Glenn Miller's reign as the most popular bandleader in the U.S. came relatively late in his career and was relatively brief, lasting only about three and a half years, from the spring of 1939 to the fall of 1942. But during that period he utterly dominated popular music, and over time he has proven the most enduring figure of the swing era, with reissues of his recordings achieving gold record status 40 years after his death. Miller developed a distinctive sound in which a high-pitched clarinet carried the melody, doubled by a saxophone section playing an octave lower, and he used that sound to produce a series of hits that remain definitive examples of swing music.

One of the prototypical Italian-American crooners, Vic Damone parlayed a smooth, mellow baritone into big-time pop stardom during the '40s and '50s. Early in his career, his inflection and phrasing were clearly indebted to Frank Sinatra, who once famously called him "the best set of pipes in the business." Overall, though, Damone's style was softer than Sinatra's and owed less to the elasticity of jazz, especially since he was a solo performer who never served an apprenticeship with a swing orchestra.

Known to music fans around the world as the “King of the Boogie,” John Lee Hooker endures as one of the true superstars of the blues genre. His work is widely recognized for its impact on modern music – his simple, yet deeply effective songs transcend borders and languages around the globe.

Udo Dirkschneider has done a very cool thing and recreated the classic Accept album Balls to the Wall to celebrate it’s 40th anniversary with the help of some excellent friends, and it’s pretty damn amazing. Let’s start with Joakim Broden of Sabaton’s duet on the opener “Balls to the Wall”; what a great remake with a darker vocal style. The music is very faithful to the original recording, with precision heavy guitars, bass and drums punching hard, and great vocal duets.

Nothing is the third album from DARKSIDE: nine transmissions of negative space, telepathic seance, and spectral improvisation. On their first two reinventions, Nicolás Jaar and Dave Harrington entered the studio with a clutch of scattered ideas to mold into what became the revered Psychic(2013) and Spiral (2021). But Nothing reflects a search for form borne out of spontaneous elliptical jams, acoustic riffing, and digital levitations. And in a fundamental shift from their first dozen years as a band, the duo recruited their longtime friend and collaborator, the drummer and instrument designer Tlacael Esparza, to become a full-time member.

Swedish all-female rock ‘n’ roll group Thundermother have been brought back to life, following the departures of former frontwoman Guernica Mancini, drummer Emlee Johansson, and bassist Mona Lindgren in 2023. Taking their places are current frontwoman Linnéa Vikström Egg, drummer Joan Massing, and returning bassist Majsan Lindberg. Continuing their fight for rock ‘n’ roll, their sixth studio album, Dirty & Divine (2025), is the follow-up to their previous record, Black and Gold (2022). Besides the inclusion of new members, one major difference between the two records is that all the material on Dirty & Divine was written by guitarist Filippa Nässil, who was pregnant throughout the recording process, and Vikström. It should also be noted that eight of the 10 songs were recorded in four days; according to Nässil, the album marked the quickest recording session Thundermother have ever done.

Though Bob Wills has long been heralded as a country-music icon (an inspiration for artists from Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson through Lyle Lovett and Asleep at the Wheel, and toasted by Waylon Jennings in "Bob Wills Is Still the King"), the Texas fiddler considered himself more of a jazz bandleader. The Texas Playboys' signature dance-floor style of Western swing encompassed blues, jazz, country, and pop standards, with a sophistication at odds with the era's image of "hillbilly music."

Massimo Farao' is a wonderful Italian pianist was born May 16th, 1965, in Genoa. Farao's passionate style and stoic romanticism are very attractive along with the rich harmonies he creates. He studied piano with Maestro Flavio Crivelli and began his career collaborating with musicians from the Genoa Area, especially with the bassist Piero Leveratto. In 1993 he was invited for the first time in the USA. He plays with Red Holloway and Albert "Tootie" Heath on a tour on the West Coast. In the same year he founded "We love Jazz" Workshop, now become one of the biggest events in Europe for jazz teaching.

The digitalization of the analog tape was done by Jonathan Stokes and Neil Hutchinson, engineers of the Classic Sound Ltd, who both used to be colleagues of the Decca Record Company. Answering the request from Stereo Sound, the two experienced engineers digitized the signal with great care and transferred it to mediums without any sound treatments such as sound compression. Hence, noises and sound dropouts present on the original master tape were kept intact, but we are now able to provide audio enthusiasts with the ultimate sound that is as close to the original master tape as possible and that only those involved in the recording process could have listened to.

With their cool, group-oriented sound, bop-inflected improvisations, and classical chamber aesthetics, the Modern Jazz Quartet rose to prominence in the '50s, expanding the jazz paradigm and bridging the gap between smoky jazz clubs and prestigious concert halls.

Beautiful Italian female jazz tenor saxophonist Sofia Tremelli shocking Venus Records Vol. 2! Ambiance Jazz Love Sound Tenor expressed in the new Sofia's modern jazz style, recorded in New York for the first time in a mysterious way!

Rejecting the abrasive guitars of their punk-era contemporaries in favor of lushly romantic synthesizers, Ultravox emerged as one of the primary influences on the British electro-pop movement of the early '80s.

Swedish jazz brothers Erik and Johan Tengholm (trumpet and double bass, respectively) have grown to be an important part of the Swedish jazz scene during the last decade - especially after starting their record label TengTones in 2021. On this record, you’ll hear them play both as a duo and together with some of their favorite musicians, who are also dear friends and some of the most prominent instrumentalists of not only the Swedish but the international jazz scene

Greek-only commercial release

Right from the start Chesky Records had a sound. David Chesky set out to make “aural photographs” of each session, capturing as much of the sound of being there as the technology allowed, continually pushing it forward. Every note of every session was recorded “live,” there were no overdubs, no fixing it in the mix.