Ramsey Lewis staked his claim to fame with The In Crowd, an instrumental version of Dobie Gray's Top 40 hit. He also was one of the first soul jazz icons of the mid-'60s, based on the strength of the sales of this recording, done over three days during a club date at the Bohemian Caverns in Washington, D.C. What is not readily acknowledged over the years is that bassist Eldee Young is really the star of the show. He's the one who gets the crowd revved up with his vocalizing in tandem with the notes he is playing. It's on his Ray Charles-like take on "Tennessee Waltz" and a similar treatment of Gale Garnett's minor pop hit "You Been Talkin' 'Bout Me Baby" that gets the patrons off. Of course the quintessential hip shakin' introductory title track gets the groove in motion, but it's Young that lights the fuse…

A brand new compilation celebrating the early years of Fleetwood Mac (1969 - 1974). The release features selections from Then Play On (1969), Kiln House(1970), Future Games (1971), Bare Trees (1972), Penguin (1973), Mystery To Me (1973) & Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974). Including the classic tracks "Oh Well (Pt. 1)," "Jewel Eyed Judy," "Future Games," "Hypnotized," "Prove Your Love" & Many More! This release will be a companion piece to the current Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits, which features tracks from 1975 and later.

King Crimson opened 1970 scarcely in existence as a band, having lost two key members (Ian McDonald and Michael Giles), with a third (Greg Lake) about to leave. Their second album - largely composed of Robert Fripp's songwriting and material salvaged from their stage repertory ("Pictures of a City" and "The Devil's Triangle") - is actually better produced and better sounding than their first. Surprisingly, Fripp's guitar is not the dominant instrument here: The Mellotron, taken over by Fripp after McDonald's departure - and played even better than before - still remains the band's signature. The record doesn't tread enough new ground to precisely rival In the Court of the Crimson King. Fripp, however, has made an impressive show of transmuting material that worked on stage ("Mars" aka "The Devil's Triangle") into viable studio creations, and "Cadence and Cascade" may be the prettiest song the group ever cut…

This expanded edition of Feels Like Home includes three unreleased tracks from the recording session; plus a DVD mixed in 5.1 Surround Sound of of four live tracks filmed at the Teatro Nuevo Alcala in Madrid, Spain; two music videos; and an exclusive interview.

Ida Haendel’s sinewy and athletic reading of the often under-rated Britten combines toughness with a cumulative dramatic impetus which is hard to resist. Berglund and the Bournemouth players respond with a terse and argumentative vigour, suitably balanced between resignation and defiant rhetoric, especially in the closing Passacaglia. The Walton Concerto, also dating from 1938-9, is played with an apposite blend of inscrutable panache, as in the irrepressibly brilliant central movement, and elsewhere, a sensuous, if occasionally over-indulgent languor. Rare lapses in the finale can be safely overlooked, in a performance of eloquence and undisputed stature.

Live and Kickin' is a 2003 live album by Willie Nelson, featuring music stars of diverse genres like Eric Clapton, Shania Twain, Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Norah Jones, Ray Charles, Steven Tyler, Wyclef Jean, ZZ Top, Paul Simon.

Already an obscure record when it was initially released in 1980, Harald Grosskopf's Synthesist has become something of a cult item, the kind of album that inspires devotion in aficionados of early electronica and German music. Grosskopf himself has kept steadily busy as a solo musician and session drummer since the late '60s, being associated with early lineups of the Scorpions and Wallenstein and working with Lilli Berlin and Cosmic Jokers, among many others. But despite his long underground career, his debut solo Synthesist may ultimately stand as his defining work and as a key representation of the path of electronic music.

John Baldwin was a lay clerk at St George’s Chapel, Windsor in 1575 and became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1598. The so-called ‘Baldwin Partbooks’, held at Christ Church, Oxford, were his creation – a very personal collection, representing his individual tastes and interests from a wealth of English and Continental polyphony and consort music.
As in their previous collaboration, an exploration of the similarly conceived partbooks of Robert Dow, the Marian Consort and Rose Consort of Viols have kept faith with Baldwin’s own intentions, bringing to light some of the rarer gems preserved by this great advocate and music-lover and providing the listener with ‘such sweete musicke: as dothe much delite yeelde’.

The Naxos recordings by the Kodály Quartet are outstanding in every way and would. The performances are superbly shaped, naturally paced and alive; the playing is cultivated, yet it has depth of feeling too, and the group readily communicate their pleasure in this wonderful music. …The digital recording has vivid presence and just the right amount of ambience: the effect is entirely natural.

