A beautiful, melancholy melody that is loved across borders and time.Jazz Bar, Japan's best-selling jazz compilation, is back for it's 24th year.In the world of jazz, it is believed that great performances produce great songs. The famous and legendary jazz saying, 'Jazz has only great performances without great songs,' aptly expresses this. There is no doubt about this. If you listen to Miles' famous 'Autumn Leaves,' you can perfectly understand how the chanson 'Autumn Leaves' quickly became a great jazz masterpiece. However, I think there is also the opposite idea that 'great songs produce great performances,' and that it's okay to have that. I always select songs for 'Jazz Bar' with that sentiment in mind.

The History of Mercury Living Presence. The year was 1950. The record industry was recovering from the 'battle of the speeds', which pitted RCA Victor, with its 45-rpm disc, against Columbia Records, inventor of the microgroove long-playing record. (The 78-rpm shellac disc had just suffered a swift demise.) In the aftermath of the protracted struggle, the unexpected happened. Both sides won: the 45-rpm became the preferred speed for popular music at the time and the LP was adopted as the industry standard for classics and other 'long-playing' programs.

Schumann told Wasielewski that he had composed his Violin Sonata in A minor at a time when he was 'very angry with certain people'. Whether or not that anger found its outlet in creative energy, he managed to complete the entire work within the space of less than a week. The Sonata is alone among Schumann's symphonically conceived chamber works in being cast in three movements, rather than four. The relative concision results from the fact that Schumann's middle movement takes a leaf out of Beethoven's book, and combines the functions of slow movement and scherzo. No less intensely passionate than the A minor Sonata is the Violin Sonata in D minor Op 121.

Gesualdo is now known to have composed some of the most intensely expressive music ever written – and is also known for the lurid details of his private life. The French ensemble A Sei Voci has rich-toned voices which illuminate this extraordinary music; this release is among the ‘second generation’ of Gesualdo recordings following the pioneering work of the Deller Consort in the 1970s. Their success paved the way for wider recognition of Gesualdo’s genius in the 1990s.

Although he is best known for his film scores and The Godfather in particular, Nino Rota’s concert music combines traditional tonality and forms with characteristically heartfelt melodies and appealing clarity. Contrasts abound in this selection of chamber works, from bassoon buffoonery in the Toccata to the Brahmsian eloquence of the Clarinet Sonata, and from the dramatic Improvviso and melancholy moods of the recently discovered Fantasia, to the jocular instrumental exchanges in the exquisite Trio.

Remastered two CD set reissue combines the bluegrass act's 1965, 1968, & 1970 albums with four bonus tracks, 'Nobody Knows' (Single Version), 'Ebo Walker' (Single Version), 'Last Thing On My Mind' (Single Version), 'Lemon Chimes' (Single Version). Includes new liner notes & rarely-seen photos. Rhino/WSM UK. 2004.

The Eagles are unquestionably the biggest mainstream American rock band to have emerged in the 1970s. Not only did they sell more records and concert tickets than their peers – Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) and Hotel California are two of the biggest-selling albums of all time – but they captured the shifting zeitgeist of the '70s, riding the country-rock hippie hangover at the end of the '60s until it reached the slick, expensive, and expansive pop/rock of Southern California in the late '70s.

For its inaugural release of 2025, Past Inside The Present proudly offers a powerful set of new pieces from experimental ambient veteran bvdub (aka Brock Van Wey), simply titled 13. Across its duration, spacious arrangements nest in clouds of reverb, underscored by granular details and entrancing synth arpeggiations. According to Van Wey – a long time scholar of Eastern ideas and literature – every section represents one edict or idea from chapter 13 of the Tao Te Ching, the foundational text of Taoist doctrine, which promotes humility and freedom from desire as the core elements of a peaceful existence.

