An amazing record, from an amazing player - the mighty Rufus Harley, heard here on tenor, flute, and soprano sax - as well as bagpipes, his "trademark" instrument! Don't be put off by the bagpipes, though, because Harley plays in a righteous soul jazz groove, and uses the instrument more like a Coltrane-ish reed soloing vehicle, with sheets of hard blown sound, than he does as a corny Scottish sounding one. His playing is great, and he's recorded here with a great group of obscure Detroit musicians who play with a style that hints at the later stuff to come on the Tribe label - Oliver Collins on piano, James Glenn on bass, and Billy Abner on drums.

Contemporary Sudanese music draws a lot of influences both from Arabic musical as well as subsaharan traditions. “[…]It is rooted in the madeeh (praising the Prophet Mohamed in song). The genre filled out into something quite irreverent in the 1930s and 1940s when haqiba music, the madeeh 's secular successor, caught on. Haqiba, a predominantly vocal art in which the musicians accompanying the lead singer use few instruments, spread like wildfire in the urban centres of Sudan. It was the music of weddings, family gatherings and wild impromptu parties.

Days of Future Passed is the second album and first concept album by English rock band The Moody Blues, released in November 1967 by Deram Records. With its fusion of classical and rock elements, it has been cited as one of the first examples of progressive rock. The album's music features psychedelic rock ballads by singer-songwriter and guitarist Justin Hayward, Mellotron played by keyboardist Mike Pinder and orchestral interludes by the London Festival Orchestra. The band and the orchestra only actually play together during the last part of "Nights In White Satin." Days of Future Passed reached number 27 in the UK Albums Chart and number 3 in the US in 1972 Billboard chart.

Dutch Trio (keyboards, bass & drums) led by ex-Ekseption keyboards player Rick Van Der Linden, Trace was considered as the most famous super-group of its country. Its music includes virtuoso, researched, complicated, ever evolving themes, full of breaks and instrumental developments where the keyboards player could show his talent on Hammond organ, synthesizers, harpsichord, piano and Mellotron. By the profusion of its themes and the numerous melodies which compose it, Trace's music is close to ELP. and Yes.

A glance at the catalogue of works by the composer Otto Nicolai quickly reveals that, although he composed an astonishing amount of music during his short, incredibly eventful life of barely 39 years, he paid rather scant attention to the piano—an instrument he played superbly—when it came to his own compositions. Alongside half a dozen operas and two symphonies, as well as a wealth of sacred and secular vocal music, he wrote a handful of piano works that easily fit on a double album. The result is a veritable bonbonnière. Two starkly contrasting sonatas represent the “serious” Nicolai. The founder of the Vienna Philharmonic and director of the Vienna Court Opera is represented, amongst other things, by theatrical occasional music and a fantasia on Casta Diva. The trend conscious, playful composer of The Merry Wives of Windsor also composed a number of light pieces such as the Moon Waltz, which has nothing to fear from comparison to anyone named Strauss.

ritish hard rock heroes BLUE BLUD had it all - the hooks, the look, the material and a decent record deal. Things don't always work out and what should have been a hugely popular band were instead relegated to a cult following. The problem? They were British but sounded (very) American. The Brits had had enough of that and wanted more "territorial sounding bands" shall we say. The Americans had all the American sounding bands they needed. The Japanese fell head over heels in love. When multiple tours and albums that sold respectable weren't quite enough the quintet called it a day and went about their lives. Drummer, Paul Sutcliff spent some time digging through boxes and closets and discovered old demos that never saw the light of day, the limited 'Liquor & Poker' tapes as well as the previously unheard track, "In Love And War.'

For years, Kurt Elling has imagined what might happen if the full force of a modern big band could be shaped around the human voice—not as ornament, but as its emotional and narrative center. In The Brass Palace is the realization of that vision.

Pianist and composer Aaron Parks returns to Blue Note Records—where he released his influential 2008 album Invisible Cinema—with Little Big III, the third studio album from his acclaimed band Little Big featuring guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David Ginyard Jr., and drummer Jongkuk Kim. Co-produced by Parks and Don Was, the collective’s concise, accessible writing and vibrant, empathetic playing elevate the band’s powerfully modern, post-genre concept for improvised music in the 21st century. Throughout, the bandmembers’ kinship is palpable. There’s a vitality at play on the record that is extraordinary; somehow, it’s beautiful and raw in equal measure. “While this record feels the most supple and alive,” Parks says, “it also feels like the most focused album Little Big has recorded — the most distilled down to the essence.”

