Buddy Guy today remains one of the true international superstars of the Blues. One of his musically most glorious periods was the three classic albums he cut for JSP Records ("D.J. Play My Blues" "Breaking Out" and "Live at the Checkerboard Lounge") and the guesting on brother Phil Guy's wonderful debut album "Red Hot Blues". This compilation features some of the best cuts from that period and those albums. Buddy plays some hot guitar here and is stylistically moving forward from his sixties stuff to the ultra commercial things of today. Buddy always knew that the world would catch up eventually and he would become a superstar - the music here will tell you why.

The Amsterdam Bach Soloists comprise an ensemble of ten or so musicians. They play modern instruments but base their musical approach on ''an undogmatic use of authentic interpreting practice, so that the rich potentialities of the modern instruments can be combined with the baroque way of performing, which is in keeping with the accomplishments of Nikolaus Harnoncourt with the Concertgebouw Orchestra''. Most of the players are, in fact, drawn from the Concertgebouw, though there are some from Frans Bruggen's Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. Nowadays Bach's didactic but very beautiful The Art of Fugue, is widely regarded as a work for solo harpsichord. Bach himself left no precise indication concerning instrumentation but the music was engraved in open score which places each individual voice or strand of the texture on a separate stave. This practice was not uncommon in contrapuntal keyboard works and is one of several features pointing towards the solo harpsichord as being Bach's most likely intention.

Here are four works for trumpet and orchestra all from the pre-Perestroika USSR.
The Arutyunian is a singularly attractive work dating from 1950. It is brilliant (as you would expect), languorously suggestive of warm summer nights in the Caucasus and, in places, a hair's breadth from Gershwin's blues. Those of you who may have heard the violin concerto this is a much more attractive work given a strapping performance and vivid recording. The big theme struts like a toreador.

Founded in 2012 by Cecil Gallois and Xavier de Lignerolles, the Ensemble Tarentule carries out research and dissemination work on the interpretation of polyphonic a cappella music. This exploration, seen through the prism of the madrigal at the end of the 16th century, is extended and enriched by the creation of a contemporary repertoire, in connection with the composers of today. The musicality of the Ensemble is due to the color of the voices which complement each other and have become accustomed to working together since its creation to find a perfect harmony and a specific sound - like the members of a string quartet.

La version de Véronique Gens de La Voix humaine est très attendue ! Cette « tragédie lyrique en un acte » est faite pour elle, son sens du verbe et son intensité dramatique sont au rendez-vous de ce monologue composé par Poulenc en 1958, sur un texte de Jean Cocteau. On est bien loin ici du Poulenc « léger » des années 1920. Cocteau lui fait d’ailleurs le plus beau des compliments : « Cher Francis, tu as fixé, une fois pour toutes, la façon de dire mon texte. » Véronique Gens confie avoir toujours voulu interpréter et enregistrer cette pièce ; c’est maintenant chose faite avec ses complices de l’Orchestre National de Lille et de son directeur musical, Alexandre Bloch. Également présente sur l’album, la Sinfonietta, qui est en fait une véritable symphonie, mais, comme l’écrit Nicolas Southon, « il est indéniable que l’œuvre – commandée par la BBC à Poulenc en 1947 - possède une fraîcheur et une liberté de ton qui justifient son titre ».

Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros—consisting of Bobby Weir, Don Was, Jay Lane and Jeff Chimenti—are set for the release of their second vinyl collection of recorded material, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros: Live in Colorado Vol. 2, October 7 on Third Man Records. “This was our first quick tour with The Wolfpack,” Weir says. “There’s a rawness to it that we’ll prolly never get again…”The album follows Bobby Weir &Wolf Bros: Live in Colorado, which was released this past February to critical acclaim. Vol. 2 also features songs recorded live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Colorado in June, 2021—a documentation of their first live audience concerts in over a year due to the pandemic—featuring Greg Leisz on pedal steel, along with The Wolfpack: Alex Kelly, Brian Switzer, Adam Theis, Mads Tolling and Sheldon Brown.

On this disc, Jean Guillou teams up with Edo DeWaart and the San Francisco Symphony for a lush performance of Camille Saint-Saens Symphony No. 3, popularly known as the Organ Symphony. This is a lush performance of the Organ Symphony with spot-on tempi, great orchestral balance, and unsurpassed balance between organ and orchestra. This symphony has one long melodic line after another, and DeWaart keeps a long view that prevents any sense of meandering. The organ is stunningly recorded. Brass blaze with glory. Strings are lush. Timpani are extremely well-defined. The clarity of the recording provides an excellent window into finer details. It is difficult to imagine how anything could have been improved upon. The disc is filled out with a strong performance of Widor's Allegro from his Symphony No. 6. This account of the Organ Symphony has everything going for it. There are no obvious weaknesses. If you have excellent subwoofers, they will get the workout of their life. Very Highly Recommended!

This, one of Tippett's earliest acknowledged works, is one of his most popular. The music relates the true story of a young German Jew who, terrified and enraged at the treatment of his mother, kills a Nazi officer and touches off a violent pogrom. Tippett adopts the structure of Bach's Passions, in which arias alternate with choruses and Lutheran hymns (chorales), although in place of the chorales Tippett substitutes magnificently moving Negro spirituals. "A Child of our Time" offers music of rage, poignancy, and deep compassion. As the title itself implies, it is both specific to a certain time and place, and universal as well. No lover of classical music can afford to ignore it.

The executives at Prestige must have been felt ecstatic when they heard Gene Ammons first play after his release from a very severe seven-year jail sentence. The great tenor proved to still be in his prime, his huge sound was unchanged and he was hungry to make new music. This CD, which completely reissues the first two LPs Ammons cut after his return (The Boss Is Back! and Brother Jug!) rewards repeated listenings. The first date (in an acoustic quintet with pianist Junior Mance) hints at his earlier bop-based music while the numbers from the following day (with organist Sonny Phillips) find Ammons playing over a couple of boogaloo vamps very much of the period. Actually it is his ballad statements (particularly "Here's That Rainy Day," "Feeling Good" and even "Didn't We") that really make this CD memorable, although on "He's a Real Gone Guy" Ammons shows that he had not forgotten how to jam the blues either.

The Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 3 is rarely heard, though it is a finely crafted work worth greater attention. It has suffered alongside the magnificent and superior Second and the ever-popular First. Moreover, it is not a bona fide concerto at all, the composer having completed only the first movement before his sudden death in 1893. Contrary to the suggestion of a few, it is highly unlikely he intended to produce a one-movement concerto. Tchaikovsky wrote two other piano pieces the same year bearing the titles "Andante" and "Finale," respectively. Following his death, Taneyev orchestrated these and attached them to the Concerto, though Tchaikovsky had left no indication they were to be a part of it. But the pair did share something in common with the completed first movement: a theme source – the incomplete Symphony No. 7. In any event, the opening movement of this Concerto is the most compelling, featuring an exuberant main theme whose first two notes are the central melodic element. An attractive slow melody is soon presented, followed by a theme of great vivacity and rhythmic drive.