Featuring the Great Chopin Pianists from the past and today, Deutsche Grammophon presents a 28 CD box edition highlighting the riches of its Chopin catalogue, including eight Chopin competition winners and many of the most legendary Chopin artists of all time.

NMB are releasing their much-anticipated fourth album, Innocence & Danger. The band comprise Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Randy George, Bill Hubauer & Eric Gillette. With NMB’s previous two releases being concept albums, it’s perhaps remarkable that Innocence & Danger is a series of unrelated songs, but drummer Mike Portnoy says “After two sprawling back to back double concept albums in a row, it was refreshing to get back to writing a collection of unrelated individual songs in the vein of our first album.”

Guitarist Bill Frisell’s new double LP Orchestras documents two inspired concert-hall engagements arranged by Michael Gibbs for Frisell’s long-standing trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston: one featuring the nearly 60-piece Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by Alexander Hanson; and one with the 11-piece Umbria Jazz Orchestra, under the musical direction of Manuele Morbidini. But as with so much of Frisell’s music over the past four decades, a relatively straightforward concept and a familiar songbook yield quietly stirring revelations. The music showcases a level of comfort and interactivity that far transcends the vast majority of “with strings” projects on the jazz record shelf. Sweeping orchestration evoking landmark film scores and Gil Evans alike move nimbly within and around the trio’s telepathic rapport, and Frisell’s shimmering trademark tone melds gorgeously with symphonic strings and brass.

Introducing "#1s - Soda Shop Pop," the first installment in the highly-anticipated '#1s' series. Dive deep into the golden age of music with this compilation of chart-topping sensations from the Soda Shop Pop. This 3-disc collection captures the spirit, innovation, and charm of a transformative decade. Expect to be transported back in time with iconic tracks that still resonate today.

Music from Dinah Washington, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Ray Charles, Charlie Parker, and more – 42 tracks in all.

Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a new clamshell boxed set featuring all four of Curved Air’s classic albums recorded between 1970 and 1973. “The Albums” features newly remastered versions of “Air Conditioning”, “Second Album”, “Phantasmagoria” and “Air Cut”, along with bonus tracks ‘It Happened Today’ (single version), ‘What Happens When You Blow Yourself Up’ and ‘Sarah’s Concern’, all originally issued as singles.
Originally issued on the Warner Bros. label in November 1970, “Air Conditioning” showcased the highly innovative talents of Sonja Kristina (vocals), ex-Royal College of Music student Darryl Way (violin), former Royal Academy of Music student Francis Monkman (electric guitar, piano, mellotron, VCS3 synthesiser), Rob Martin (bass) and Florian Pilkington-Miksa (drums)…

The Best Days features on 8 compact discs legendary radio live recordings from the 60s, 70s and 80s plus one unplugged show.

Loudspeakers convey an important dimension of life: music. Between the extremes of the quiet contemplativeness of some classic pieces and the powerful volume of a home cinema backdrop, the desire for authentic reproduction is united. Reproduction of highs and lows far beyond the limits of human hearing makes sound tangible. ELAC stands for the promise to produce the best possible sound from devices of all kinds. ELAC is driven by advanced technologies, uncompromising quality and its unique sound.

All is emotion and refinement in the interpretations of the soprano Raquel Camarinha and the pianist Yoan Héreau. On this disc, they introduce us to an atypical and little-known sector of Chopin’s output, revealing the beauty of his Polish songs, haunted by the torments of exile and love. By placing them alongside the Lieder der Mignon, which include some of Schubert’s finest settings of Goethe, the duo achieves an extremely rare symbiosis between poetry and music.

Anna Lucia Richter returns to PENTATONE after her acclaimed Schubert album Heimweh with Il delirio della passione; a recording full of Monteverdi treasures, from heart-wrenching opera scenes (Lamento d Arianna,Pur ti miro from Poppea and the Prologue of L'orfeo) and religious music (Confitebor) to bucolic songs (Si dolce è il tormento). Richter works together with Ensemble Claudiana and Luca Pianca, one of the most eminent Monteverdi interpreters of our age. They offer a fresh perspective on Monteverdi's music by penetrating deeply into the original sources.

Jean-Marie Leclair's violin sonatas were published in four volumes between 1723 and 1743. David Plantier here presents a selection of sonatas from the final three opus numbers of the collection. The consistent quality of Leclair’s forty-eight sonatas, collected in four volumes, is admirable, whilst the collection as a whole is a monumental contribution to the repertoire and to posterity; few of Leclair’s followers were able to combine innovation in violin technique and wealth of inspiration with so much talent. Leclair’s taste, refinement, skill and refusal of all artifice enabled him to make his mark not merely on his own time but on the history of music as a whole.

Odd Brew is an idiosyncratic Finnish band, collecting elements from a diverse range of musics, such as Top 40 pop songs, classical tunes, Finnish folk, West African music, progressive rock, 80s fusion, and smashing them all into a blender full of jazz. Arranging and original compositions are penned by the bandleader Santeri Kaipiainen.

Christoph Graupner was born Kirchberg, Saxony. Due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances his work has fallen into almost total oblivion, yet he was one of the most important composers of his time. He spent nearly 50 years of his life at the Court of Darmstadt, as Hoffkapellmeister. Among his friends and admirers were the composers Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Mattheson, and Johann Friedrich Fasch, who was also his pupil. Thanks to his studies in Leipzig, from childhood on Graupner was in contact with musical contemporaries, including Johann Schelle and Johann Kuhnau, predecessors of Johann Sebastian Bach at the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas church).

One of the most successful of all the progressive rock bands to come out of the UK, Yes is featured here in their 1974-1976 incarnation, with Patrick Moraz on keyboards during Rick Wakeman’s "sabbatical." It was 1974 and the band was at its commercial peak with albums like Fragile and Close To The Edge dominating the charts in the UK, in Europe and in the USA. As with their contemporaries ELP and King Crimson, Yes had taken the musicality of prog-rock and brought it to the masses. In retrospect, the prog movement of the '70s was the fore-runner to the popular "jam band" movement of the late-'90s and early-'00s. • Vocalist Jon Anderson is in fine form and was probably at the peak of his vocal prowess when this performance was recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour in December 1974, at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Hartford Connecticut. • This line-up of the band, which featured original members Anderson and bassist Chris Squire, as well as guitarist Steve Howe, drummer Alan White, and keyboardist Moraz remained intact until Wakeman returned to replace Moraz in 1976. • The Close To The Edge-era line-up later reformed in the late-'90s and has toured on-and-off since then, until the premature death of Chris Squire in May 2015.

​On his third album as a leader, Belgian pianist Joachim Caffonnette deepens and refines his textural approach, carefully balancing between the impressionist influences and the bebop legacy that are typical of his very personal signature. « Extended » is meant as a projection of his writing and his ideals through various instrumental ensembles that stimulate meetings and spontaneity.Here, he surrounds himself with top-notch musicians, including New Orleans-based double bassist Jasen Weaver, Israeli drummer Noam Israeli, who has been based in New York for several years, and guest virtuoso trumpeter Hermon Mehari, originally from Kansas City.