2017 collection. Jethro Tull is a British rock group, formed in Luton, Bedfordshire, in December 1967. Initially playing blues rock, the band soon developed it's sound to incorporate elements of British folk music and hard rock to forge a progressive rock signature. Jethro Tull has sold over 60 million albums worldwide, with 11 gold and five platinum albums among them. Includes the tracks "Living In The Past," "Locomotive Breath," "Aqualung" and more.

The crown jewel in Apple/EMI’s extensive 2010 John Lennon remasters series, Signature Box contains all of the solo studio albums Lennon released during his lifetime (minus the trio of experimental duet LPs with Yoko Ono released on Apple and Zapple), his first posthumous album Milk and Honey, a disc of non-LP singles, a disc of home demos, but not the 2010 showcase item Double Fantasy Stripped Down, which is available only as a bonus on the indvidual reissue of Double Fantasy. It is, in other words, close enough to complete to perhaps invite a little bit of quibbling about what is absent – Live Peace in Toronto could fit in nicely with this batch and there are outtakes from Menlove Ave missing but the real niggling comes with the home demo disc, which emphasizes demos and alternate takes of songs from Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, leaving behind demos of songs Lennon gave away, including “I’m the Greatest” and “Goodnight Vienna,” which he handed over to Ringo, and songs that never made it to one of his records. Ultimately, this is nitpicking because Signature Box is handsomely produced and contains the best-sounding Lennon remasters – remastered by the team that did the acclaimed 2009 Beatles remasters, using the original mixes, not the recent remixes – which is enough to make this more than worthwhile for the serious Lennon fan.

One of a series of remastered and sonically enhanced editions of the Vangelis albums recorded for the RCA and Arista labels. All of which come in deluxe digipack designs, with masters personally supervised by Vangelis in 2013.
The ground-breaking experimental work ‘Beaubourg’ was Vangelis’ fourth and final album for RCA Records. Released in 1978, the album was recorded at Nemo, his personal studio in London and was a defining experimental electronic album of the era.
This Esoteric Recordings release (undertaken with the full approval and supervision of Vangelis himself) features a booklet that restores the original album artwork.

A stunning version of Schubert's famous 'Death and the Maiden' String Quartet performed on period instruments by one of the leading string quartets of our time, the Quatuor Mosaïques. The 'String Quartet No.14 in D Minor', otherwise known as The Death and the Maiden, is considered one of the pillars of the chamber music repertoire. It's a work that shows Schubert struggling in a world in which he has a lost his bearings, but also yearning for heaven. It is his testament to death. This release also features one of Schubert's earlier quartets, the deeply foreboding D173 in G minor.

Max Reger just couldn't stop composing. With 131 published works, most of them compendiums of several pieces in the same genre, Reger was relentlessly, even recklessly prodigious as a composer. And apparently when he wasn't writing his own music, the fin de siècle Bavarian composer was arranging Bach's. In addition to arrangements of the Brandenburg Concertos and Orchestral Suites for four-hand piano, Reger also transcribed 22 works for solo piano, four organ pieces, and 18 choral preludes, and all of them are included in this two-disc Hyperion set.

Philippe Herreweghe has always seemed well-attuned to the more mystical aspects of Bach’s music, an empathy clearly evident on his new CD of Advent cantatas. Though the opening chorus of BWV 36 seems a touch reserved, those of BWV 61 and 62 match precision with vigour, and Herreweghe’s team of soloists are in fine voice throughout. BWV 36 is a parody, based on an earlier tribute to a local teacher. Bach retained his original music for the arias, but replaced the recitatives with chorales, so the cantata alternates delightfully between dance movements and more formal hymn settings.

Ignaz’s is probably the least well-documented life of the Lachner brothers who numbered Franz and Vinzenz and who were born in Bavaria. Ignaz was a string player – violin and viola – and worked in Munich until Franz managed to secure him a job in Vienna in 1826. He composed and travelled widely, spending a period in Frankfurt between 1861 and 1875 where he conducted Wagner operas which he then cut to fit local taste. Though he achieved a degree of renown during his lifetime Lachner’s works have sunk almost without trace and I doubt whether many, if any, are now in print.