James is called a young man on this CD, but he'd already played with Muddy Waters for a time. Recorded in 1967, it showcases his vocals and harp well. The recording, done at Montreal's Penelope Cafe, is a pretty accurate depiction of James Cotton's raw power and force. The sound quality is OK for the time and really captures the feel of a live performance. Cotton has long been one of the greatest of the Chicago blues harp stylists, and his energy, enthusiasm and sincere love for the blues jumps right out at you from start to finish. The idea of a blues musician doing a recording in a static and heavily controlled atmosphere like a studio seems odd; amplified electric Chicago blues really should be both played AND heard in a loud, raucous, dark, smoky bar-type environment. You can smell the smoke and feel the beer being spilled on you while listening to this CD.

As Il Sospiro shows, Rabih Abou-Khalil's music is unique, in that it spans East and West - or rather the Middle-East and Europe - in a way other composers have attempted, but with much greater success. Raised in the cosmopolitan climate of pre-civil war Lebanon, and privileged to learn the oud there, he was forced to migrate to Munich where he studied classical flute. His rediscovery of oriental music from a European vantage point has both freshness and also the familiarity of long acquaintance. His best disc to date has been Yara, a film soundtrack for which he teamed his oud with a violin and cello plus the Middle Eastern frame drum, to create a haunting sequence of visually evocative pieces. With Il Sospiro he makes his first solo foray as an unaccompanied oud player, and the result is even more bewitching…

When the guys of Nuova Era debuted with 'L'Ultimo Viaggio', they were seeing themselves as mere heirs of a glorious prog time passed: what they couldn't foresee by then was that they were actually pioneering an era of, as some label it, prog revival in Europe. Since this is the starting point, Nuova Era has not managed yet to achieve its own voice, that is, they are still very dependant on the peculiar sounds that their old predecessors created. Nuova Era articulates a prog with a hard rock leaning, infused with a melodic sensibility (like Alphataurus, Biglietto per l'Inferno, and to a lesser degree, Museo Rosenbach) and a sombre romanticism (Apoteosi, E. A. Poe). Their repertoire comprises plenty of excellent musical ideas, such as catchy melodies, well crafted textures on keyboards (the main factor), a tight confident rhythm section, interesting guitar and synth solos…

Live Miles consists of two parts, which were both recorded live. "Livemiles I" was recorded during the American tour of 1986, while "Livemiles II" was captured at a concert to commemorate the 750th anniversary of Berlin. As usual with TD, the audience had no clue of what they were going to experience while attending one of those concerts. During that era it was rather common for TD to improvise much of the music on the spot. So when you listen to a live record of TD you mostly hear new music that isn't available as a studio version. The extended pieces displayed on Live Miles cover many musical moods and textures throughout the playing time of almost half an hour: from slow and haunting, through up-tempo and uplifting; from driving and percussive, to grand and majestic. It's all present on both tracks!

An album of Joseph Haydns (1732-1809) eight delightful early keyboard sonatas by Tuija Hakkila performed on two fortepianos. The current consensus is that there are about 60 surviving authentic Piano Sonatas by Haydn, while contemporary sources point to as many as 80. The earliest of these probably date from Haydns youth in the 1750s; the last one was completed in summer 1795. Some of the lost Sonatas are works that Haydn simply gave away as a young man, and they have never been heard of since. In mid-18th-century Vienna music was mainly distributed in the form of manuscript copies made by copyists. Haydn did not publish his first collection of six Sonatas until 1774. Of the Sonatas selected for this project, Haydn wrote all of these over a period of about 15 years before his 40th birthday.

Caroline of Ansbach, [actually Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline von Brandenburg-Ansbach] wife of King George II, remarkably beautiful patron of the arts and sciences, considered Handel an esteemed confidant. It was in Hanover that Caroline first encountered Handel, actively encouraging his appointment as Kapellmeister there in 1710, and it was apparently at her behest that he composed five of his Italian chamber duets. With the accession of the elector as George I in 1714, Caroline became Princess of Wales and on his death, in 1727, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, consort of King George II.

Philippe Herreweghe uses the second of Bach's four versions of the St. John Passion, the one from 1725, which substitutes some of the arias and the opening chorus, along with lesser changes. The result is somewhat more dramatic than the standard version, which Herreweghe recorded previously. Those familiar with the conductor's work will find his usual warmth, making the most of the lyric moments, but they'll also find greater sensitivity to rhythmic and dramatic thrust and a generally livelier approach. The singers are uniformly fine. Padmore is an unusually effective Evangelist, projecting the drama without undue overacting.