Stanley Newcomb Kenton was an American popular music and jazz artist. As a pianist, composer, arranger and band leader, he led an innovative and influential jazz orchestra garnering many successes across several music genres. Though Kenton was to have several pop hits from the early 1940s into the 1960s, much like earlier band leader Paul Whiteman, he categorized his music as forward looking, or "progressive jazz". He was also on the cutting edge of jazz education in creating the Stan Kenton Band Clinics starting in the late 1950s.

A tenor sax legend, known as Pres, whose melodic, smooth-flowing lines made him the most influential and inventive player of the pre-bop era. Lester Young was one of the true jazz giants, a tenor saxophonist who came up with a completely different conception in which to play his horn, floating over bar lines with a light tone rather than adopting Coleman Hawkins' then-dominant forceful approach. A non-conformist, Young (nicknamed "Pres" by Billie Holiday) had the ironic experience in the 1950s of hearing many young tenors try to sound exactly like him.

Maurizio Fiore Salas and Ethan Setiawan are a duo combining elements of jazz with North and South American traditional music. Ethan Setiawan has a command of the mandolin far beyond his twenty-some-odd years, and has won both the National Mandolin Championship at Winfield, KS and the Rockygrass Mandolin Championship. Named “creative and virtuosic” by WBUR, his path has wended its way through traditional bluegrass, to Bach partitas, to free jazz. Maurizio Fiore Salas is an accomplished performer, composer and arranger based in Cambridge, MA. His unique style is born of the combination of elements from Latin American folklore, Jazz improvisation and Western Classical technique. Both musicians also appear with Boston based collective Acoustic Nomads as well.

Michael Ikhifa, also known as Mikifa Sax or simply Miki Ikhifa, is a Lagos, Nigeria-based saxophonist renowned for his versatile musical talent. Ikhifa's musical journey began in 1994 within the church, where he initially played the keyboard. Over time, he mastered a range of instruments including the bass guitar, electric and acoustic guitars, drums, and ultimately the saxophone. Ikhifa's style is deeply influenced by Jazz, Rock, and classical music. His mentors have played a significant role in shaping his approach to music, although specific names are not mentioned, their impact is evident in his performances and compositions.

General critical consensus holds Mahalia Jackson as the greatest gospel singer ever to live; a major crossover success whose popularity extended across racial divides, she was gospel's first superstar, and even decades after her death remains, for many listeners, a defining symbol of the music's transcendent power. This album was originally released on Columbia Records in 1969.

The New York Community Choir began in the early 1970s as an offshoot of the Isaac Douglas Singers, initially including some 100 members under the direction of Benny Diggs. Definitely a gospel ensemble, NYCC developed a style that also gave secular R&B, soul, and pop songs a spiritual dimension; bridging Saturday night and Sunday morning, as it were.

The New York Community Choir began in the early 1970s as an offshoot of the Isaac Douglas Singers, initially including some 100 members under the direction of Benny Diggs. Definitely a gospel ensemble, NYCC developed a style that also gave secular R&B, soul, and pop songs a spiritual dimension; bridging Saturday night and Sunday morning, as it were.

The first piano recording of the composer Jacques Duphly. A composer extraordinary and ahead of his time. A student of Jacques Rouvier and Jean-Marc Luisada, the soloist Alexandra Lescure is also a laureate of the International Competition Les Nuits Pianistiques.

That this record ever nabs a Krautrock tab is solely because the band is German and came up during the
70s timeframe that produced many of those bands. It bears none of the hallmarks of the genre. What’s more interesting is that its a German band that seems to wholly and heavily in-debt themselves to West Coast American rock. They pull much more from Quicksiler Messenger Service, heavier Moby Grape, Kak or West Coast imitators like The Wizards From Kansas than any of their own country’s heavy hitters.

Prayer for What Remains is pianist/composer, Leslie Pintchik’s eighth album. In a personal note that follows the liner notes of her new album, Pintchik writes that the title track “was inspired by a photo taken by the war photographer Joseph Eid. In it, a man smoking a pipe in Aleppo, Syria sits in his bombed-out bedroom, listening to music on a manual gramophone that operates without electricity. A tragic image of war, yes, but one that Eid said ‘talks about life’ as well.” When she listened in the studio to the playback of “Prayer for What Remains”, Pintchik says she was especially moved by the performance of the musicians who played “so true to the tune’s emotional core.”

For anyone who's been listening to great music during the past half-century, Paul Simon is certainly no stranger. So one of the most remarkable things about his extraordinary new masterpiece, "Stranger to Stranger", Paul Simon's 13th solo record, is that it conjures a vivid and vital new context to his well-established genius as a singer and songwriter. Full of thrilling textures that feel fresh and modern, while still offering subtle and artful allusions to our shared musical past, "Stranger to Stranger" presents the perfect opportunity to get to know Paul Simon in a new way.

The jazz supergroup of the year is right here - "SHEroes", convened by pianist-composer Monika Herzig for a second recording by distinguished improvising virtuosos who are all, not just incidentally, women. Monika's deft, always supportive pianism and her warm, joyous, practical sensibility marks every tune with SHEroes. Each song is engaging, the playing accomplished and inspiring.

On "Trip Mode", three-time Grammy nominee Joey DeFrancesco takes you on a musical journey, continuing his mastery of jazz organ as well as showcasing his musical versatility on piano, trumpet and vocals. Along for the journey are his touring comrades, Dan Wilson on guitar and drummer Jason Brown. Bassist Mike Boone is enlisted on a few piano tracks.

Etran de L’Aïr the STARS OF THE AÏR, the longest running wedding band in AGADEZ, capital of Tuareg guitar, return with a new album of sun-schlazed desert sound! Their first album, No.1, brought their music to critics and fans. Their second album, Agadez, sent them into the international touring circuit. And now they're back with 100% SAHARA GUITAR, ready to take on the world, with those swinging melodies, like a sandstorm blowing in from across the sea.

Guess who’s back? Eminem is spinning the block for another round of The Death of Slim Shady about two months after his 12th studio album arrived in July. The Detroit legend is getting spooky for Friday the 13th with the release of his The Death of Slim Shady: Expanded Mourner’s Edition. The deluxe edition gives fans another batch of track to get excited about as they hit streaming services on Friday (Sept. 13).