The rap on Sonny Stitt is that he was little more than an imitator of Charlie Parker, without a firm identity of his own. However, from the evidence of these early Stitt recordings - gathered together into a three-CD box - the first part of the rap doesn't quite ring true, though the second remains an open question. Stitt may have shared an occasional rhetorical turn or blindingly fast run with Bird - most tellingly on "S`Wonderful" - but definitely not his entire style. You can hear plenty of Lester Young influences on the tracks where he plays tenor sax, and many of the ballads preview the soulful inflections that would flourish when he joined the soul-jazz movement in the '60s. Moreover, aware of the Bird backlash, Stitt recorded the majority of these tracks on the tenor, with occasional sessions on the baritone and finally, about two-thirds of the way through the set, on alto…

It seems that the ex-Ten Years After frontman considers this 2012 release a career recap of sorts, at least judging from its title, which references Lee's first solo album circa 1973. Although Mylon LeFevre, who was co-billed on that disc, is inexplicably M.I.A. (it would have been nice for Lee to mention him in his self-penned liner notes), the organic nature of this one does capture the nearly 40-year-old album's rather loose, homespun structure that was such a departure from Ten Years After's "I'm Going Home" boogie. Still, this is bookended by some of Lee's most overtly TYA-sounding material, with the lead-off title track and especially "Midnight Creeper" capturing his first band's psychedelic blues as effectively as anything he's recorded since…

No fewer than four composers vie for attention in volume 78 of the Romantic Piano Concerto. There’s only one official piano concerto here, but it’s a remarkable work from a composer in her mid-teens.

Fritz Wunderlich is in absolutely stunning voice in this classic recording of Mozart's "Turkish" opera brilliantly led by Eugen Jochum. Kurt Bohme is a lively, rich voiced Osmin, while Erika Koth and Lotte Schadle are a vivacious pair of female leads. Friedrich Lenz makes for an expert, lyrical second tenor! "The Rough Guide To Opera" says that "this is a justifiably famous performance, . . . not least for its being the first of the opera to present the score uncut. It is also celebrated for being one of Fritz Wunderlich's last and finest studio recordings.

Johann Friedrich Fasch was a contemporary of Johann Sebastian Bach, and that has seriously hampered the interest in his music. It was the German musicologist Hugo Riemann, who at the beginning of the 20th century made an attempt to restore his reputation.

The world premiere recording on period instruments of Jean-Louis Duport's Six Sonatas for cello and bass, and Three Duos for two cellos performed by Claudio Ronco and Emanuela Vozza.
This album is a tribute to the composer who contributed to the evolution of music for the cello, which took place during the slow but grandiose development between the Baroque and Romantic periods. A slight interest has dedicated to the art of Duport as a composer, despite the attention on to the didactic practice of his studies, ignoring the treasure represented by his most important compositions. A serious fault from the discographic point of view, despite the well-known fact that we inherited the cello basic technique right from Jean-Louis Duport, and we have used it successfully for two centuries.