Beethoven composed his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies more or less simultaneously during the years 1804-8, and they were both first performed in a memorable all-Beethoven concert in December 1808 that also featured the Fourth Piano Concerto (with Beethoven performing at the piano for the last time in public), the Choral Fantasy, and some other works. Despite being composed together, the Fifth and Sixth inhabit very different musical worlds. The fifth is a marvel of terse, dramatic writing, whereas the Sixth is more leisurely, frankly programmatic, and celebrates the glories of nature and the countryside.

The shear breadth and diversity of artists gathered for this benefit project, Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams, is a tribute to the affection Victoria Williams' peers had for her. It conveniently also makes for heady listening for any fan of contemporary music. The hard, brittle edges of Soul Asylum ("Summer of Drugs") and Buffalo Tom ("Merry Go Round") stand shoulder to shoulder with the country-folk of Lucinda Williams ("Main Road") and Maria McKee (an inspired and riveting "Opelousas (Sweet Relief)"). Sweet Relief offers a unique opportunity to introduce yourself to an enduring songwriter while savoring some of the day's most intriguing musicians. How sweet it is!

This Bach stretches, overflows, dares unexpected slow tempi and explores new territory. the first Partitas are exceptionally poetic. The fourth explodes in a multi-coloured fireworks display.. The sixth reaches zeniths of inspiration.

Before you do anything else with Flash, drop the needle on the last half of “Ambitious,” the album’s chug-a-funk leadoff track. Just as singer Jimmy Hall steps back from the song’s skeletal tune and jackhammer rhythm with a Tarzanlike “yeah!” Jeff Beck’s guitar suddenly shoots up into the mix like a runaway jet, cutting a reckless path through Nile Rodgers’ spit ‘n’ polish production with sawtooth distortion and heat-ray feedback. Then, in a daredevil display of rock-guitar heroics that recalls Jimi Hendrix on Electric Ladyland in his full pyrotechnic glory, Beck yanks his guitar up and down flights of freakish harmonic steps, executes breathtaking suicide dives with his vibrato bar, and claws away at the song’s core riff with angry trills and harsh, scraping leads.

Albums like this are why CD reissues exist and why Wounded Bird are so important. There are handfulls of classics from the jazz-funk-R&B world in the 70's and 80's that are definately lost classics and many with huge commercial potencial that never came close to getting it.Narada Michael Walden's 1982 date 'Confidance' is among them.

Rit 2 album by Lee Ritenour was released Jan 25, 2005 on the Collectables label. As a producer and musical arranger, Lee Ritenour has proven to be a tasteful genius, and it never shows more strongly than on here.

Don't expect too many surprises from Kirk Whalum's Hymns in the Garden if you're familiar with his previous few gospel-tinged albums like Unconditional and The Gospel According to Jazz. Like those two albums, Whalum goes out of his way to invest a considerable amount of spiritual sentiment into his candy-coated crossover jazz. On this particular album, the religious overtones come via the song titles, "I Will Trust in the Lord," "Christ Is All," and "I Want Jesus to Walk With Me" being three examples.

Marco Vitale continues his thrilling project to record the complete cantatas by Handel, many of which have never before been recorded in their entirety or indeed at all, together with ensemble Contrasto Armonico and here featuring the Italian soprano Beatrice Palumbo. Six cantatas are presented in this third volume of the series, grouped together by the common theme of unrequited love, including "Chi rapì la pace", one of the earliest of Handel's Italian works.