Well, what do you expect from an artist who's reading Penthouse, surrounded by liquor bottles and cigarettes, on the cover of his album? Perfection? Accessibility? Sanity? Well, you ain't gonna get that from Nilsson, a man who left sanity behind shortly after he entered the mainstream with Nilsson Schmilsson. Instead, you get a record from an artist who's just at the fringe of popular culture, not really caring if he has a hit, but not really wanting to be so weird that he's just a cult. Realizing all of this, the artist also knows that he doesn't need to try so hard - he can be as lazy as he looks on the cover. So, that means That's the Way It Is is essentially a covers record, with songs ranging from material penned by longtime favorite Randy Newman ("Sail Away") to longtime fan George Harrison ("That Is All") to oldies ("Just One Look/Baby I'm Yours") to obscurities ("She Sits Down on Me" and "Zombie Jamboree")…

Dear Mr Time were originally around at the dawn of the 1970s when, in line with many fascinating obscurities of this type, they recorded a sole album before imploding and disappearing in a tidal wave of public apathy. Like many of these curios, the album later became a sought-after collectors’ item on vinyl, fetching significant sums whenever it appeared.
The album is actually a conceptual piece telling the story of a man’s life from birth to death. Now, this wasn’t an original idea even then, but it is surprisingly well-executed, even now not appearing too dated. The influences are clear throughout: the album comes across as something of a cross between The Moody Blues and King Crimson’s first album…

As a bonus to accompany their annual calendar, Blues Images adds a disc of classic 1920's blues. Featuring Pre-War classics from Blues masters such as: Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe, Willie Lofton, Henry Thomas, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Mississippi Sheiks and others.

The Opener is trombonist Curtis Fuller's first album for Blue Note and it is a thoroughly impressive affair. Working with a quintet featuring tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, pianist Bobby Timmons, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Art Taylor, Fuller runs through a set of three standards - "A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening," "Here's to My Lady," "Soon" - two originals and an Oscar Pettiford-penned calypso. The six songs give Fuller a chance to display his warm, fluid style in all of its variations. "A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening" illustrates that he can be seductive and lyrical on ballads, while the brassy "Hugore" and hard-swinging "Lizzy's Bounce" shows that he can play hard without getting sloppy. His backing musicians are equally impressive; in particular, Mobley's robust playing steals the show…

Café del Mar Aria is a CD compilation series that combines chill-out music with opera arias, thereby expanding the existing Café del Mar series. The Café del Mar concept originated from the "sunset bar" with the same name in Sant Antoni de Portmany on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Café del Mar Aria is produced by Paul Schwartz.

Fine set presenting vintage barrelhouse piano and stomping blues by Big Joe Duskin, one of the last true stylists in both genres. Duskin's album was released with no fanfare and didn't attract the widespread notice it deserved.

Masaaki Suzuki was an organist before he was a conductor, and his recordings of Bach's organ works have made a delightful coda to his magisterial survey of Bach cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan. This selection, the second in a series appearing on the BIS label, gives a good idea of the gems available. You get a good mix of pieces, including a pair of Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions. Fans of Suzuki's cantata series will be pleased to note the similarities in his style between his conducting and his organ playing: there's a certain precise yet deliberate and lush quality common to both. And he has a real co-star here: the organ of the Kobe Shoin Women's University Chapel, built in 1983 by French maker Marc Garnier. The realizations of Bach's transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos fare especially well here, with a panoply of subtle colors in the organ. Sample the first movement of the Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, with its mellow yet transcendently mysterious tones in the string ripieni. BIS backs Suzuki up with marvelously clear engineering in the small Japanese chapel, and all in all, this is a Bach organ recording that stands out from the crowd. Highly recommended.