Rodney Dillard taking fictionalized song titles from episodes of The Andy Griffith Show and fleshing them out into real compositions. "… the long awaited cd featuring the beloved titles from a town called Mayberry that made Charlene Cry.. Sung by the last Darling, Rodney Dillard, these include… NEVER HIT YOUR GRAMMA WITH A GREAT BIG STICK” “WET SHOES IN THE SUNSET” “DANCE ‘TIL YOUR SOCKS ARE HOT AND RAVLIN” and more… There were 9 titles, now soon to be classic songs and yes, “THERE IS A TIME”, sung as a tribute to our beloved Charlene, Maggie Peterson Mancuso. As always, in Mayberry, we are left with a chuckle and a tear…"

Live at Montreux 1982 & 1985 is a historically significant recording, presenting Stevie Ray Vaughan in the biggest show of his life to that date, then three years later, once he had become a star. The 1982 show is essentially the show that got his career started. He met both Jackson Browne and David Bowie after his set, and they were so impressed that Browne volunteered use of his studio (for free!) for Stevie to record what would become his debut album, and Bowie recruited him as lead guitarist for the Let's Dance album and tour (alas, the tour was not to be). However, not everyone was so impressed. In fact, there are choruses of boos that follow nearly every tune. Vaughan was basically a nobody at the time, playing very electric blues at the end of a mostly acoustic program.

Organist and pianist James McVinnie makes his PENTATONE debut with Dreamcatcher, an intimate sequence of contemporary classical music centred around the act of imagining. The recording features the organ of St Albans Cathedral—an epoch-making instrument closely associated with legendary organists Peter Hurford and Ralph Downes. The piano segments of the album were recorded on a Steinway D of exceptional beauty at Studio Richter Mahr, co-founded by composer Max Richter and visual artist Yulia Mahr. A mesmerising sonic trip, Dreamcatcher reflects the unique artistic persona of McVinnie, whose mastery of core organ repertoire extends to an extensive body of work written for him by leading contemporary classical composers, as well as collaborations in the world of electronic and experimental music.

The ‘Quatuor Ellipsos’ tells us a family story through four iconic works firmly ingrained in the collective unconscious: Carmen, Casse-Noisette, West Side Story and Rhapsody in Blue. Like a small-scale symphonic orchestra, in a spirit bordering on that of chamber music, they invite three great pianists, Marie-Josèphe Jude, Charles Heisser and Jean-Frédéric Neuburger. With the coruscating arrangements we are immersed into the innumerable timbres of their saxophones in association with the piano.

Didier Rotella’s "Zone Grise" unfolds in a space of perpetual transformation, where sound navigates between density and purity, acoustic and electronic, structure and fluidity. Catharsis combines hybrid instruments and spatialized textures to evoke a dramatic journey of evolution and renewal, while Fragrances draws inspiration from perfume composition, blending musical elements into a rich, multi-layered tapestry. Mogari reflects on ritual and humanity through augmented instruments and poetic gestures, tracing a spiritual passage from lament to resolution. Each piece reveals Rotella’s ability to craft intricate, ever-shifting soundscapes that invite reflection on balance, motion, and the ephemeral nature of musical expression.

Released in collaboration with the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music in New York and coinciding with celebrations of Sir Simon Rattle's 70th birthday in January 2025, the London Symphony Orchestra's signature label will release a new recording of Weill's stinging critique of capitalist society, 'The Seven Deadly Sins'.Featuring soloists such as Magdalena Kožená, Andrew Staples and Florian Boesch, this adds to Rattle's acclaimed series of opera recordings on LSO Live.

Having barely arrived in London, Handel laid the foundations for his unprecedented operatic career in 1711 with the magic opera Rinaldo. In addition to the novel Italian music, the fantastic plot, which exploited all the possibilities of baroque theatre, also met with enthusiasm from the audience: love, anger and passion amid sensational scene changes, fire-breathing monsters, flying dragons and an exotic magical island. The libretto, based on an episode from Torquato Tasso's epic Gerusalemme liberata, which was popular at the time, tells the story of the young crusader Rinaldo, who would much rather marry his beloved Almirena than fight and who must resist the magical arts of the sorceress Armida - who is in love with him - in order to find happiness. Twenty years later, in 1731, Handel fundamentally revised his successful opera once again. This rarely performed version can be heard here on CD for the first time and features an outstanding cast of singers, above all the leading Italian countertenor Filippo Mineccia in the main role and Roberta Mameli and Vivica Genaux as the ladies fighting for him. Marco Angioloni, who also sings Goffredo, conducts the young ensemble Il Groviglio with verve.