Regardless of who came up with the term "freakbeat" - either Bam Caruso czar Phil Smee created it in the mid-'80s or Richard Allen came up with it as the name for his psych fanzine - it's generally agreed that the Smoke were one of the best examples of the style (along with the Birds, the Creation, Les Fleur de Lys, and a few others) during the "swinging London" era of the mid-'60s. This 23-track comp of feedback-rich primeval psych-beat is highlighted by their finest moment right up front: "My Friend Jack" hit the U.K. Top 50 in 1967, despite the fact that it was banned by the BBC. (According to the excellent liner notes, the Beeb banned the song after the Bishop of Southwark - who misconstrued it as a celebration of drug abuse - contacted EMI head Sir Joseph Lockwood to complain about the song right in the midst of hysteria over a then-recent Rolling Stones drug bust, LSD, and "moral decline")…

John Duarte (1919-2004) was educated at the Manchester University Faculty of Technology. He worked as a professional chemist until 1969, then abandoned chemistry in favor of full-time dedication to music, after having been persuaded by Len Williams, father of John Williams. His only formal musical education consisted in jazz guitar lessons with Terence "Terry" Usher, the rest he learned by self-instruction. He also worked professionally as a player of the trumpet and

Grace Davidson presents her third release with Signum Classics, an intimate recording of Sacred Chants by Hildegard von Bingen, translations by Jeremy Summerly.

Situated at the epicentre of the Enlightenment era, Bach’s second son was the key figure of Empfindsamkeit (Sensibility), the movement that explored the deep and unfathomable stirrings of humanity and nature, countering the learned style of the early eighteenth-century masters with freedom of inspiration and hence emancipation of form.

Pour élaborer Villes invisibles, dont Toufic Farroukh signe compositions et arrangements, celui qu'on peut qualifier de poète nomade a choisi de fermer les yeux et de rêver une ville pour tous. C'est là bien entendu une ville qui n'existe que dans le coeur de celles et ceux qui croient encore à la possibilité d'une vie sereine, où chacun pourra trouver sa place. Le titre du disque est emprunté au roman homonyme d'Italo Calvino dans lequel Kublai Khan, empereur des Tartares, se fait raconter les villes visitées lors de ses voyages par Marco Polo, des villes « faites de désirs et de peurs », aux secrets parfois bien cachés. Toufic Farroukh, inspirateur d'un répertoire ouvert et servi par une formation en équilibre, laisse ses saxophones chanter à l'unisson des autres instruments, sans jamais chercher à avoir le dernier mot ni même céder à la tentation de l'exercice solitaire.

War got decent mileage from the soundtrack for this B-movie, which premiered near the end of the first blaxploitation era. They ended with two R&B hits, and while they were perturbed that United Artists, the label they had left, reaped the benefits, it at least kept them active and in the R&B hunt.

German act Florian Geyer, named after a knight who lived in the time of Martin Luther, was formed in Rheinland in 1971 by Jürgen Glüge (drums), K. Dieter Stieg (bass, vocals) and Manfred Wolf (vocals, guitar). It took the band five years to produce their one and only album, "Beggar's Pride", a curious collection of glam-inspired songs heavily spiced with psychedelic musical elements. In 1982 they changed their name to Hurrican, and issued one single under that name before dissolving.

Combining Latin and African rhythms with the light textures of MOR jazz, Special EFX emerged as one of the most prominent world fusion groups of their era. Formed in New York in 1982, Special EFX was essentially a duo comprised of guitarist Chieli Minucci and Hungarian-born drummer/percussionist George Jinda; debuting in 1985 with the album Modern Manners, they often recruited other musicians to help flesh out their state-of-the-art sound, among them Dave Grusin, Omar Hakim, and McCoy Tyner. Long favoring an accessible and slick jazz-pop sound, the duo significantly altered their identity with 1990's Just Like Magic, adopting a more acoustic texture and exchanging Jinda's electronic percussion for what he dubbed "wooden world music."

Vertú is a jazz fusion band consisting of bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White (both of Return to Forever fame), keyboardist Rachel Z, violinist Karen Briggs and guitarist Richie Kotzen. The band released one eponymous album in 1999.

Trumpeter Blue Mitchell delivers a solid hard bop date with his 1967 Blue Note release Boss Horn. The Rudy Van Gelder edition of Boss Horn features remastered sound by original producer Van Gelder that does significanly improve the overall sound quality over the original release.

A new live record from the San Diego 3-piece! “From the West” is a collection of new live material from the band’s recently released “Black Heaven” album as well classic Earthless tracks like “Acid Crusher” and more! From The West was recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA on March 1, 2018.

One might expect Andrew Manze's interpretations of Johannes Brahms' four symphonies to adhere to ideas of the movement for historically informed performance practice, due to his scholarship and dedication to authenticity in his early music performances. However, and somewhat paradoxically, he and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra have delivered more or less mainstream readings on modern instruments; there are no signs of late 19th century woodwind or brass timbres, and the strings play with standard vibrato. Yet Manze's historical fact finding has gone to a deeper level than just replicating instrumentation or orchestral scale, and he has found numerous clues to Brahms' intentions in the composer's transcriptions of the symphonies for two pianos, which often vary with the published orchestral scores in accentuation, tempo indications, and phrasing. These are fine points that can be discerned with careful listening and great familiarity with many other recordings of the symphonies, both conventional and historic, but they may not be the main thing listeners will consider in appreciating this set. The playing and the recording quality are up to the extraordinarily high levels set by CPO in all its releases, and these resilient works sound as good as they ever did under any other conductor.

Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell’s songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity; even tracks like “All I Want,” “My Old Man,” and “Carey” - the brightest, most hopeful moments on the record - are darkened by bittersweet moments of sorrow and loneliness. At the same time that songs like “Little Green” (about a child given up for adoption) and the title cut (a hymn to salvation supposedly penned for James Taylor) raise the stakes of confessional folk-pop to new levels of honesty and openness, Mitchell’s music moves beyond the constraints of acoustic folk into more intricate and diverse territory, setting the stage for the experimentation of her later work. Unrivaled in its intensity and insight, Blue remains a watershed.

”The mystery of incarnation is the most beautiful aspect of divinity – and it is the reason why I am a Christian. I do not consider the differences between Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic: a Christian is someone who understands that God has come.”” (Olivier Messiaen). From the point of view of music history, Vingt Regards is a milestone of 20th century piano literature; spiritually it is an offering of Christmas “spiritual piano exercises” in 20 contemplations. Olivier Messiaen summarizes it as follows: “More than in any of my previous work I sought a language of mystical love that is multifaceted, powerful and tender; sometimes even terrifying. All with the greatest vividness possible.” Alfonso Gomez, one of the most eminent specialists for 20th and 21st century piano music, offers his new reading of this masterpiece by Olivier Messiaen.