. It moves purposefully, it isn’t carrying the baggage of verse, and it’s divided into seven individual movements, none of which are too big to be easily comprehended. Tuneful, dramatic, accessible, a delight from the first note to the last, it’s filled with musical devices which would be commandeered by film composers decades hence and I think Rubinstein deserves credit for a form of originality that scarcely anyone in his own day could have even recognized.

We remember Anton RUBINSTEIN as an outstanding pianist who rivalled, and even outshone, Liszt. He gave his first public concert when aged 10 and toured Scandinavia, Austria, Germany, London and Paris as a child virtuoso…
Symphony No. 1 in F Major is a charming and well-crafted work, written at a time when Rubinstein was in St Petersburg, being supported by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, sister-in-law of the Tsar. The work has strong influences of Mendelssohn (who died three years previously) with a clear framework, memorable themes and dynamic rhythms. This symphony combines technical skill with romantic charm.

With neo-classical works such as those on this disc, Stravinsky showed that great music could still be composed with the simplest of means, recalling Beethoven’s achievement yet using his own thoroughly modern rhythmic vitality, grace and refinement. The Robert Craft Collection has been acclaimed as “one of the more adventurous and interesting recording projects by Naxos”, with individual titles receiving the highest praise: “an almost unsurpassable choice” (8.557501), “as with all the releases in this magnificent series, the performances are excellent” (8.557502), “a disc of major importance” (8.557508).

The Song of the Earth is Gustav Mahler's most personal composition, as the composer himself revealed. It takes on all it's twilight hues with Stéphane Degout's vocal performance. Ardently conducted by Maxime Pascal, Le Balcon delivers a performance which sets the standard, using Arnold Schönberg's pared-down transcription in the royal acoustic setting of the Basilica of Saint-Denis. Le Balcon and the Saint-Denis Festival have a long history, which began in 2014 with a recital by the soprano Julie Fuchs in the Music Pavilion of the Maison Education de la Légion d'honneur. Since then, all Le Balcon's concerts given in the Basilica of Saint-Denis have left their mark on our respective histories: whether it be Monteverdi's Vespers in 2015 (with a sound system and an electric guitar in the orchestra, a historic first for this repertoire), the final scene of Stockhausen's Samstag aus Licht in 2016 (impressively rigorous, it literally transfixed the audience) or Mahler's seventh symphony in 2017. Freedom, innovation, creativity but total respect for the works and composers are the words that immediately come to mind when thinking of Le Balcon, whose collective ad-venture is the basis of a faultless career.

Legendary American musician Brian Jackson announces his first solo album in over 20 years, produced by Phenomenal Handclap Band founder Daniel Collás and released on BBE Music. Brian Jackson earned mythic status among music fans thanks to his pioneering work with Gil Scott-Heron in the 70’s, where his flute and electric piano performances on Pieces of a Man and Winter In America virtually defined the sound of an era. From the 80s onwards he went on to record with Kool & The Gang, Will Downing (whose debut album he produced), Roy Ayers and Gwen Guthrie among many others, and while many veteran musicians tend to stick with the sounds they know best at some point in their careers, Jackson remains an unusually adventurous, vital and broad-minded artist to this day.

Violinist Stephane Grappelli plays his usual repertoire (standards ranging from Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" to "Chicago" and the Reinhardt-associated piece "Minor Swing") in a quartet with the guitars of John Etheridge and Martin Taylor and bassist Jack Sewing. The music, although a bit predictable, is enjoyable, for Grappelli has never lost his enthusiasm for playing swinging jazz. He performs "Let's Fall in Love" and "Love for Sale" as if he had just discovered those songs.

For more than 50 years, the towering and beloved Chicago piano patriarch Sunnyland Slim has rumbled the ivories around the Windy City, playing with virtually every local luminary imaginable and backing the great majority in the studio at one time or another. On this album originally recorded in Seattle on May 7th, 1976, he's joined by the rousing vocalist and dynamic entertainer 'Big Time' Sarah, who is among the more enterprising contemporary blues performers. She moved to Chicago from Coldwater, MS as a child, and sang in South Side gospel choirs before debuting as a blues vocalist on stage at Morgan's Lounge at 14. She later worked with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Johnny Bernard and Sunnyland Slim.

On their new album "Baroque in Blue", Eckart Runge & Jacques Ammon explore the field of tension between two musical epochs and genres that are separated by more than 200 years. Baroque and jazz have much more in common than one might think at first glance: walking basso continuo, the joy of spontaneity and, last but not least, the high art of improvisation.

There is a reason why the Bee Gees have been around for decades, successfully making music – they are innovative craftsmen, who have carved out and maintain a signature sound, while having the ability to adapt to the times that they find themselves composing in…

On his third solo effort, Eric Vloeimans employs a similar post-Miles Davis approach to the trumpet as Wynton Marsalis. Featuring pointillistic compositions accented by slippery diminished runs, Bitches and Fairy Tales is a nice drink of fuzzy, straight-ahead jazz with Vloeimans often adding a little avant-garde triple sec into the mix. While comparable to Marsalis in his use of operatic bent tones punctuated by the occasional growl, Vloeimans more often settles into his warm, foggy tone like another trumpeter who had an affinity for the Netherlands, Chet Baker. Backing Vloeimans on piano is the Bill Evans-influenced Brit John Taylor. Joey Baron on drums and Marc Johnson on bass round out the group.

If The Times They Are a-Changin' isn't a marked step forward from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, even if it is his first collection of all originals, it's nevertheless a fine collection all the same…