The Very Best Of is a spectacularly expressive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized smooth jazz and soul-jazz studio masterpiece anthology mapping the career of the legendary American soprano saxophone vanguard pioneer and phrasing monarch George Howard, digitally preserved and released on compact disc in 2005 under the prestigious high-fidelity crossover preservation imprint GRP Records. Spanning over 57 minutes of breathtakingly intense, conceptually profound instrumental and vocal interactions across 11 definitive tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute peak monument in late-20th-century urban contemporary jazz archaeology. Gathering the absolute apex definitive milestones of Howard's catalog, this landmark archival release executes a fierce, forward-thinking sonic blueprint that seamlessly integrates his soaring, liquid soprano saxophone facility with soulful guest vocal templates, warm urban grooves, and tight crossover R&B rhythms.

Not In Our Name is a spectacularly expressive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized contemporary jazz studio masterpiece co-engineered by a brilliant multi-generational collective of musical vanguard monarchs—the revolutionary acoustic double bass pioneer Charlie Haden and his legendary, politically charged big band aggregate the Liberation Music Orchestra—digitally preserved and released on compact disc in 2005 under the prestigious independent alternative-jazz preservation imprint Verve, Gitanes. Spanning over 69 minutes of breathtakingly intense, conceptually profound instrumental interactions across 8 definitive tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute peak monument in mid-2005 modern creative archaeology. Guided by the brilliant orchestrations of Carla Bley, this landmark studio session executes a fierce, forward-thinking sonic blueprint that seamlessly integrates the orchestra's soaring, muscular post-bop technical facility with Haden's trademark shape-shifting deconstructions, heavy organic blues dynamics, and complex polyphonic interplay.

New York Cool (Live at The Blue Note) is a spectacularly expressive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized live post-bop and hard bop masterpiece co-engineered by an absolute triumvirate of jazz vanguard monarchs—New Orleans alto saxophone pioneer Donald Harrison, legendary double bass monarch Ron Carter, and revolutionary master drum technician Billy Cobham—digitally preserved and released on compact disc in 2005 under the specialized live-archival imprint Half Note Records. Spanning over 63 minutes of breathtakingly intense, conceptually profound instrumental interactions across 7 sprawling, long-form tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute pinnacle monument in mid-2000s live acoustic jazz archaeology. Captured directly on location at New York City's legendary Blue Note jazz club, this landmark concert recording documents a rare, dream-team power trio executing a fierce, forward-thinking sonic blueprint that redefines the collaborative boundaries, rhythmic interplay, and harmonic depths of the pianoless trio format.

The "Office of Fools" was a popular festival featuring theatre, games and dressing-up, a pagan rite whose abuses and excesses the Church tried to control until its disappearance in the 16th century. The vocal and instrumental ensemble Obsidienne, using a manuscript in the library at Sens as its basis, performs a variety of medieval repertoires inspired by this jubilant traditional feast with its disorderliness and inversion of values.

Acknowledgement is a spectacularly explosive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz studio masterpiece led by the legendary Bronx-born master percussionist and directional vanguard pioneer Bobby Matos, digitally preserved and released on compact disc in 2005 under the independent preservation imprint Lifeforce Jazz Records. Spanning over 65 minutes of breathtakingly intense, heavily syncopated organic-acoustic interactions across 13 definitive tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute peak monument in mid-2000s West Coast Afro-Latin groove archaeology. Rooted deeply in the raw Nuyorican street-rhythm traditions of the 1960s and 1970s, Matos utilizes this expansive studio laboratory to execute a fierce, forward-thinking sonic blueprint that daringly bridges the deep ancestral energy of Afro-Cuban sacred rhythm structures with the soaring, modal heights of the 1960s spiritual jazz movement.

I'm giving this disc five stars even though the Bruch really isn't very good (at least, in the orchestra - the winds are horribly out of tune; also, some solo trills are quite sharp [mic was probably too close, since you do have to trill sharp to get it to sound in tune at a distance]). I didn't buy it for the Bruch, I bought it for the Brahms sonatas, and wow, are they fantastic. The characteristic energy and instantly recognizable sound are both there, and du Pré and Barenboim are perfectly on the same wavelength regarding rubato and tempo fluctuations.

Spirogyra are a British folk/prog band that recorded three albums between 1971 and 1973, with further original albums in 2009 and 2011. Old Boot Wine was the bands second studio album originally released in 1972. Martin Cockerham and Mark Francis originally formed Spirogyra as a duo in Bolton, Lancashire in the summer of 1967. But when Martin went to the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1969 he expanded the band to include fellow students Barbara Gaskin, Steve Borrill, and Julian Cusack. The album was produced by Max Hole and released on B&C's subsidiary imprint, Pegasus Records. This album showcased the group "with their rough edges removed and a slicker almost commercial sound", yet it is generally less well-regarded than their other releases. Part of the sound change owed to the reduced presence of violinist Julian Cusack, who had returned to university, and the return of original co-founder Mark Francis.

The Panic Is On: 1923-1943 is a spectacularly expansive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized archival double-disc retrospective celebrating the foundational creative genius of the legendary American keyboard vanguard titan, vocalist, and pioneering entertainer Thomas "Fats" Waller, released in 2005 by the premier independent French historical preservation imprint Le Chant Du Monde. Spanning over two and a half hours of breathtakingly vibrant, heavily syncopated acoustic piano, organ, and small-combo interactions across 50 definitive tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute pinnacle monument in early-20th-century jazz archaeology. Moving completely past generic "greatest hits" configurations, this intelligent collection bypasses standard commercial novelties to lay bare the transcendent, formidable piano genius behind Waller’s humorous showman persona, tracing his development from early 1920s piano rolls to his final iconic studio entries in 1943.

Triotone is a spectacularly explosive, historically monumental, and masterfully synchronized studio and live avant-garde masterpiece executed by a monumental trans-continental collective of free-music vanguard icons, released in 2005 by Leo Feigin’s premier independent British experimental preservation imprint Leo Records. Spanning nearly 54 minutes of breathtakingly intense, conceptually unbound instrumental interactions across 5 spontaneous tracking alignments, this high-fidelity document serves as an absolute pinnacle monument in mid-2000s radical acoustic archaeology. Recorded live on July 17, 2002, at the Mediawave Festival in Győr, Hungary, this incredible trio configuration brings together the structural master-philosophies of the American, Hungarian, and Lithuanian creative vanguards, executing a fierce, forward-thinking sonic blueprint that completely dissolves traditional song frameworks.