52nd Street (1978). 52nd Street is Billy Joel's sixth studio album and the first to reach #1 in Billboard. The 1978 release contains some essential American pop songs including the three Top 40 hits, "My Life," "Big Shot," and "Honesty."
The sophisticated and somewhat jazzy album is conceptualized like a musical, a showcase of masterful writing and musicianship. Joel interjects rock, soul and Latin rhythyms along with the jazz. The music flows together smoothly, thanks to Phil Ramone's seamless production and Joel's melodic craftsmanship. The jazz influences come through most strongly on "Zanzibar" - featuring Freddie Hubbard's trumpet solos - "Stiletto," and the title track. The album's standout is the gorgeously layered love song, "Until the Night"…

Rare 1992 UK 127-track remastered 6-CD box set compilation featuring a complete as possible collection of recordings from John Lee Hooker's Vee-Jay years, including previously unreleased tracks. Themaster expresses the passion of the blues, from blue mood to the boogie, showing his ability to transcend generations and conquer new audiences. Each disc is issued in a jewel case picture sleeve and housed in a silver embossed picture slipcase with a 28-page booklet.
John Lee Hooker was beloved worldwide as the king of the endless boogie, a genuine blues superstar whose droning, hypnotic one-chord grooves were at once both ultra-primitive and timeless. But John Lee Hooker recorded in a great many more styles than that over a career that stretched across more than half a century.

This Sergio Mendes-produced release from 1987 was the last complete studio effort from the greatest female jazz/pop singer of the 20th Century (apologies to Ella). It is also a beautifully sung and orchestrated compilation of latin-influenced jazz, in the vein of Jobim, Getz, Gilberto, etc. A must for any fan of the genre, or anyone who wishes to get acquainted with the incredible vocal range of the magnificant Miss V. All ten cuts are special, but listen to "Wanting More" and the closer, "Your Smile" to get chills up your spine.

Happily, Collector's Choice Music has re-released the first two albums by legendary German group Faust, on one CD. These are perhaps the two finest albums Faust ever recorded (one could also include the classic Faust IV album), and this release is a great way to start exploring what this band has to offer, or simply getting your hands on a couple of albums that have been difficult to find until recently. The first Faust album was so groundbreaking in its innovation that it was impossible to say what its influences were. Three lengthy tracks verged far from the standard rock paradigms of the day, bearing little resemblance to anything the genres of psychedelia, progressive rock, or space rock had yet offered. Musique concrete collided with analog synthesizer drones, freaked out electric guitars, plunking piano, tape edits, loopy marching bands, chanted and spoken vocals, reverent church organ…

This album starts to take a different direction to the groups first three albums. Leader Richard Pinhas is not doing as much Fripp-inspired guitar playing as on other albums, but drumming and percussion is now more important than before. There is also more of a 'rock' feel to some of the songs. By incorporating more of a rock sound, Heldon doesn't try to streamline their sound but the complete opposite: it makes the music more aggressive and sinister sounding. The line-up is never consistent and other than Pinhas, the only really noteworthy name is keyboardist Patrick Gauthier, who was a member of Magma at the time.

The Spanish violinist María Dueñas releases her second DG album, on which she plays Nicolò Paganini’s iconic 24 Caprices. She couples the pieces, which are known as some of the hardest works that have ever been written for violin, with a selection of later works inspired by Paganini, presenting music by composers ranging from Berlioz and Kreisler to Gabriela Ortiz.

In her new album, Maria Lettberg takes a musical journey through the countries of the European Union. She has curated a selection of piano works, one from each of the respective countries, regardless of period or style. All the major styles of classical music are represented in this collection, from the Renaissance, Baroque and Viennese classical periods to Romanticism, Late Romanticism, Impressionism, 20th-century music, minimalism and neoclassicism. Each piece from the 27 countries has its own fascinating characteristics, and together they paint a multi-layered picture of the European Union.

Sonya Yoncheva has long been fascinated by George Sand. Writer, dramaturg and literary critic, a journalist and an intellectual, the lover of Alfred de Musset and then of Frédéric Chopin as well as being a friend of Franz Liszt, Pauline Viardotand Marie Dorval, and beyond her remarkable destiny as a woman blessed with the ‘glorious and complete independence’ which in her age was reserved solely for men, Sand embodies the entire spirit, the essence even, of the 19th century.

This four-disc, 68-track collection paints a broad definition of the blues, with cuts ranging from vintage country blues (Robert Johnson's “Cross Road Blues,” Son House's “Death Letter Blues”) to uptown jazz blues (Nina Simone's “Blues for My Mama,” Billie Holiday's “Billie’s Blues”), Chicago blues (a live version of “Howling Wolf” by Muddy Waters), British blues (Jeff Beck's “JB’s Blues”), and contemporary acoustic blues (“Am I Wrong” by Keb' Mo'), with plenty of stops in between, making for a random but varied playlist that circles the different approaches and musical definitions of the genre.