AVID Jazz presents the latest release in our Four Classic Album series with a re-mastered 2CD release from Miles Davis, in both Quintet, Sextet and as The Modern Jazz Giants formations, complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details.

A CD accompaniment to the Eagle Rock live DVD release of ZZ Top's November 1, 2007 set at the Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie, TX, Live from Texas is one for the fans - a latter-day live record that's by no means embarrassing but not very captivating, either. The set list is hits-heavy, containing every one of the MTV hits from Eliminator and all the classic rock radio staples, all taken just a little bit slower than they were on record. That combined with the crystal clear production makes the band seem just a little bit sluggish at times, but they can still churn out a boogie - "Sharp Dressed Man" in particular cooks - and Billy Gibbons' guitar still snarls as much as his voice growls, which is enough to make this worth a listen for longtime fans.

The Summer Collection is a compilation album by Donna Summer released in 1985 by Mercury Records. Summer had made her name during the era of disco music in the 1970s when she was signed to Casablanca Records. In 1980, she signed to Geffen Records but her success there was not what it had been on Casablanca. In the early 1980s, Casablanca was bought out entirely by Polygram Records, and Summer had returned to them for one studio album. Mercury, another division of Polygram and a sister company to Casablanca, released that album entitled She Works Hard for the Money in 1983. It also released this compilation album in 1985, containing seven of her original disco hits from Casablanca, plus three songs from the aforementioned Mercury Records album.

Bel Air present Don Pasquale, a true masterpiece from Donizetti. It's one of the funniest operas ever composed, but it also shines with Donizetti's trademark touch of gentle pathos and some of his finest music. The production is from the Grand Theatre of Geneva, with soprano Patrizia Ciofi as Norina and baritone Simone Alaimo in the title role.

Extensions was released on October 31, 1979 and debuted on Billboard’s Top Pop Album charts on December 8, 1979. Extensions began what Alan recalls as “a new chapter for the group.” Artistically and commercially, their fourth studio album was one of several new levels: It was the first one with Cheryl Bentyne, who had replaced Laurel Massé. Cheryl proved to be the perfect complement to the group’s already dynamic style and performance. It was also the first album that contained hits in both the jazz and pop categories. “Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone” went to #30 and “Trickle, Trickle” went to #73 on the Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Overall, the album peaked at #55 on the Billboard Top LP’s chart. “A very exciting time,” Janis remembers.

AVID Jazz presents the latest release in our Four Classic Album series with a second re-mastered 2CD release from Donald Byrd, complete with original artwork, liner notes and personnel details.

For 40 years Allan Taylor, born in Brighton in 1945, has been considered as the consummate performer, a writer of literary gracefulness whose troubadour chronicles encapsulate the realism of otherwise unsung heroes, otherwise uncharted lives. His songs are written from a lifetime of travelling; always the observer passing through, each song is a vignette of life, like a story told over a drink in a bar. Each has an integrity that tells you it comes from something real; characters come to life like people you know and places become as familiar as if you had been there. Stockfisch Records again produced a special project including a symphony orchestra: We speak about the 2016 production with the grandseigneur of songwriting, Allan Taylor! The SACD will be titled: "There Was a Time".

Antonin Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 is a perennial audience favorite, and many cellists play and even record it with conductors with whom they may only have a passing acquaintance. The work is relatively forgiving of such treatment, with melodies, that once heard, reside in the mind forever and need only to be refreshed. However, there's room for more progressive treatments of the work, and this one is an example, with the young cellist Kian Soltani joining Daniel Barenboim and his well-drilled Staatskapelle Berlin. Soltani and Barenboim have worked together consistently; Soltani was the principal cellist in Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in the Middle East.

Named ‘2022 Composer of the Year’ by Musical America, Missy Mazzoli inhabits an exquisite and mysterious sound-world in which indie-rock sensibilities meet American minimalism, European modernism and classical traditions. The first woman ever to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, she has also composed for prominent soloists, ensembles and orchestras around the world. Through her music, she reaches to the roots of tradition, inhabits and renovates older forms while using every resource at her command. Mazzoli, who says that she likes “to tell stories”, always imagines actors, singers and dancers grappling with a situation, even when she composes instrumental works.

There simply may not be a better reggae label around than England's Blood & Fire, a company co-founded by noted reggae critic Steve Barrow and Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall. The fact that the best reggae label in the world deals strictly in reissues from the 1970s could be construed as something of an indictment of the current state of the art, but that doesn't make Blood & Fire's releases any less crucial. This sampler focuses on the many exquisite dub albums the label has issued over the last few years (its title comes from Lee "Scratch" Perry: "Some people call it dub. I call it x-ray music"). Included are dub versions of songs by Horace Andy ("Dub There"), the Morwells ("Morpheus Special"), and the Congos ("Noah Sugar Pan"), among others, but the album's best feature is the variety of producers represented: there's hardly an important reggae producer missing, so the neophyte can enlighten him- or herself by comparing the styles of King Tubby, Prince Jammy, Lee Perry, Jojo Hookim, and Errol Thompson. It's tempting to say something like "if you only own one dub album, make it this one, " but it would be much better to let this compilation guide your deeper exploration of this fascinating, and sometimes unsettling, musical world.

During the mid-19th century, the Danish composer Niels. W. Gade was one of Europe's most well-known composers, conducting his own works all over the continent. Starting out as a protégé of Mendelssohn's, he later became his successor as music director of the famous Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and made the acquaintance of Robert and Clara Schumann, and of Liszt and Wagner. Initially known as a composer of symphonies, Gade mastered the German musical idiom to perfection, while adding a Nordic accent to it, particularly noticeable in his best works. His eight symphonies were composed between 1841 and 1871, and although Gade remained active as a composer until his death in 1890, he wrote no more symphonies. When questioned, he is said to have stated that 'there is but one Ninth Symphony!'

The 10-track album for 2020 with eight re-recorded favourite songs from the band’s catalogue and two new tracks, one of those called Passive Restraints with guest vocals by Randy Blythe from Lamb Of God!

For his third album on Mercury Classics/Deutsche Grammophon, international chart-topping classical guitarist Miloš Karadaglić takes the world-famous Concierto de Aranjuez as the starting point for a journey across the Spanish landscape, paying tribute to the great composers and musicians who placed the modern classical guitar firmly on the international stage.

20 rare 12" cuts from the Burning Sounds Reggae Vault, released on a double CD package for the first time. Includes singles and their dub versions from Barrington Levi, Dawn and Christine, The Heptones, Dennis Brown, Delroy Wilson and more.

Fired by his ongoing battle with mental illness, Shortly After Takeoff is the final, and finest, chapter of what Christinzio calls his “Manchester Trilogy”, following 2015’s How To Die In The North and 2018’s Deportation Blues. All three albums were created after the native Philadelphian had moved to Manchester. Like Deportation Blues, Shortly After Takeoff spans singer-songwriter classicism, gnarly synth-pop and ‘50s rock’n’roll, with Christinzio’s similarly distinctive, flexible vocal carrying a fearless approach to lyrical introspection, but the new album is a major leap forward in songwriting sophistication and lyrical communication.