Legendary lost masterpiece of late '60s acid folk/baroque psychedelia, the unreleased 1969 album by Chimera - featuring future Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Weston - was partly produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason who, like Rick Wright, makes a cameo appearance. First released a few years ago in vinyl-only format, this first-ever CD issue adds an extra eight pre-album demos to provide the definitive Chimera anthology. 12-page booklet with lots of photos and the full story behind the band's astonishing adventures in Swinging London.

For his first session as a leader for Blue Note, trumpeter Thad Jones ran through five songs with a small group which also included fellow Detroiters pianist Tommy Flanagan and guitarist Kenny Burrell as well as part-time Detroiter tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell. Jones' time with Debut certainly broke him in, and he is thoroughly professional on this record. Compared to its predecessor, The Fabulous Thad Jones, and its successor, The Magnificent Thad Jones, Detroit-New York Junction pales slightly, but it's nevertheless an excellent set of driving hard bop.

2019 two CD set, the twelth volume in the So80s series. The finest collection of original classic 12" club & extended mixes.
"Celebrate the '80s in style" was the premise Blank & Jones started the So8os (So eighties) Project under circa ten years ago. Since then, the two '80s born artists have been digging through countless archives of old master tapes of legendary '80s maxi versions of famous songs for this series - building up an impressive fanbase while releasing 11 entries so far under the moniker So8os. Thanks to the massive renaissance of this colourful decade and the success of series such as Stranger Things also open to a broader and younger audience these days. Volume 12 includes tracks by Wham, Sheena Easton, Sade, Visage, New Order, Billy Joel, Saga and many others.

It has long been known that William Youn has joined the ranks of the world's leading Mozart and Chopin interpreters. The complete recording of the Mozart piano sonatas, made for the Oehms label by the South Korean pianist based in Munich, is already setting new standards of excellence in their interpretation on the modern grand piano.

He is one of the "superstars" of the piano world. An exceptional teacher – his pupils include stars such as Arcadi Volodos or Claire-Marie Le Guay – Dmitri Bashkirov’s debut with Claves combines a most original programme with orchestra. Face to face; we have: Johann Sebastian Bach’s most famous son; Carl Philip Emanuel; forbearer of the great Romantic composers; and an unusual Ludwig van Beethoven. This particular Concerto op. 61a is indeed very rarely played; copying almost note for note the original score of the Violin Concerto op. 61.

Mozart’s sole bassoon concerto dates from 1774. As the booklet points out, every bassoonist plays it at some time, and most seem to harbour an ambition to record it. I have come to regard the results as a very special test of a player’s musicianship. A technically proficient but dull performance will leave you wondering why you bothered to spend a quarter of an hour with such tedious music, whereas in the hands of a player with real imagination and energy it can be a most exhilarating experience.

This is a beautiful, heartwarming record. Schubert's part-songs, originally written for friendly gatherings at home, have never received the recognition they deserve, perhaps partly because he himself underrated them. Yet their extraordinary variety of mood, character, and texture, (often within a single song) and the inspired melodies, harmonic surprises, and magical modulations, are vintage Schubert.

Okay, here's the problem: in 1975, Elektra released The Best of Carly Simon, which compiled her hits from 1971-1975. Simon then scored a couple more big hits for Elektra ("Nobody Does It Better," "You Belong to Me") before leaving the label in 1979, but not enough to justify another compilation. She had another hit on Warners ("Jesse"), where she spent the early '80s, crapped out on Epic, for whom she made one album in 1985, and revived her career on Arista starting with the Top 40 hit "Coming Around Again" in 1986.

As one of the foremost interpreters of the piano music of Frédéric Chopin, Nelson Freire has a rather small number of all-digital recordings of this oeuvre on CD, most of them recorded for Decca since 2005. This double-disc package of the nocturnes is an excellent example of Freire's artistry, and the expressive lyricism and refined execution that are hallmarks of his playing are fully evident. The 20 nocturnes are among Chopin's most personal and intimate pieces, and Freire treats them all with tender feeling and a melodic sensibility that emphasize the vocal quality of the ornate melodies.

For at least his fourth recording in six years heading a pianoless trio, the great tenor Joe Henderson (along with bassist Rufus Reid and drummer Al Foster) is heard on his own "Inner Urge," an original blues, two lengthy versions of "Body and Soul" and three other jazz standards. This Italian import is particularly recommended to listeners not that familiar with Henderson's playing, for he brings new life to these often overplayed compositions.