The final offering from the magical collaboration between Al Green and producer Willie Mitchell, Have a Good Time found the dynamic duo in the midst of a creative crossroads. Green had just purchased a church and was looking to pour his energies into his congregation and his newly appointed title of Reverend. While the message and tones of religion aren't as obvious on Have a Good Time as they were on Full of Fire, they still do make appearances here and there. But it wasn't just a change in Green's life that made Have a Good Time so distinct from the earlier classics; it was also the changing shift in cultural tastes (thanks in no small part to the emergence of disco to the forefront of America's collective dance consciousness)…

The Japanese pianist and recent DG signing Nobuyuki Tsujii releases a further pre-release track of his intensely awaited upcoming debut album on DG. For the album, he has chosen Beethoven’s formidable Hammerklavier Sonata, renowned for its dual technical und intellectual challenges, combined with the lyricism of Liszt’s affectionate transcription of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98 (“To the Distant Beloved”).Nobuyuki, who learns every score by heart on account of his blindness, commented on the daunting nature of the Hammerklavier: “It’s such a long work that it’s very difficult to maintain your concentration. I spent a lot of time preparing for the recording … making the music my own. … The more you play it, the more deeply you feel it. There are aspects of Beethoven’s experience that overlap with my own – he lost his hearing but still wrote wonderful, and very difficult, pieces like this sonata. So I worked on it with great respect.”

A forbidding and gothic new score by Christopher Young (Hellraiser, Species, Urban Legend, The Grudge, The Exorcism of Emily Rose) for the F.W. Murnau classic 1922 silent-movie Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, one of the most influential films of all time and one that continues to cast its long shadow across the horror movie genre even still. The perfect match of composer and movie.The recording of this new score was made with Frank Strobel, conductor, Saya Hashino, organ, and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich.

Named after the Greek goddess of hunting and the wilderness, The Artemis Quartett was formed in 1989 in Lübeck, Germany. They are recognized for their chamber music repertoire, most notably Beethoven’s string quartets and are considered to be one of the foremost string quartets in the world. Originally founded by four students of chamber music at Lübeck Conservatory, they came to international prominence when they won first prize at the ARD Wettbewerb in 1996, followed by another first prize at the Premio Borciani six months later. They were invited to the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, where they were able to expand their musical studies. In 1999, the Artemis Quartett made their debut at the Berlin Philharmonie, which led to the ensemble performing at international festivals all over the world. As the years progressed, the members of the quartet would change, but their performances and recordings continued to enchant critics and music lovers alike. The Artemis Quartett has performed with a variety of artists including Sabine Meyer, Elisabeth Leonskaya, Juliane Banse and Jörg Widmann. The Artemis Quartett’s recorded output includes releases such as Mozart: Flötenquartette (1997), Wolf, Zemlinsky, Webern & Berg: Streichquartett (1997), Beethoven: String Quartets Op. 95 & 59/1 (2005), Verklärte Nacht (2006), and Shostakovich (2019). The quartet has received many awards and accolades over the years including winning the Echo Klassik, Gramophone Award and the Diapason d’or for some of their recorded works.

'Happy Apples’ presents a collection of improvised duo exchanges between legendary free jazz vocalist Julie Tippetts, whose spell-binding vocals intermingle perfectly with saxophonist Kevin Figes’ atmospheric playing. Both musicians supplement the recording with an array of percussive devices, including the quirky tinkling 1970s toy that lends the album its name. The epic opening track “The Third Harmony” sets the mood for the recording as Tippetts displays a dazzling array of vocal techniques throughout, with Figes switching to flute and percussion accompaniment. Other tracks involve strange sounds - a crackling transistor radio, squeaking plastic chicken and toy duck that complement the traditional instruments and Julie’s voice, which is the most powerful and striking of them all.

After the successful Dusk of the Ages (2019) campaign Furor Gallico are back with a vengeance, once again brilliantly blending extreme metal music with traditional Celtic, Irish and Breton tunes. While ‘Future to Come’ cannot be considered as a concept-album, most of the songs are based on the idea of physical and spiritual redemption. The listener will be thrown in a multifaceted world where every song is one of many scenarios - from epic and apocalyptic landscapes to the inner reconciliation with ourselves and the Earth - each unique in its style and yet well balanced, so to take him on a journey through life’s sorrows and deliverance.