"One World in Eight - The String Summit" from violinist Didier Lockwood is a sublime conversation in the universal language of jazz, performed by an all-star lineup of international musicians from seven European countries and the US, all major names on the international scene. The results: an amazing mixture of modern jazz, fusion and the avant-garde.

At the age of 12, Alexandre Cavaliere met Didier Lockwood, who invited him to Paris, giving his career a flying start. Then, everything followed naturally. Alexandre Cavaliere has been touring the international scene and has an impressive list of performances: at the Princess Grace Theatre in Monaco, as the opening act for Michel Jonasz at the Olympia, at the Espoo Jazz Festival in Finland, at the Brosella Folk & Jazz Festival and at the Djangofolllies, or again, thanks to Dorado Schmitt, in New York, at the Django Reinhardt Festival at Birdland.

One of the great fusion saxophonists, Bob Malach made the move from his hometown of Philadelphia to NYC in 1976. He soon found work with the likes of Stanley Clarke and Alphonse Mouzon (he’s featured on Mouzon’s MPS release Baby Come Back), and was in the studio with Stevie Wonder, Spyro Gyra and the Brecker Brothers. For the first album under his own name, Malach assembled a group of well-known playmates: John Lee and drummer Gerry Brown were high school buddies, and he and keyboardist Jasper van’t Hof had worked together in Mouzon’s group.

During the Swing Era the clarinet was king. Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman led three of the most popular bands of the 30’s and 40’s, yet with the advent of bebop and small-group jazz, the saxophone commandeered the crown, and the clarinet found itself in exile. However, with the advent of the Avant-garde in the 1960’s, a new generation of clarinetists steeped in the tradition, yet yearning to explore the outer limits of the music and their instruments, came to the fore. This live album from the 1979 Baden Baden New Jazz Meeting celebrates six of these adventurers.

Violinist Didier Lockwood's 1983 release The Kid has been called an easy listening fusion album that maintains the depth to be taken seriously. It certainly helps to have Rock and Roll Hall of Fame keyboardist David Sancious (Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Sting), guitar wizard Barry Finnerty (Miles Davis, Brecker Brothers), bassist Alphonso Johnson (Weather Report) and drummer Richie Morales (Spyro Gyra) as bandmates. Lockwood and his versatile musicians take on hard bop, fusion, pop, rock ballads and show off serious jazz chops on John Coltrane's Impressions, played at breakneck speed.

Released at the time in Europe by MPS and in the U.S. by the now-defunct Pausa label, the music from violinist Didier Lockwood's 1980 Montreux Jazz Festival set is in both cases out of print. Lockwood, who can play like Stephane Grappelli, here opts for fusion in a sextet that also includes tenor saxophonist Bob Malach and keyboardist Jan Hammer. Lockwood's unaccompanied "Four Strings Bitch" is a highlight of this well-played date.