Rock music's first two-LP box set, A Gift from a Flower to a Garden overcomes its original shortcomings and stands out as a prime artifact of the flower-power era that produced it. The music still seems a bit fey, and overall more spacy than the average Moody Blues album of this era, but the sheer range of subjects and influences make this a surprisingly rewarding work. Essentially two albums recorded simultaneously in the summer of 1967, the electric tracks include Jack Bruce among the session players. The acoustic tracks represent an attempt by Donovan to get back to his old sound and depart from the heavily electric singles ("Sunshine Superman," etc.) and albums he'd been doing - it is folkier and bluesier (in an English folk sense) than much of his recent work.

Originally released back in 1980, at a time when traditional country artists seemed to be struggling to understand where their sound would fit in with the newly polished production of the time, his eight-song collection The Real Thang was only released on vinyl and met with mixed reviews when it came out. Listening to it now, it's odd to think that the album's blend of White's signature swamp rock sound and smooth late 70s disco was so cruelly overlooked, because it feels totally in step with a lot of other things that were happening in country in the early 1980s.

SFJAZZ proudly releases "Collective Imagery", by the 2024-25 edition of SF Jazz Collective, the distinguished organization’s flagship group since it launched in 2004 with a mandate that, annually, each band member create a fresh arrangement of works by a modern master and a newly commissioned piece. On Collective Imagery, for the first time, SFJC eschews arrangements and presents a program of entirely original music, upholding a remark by its first putative leader and musical director, Joshua Redman, that it is “a true composer’s collective.”

Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony deliver a commanding new interpretation of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, released on SFS Media. With precision, power, and crystalline clarity, Salonen illuminates the rhythmic vitality and architectural brilliance of Stravinsky’s post-war masterpiece. The orchestra’s dynamic range and refined textures bring fresh urgency to the work’s angular energy and cinematic scope, capturing both its modernist bite and emotional depth. Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements stands as a testament to Salonen’s deep affinity for 20th-century repertoire and the San Francisco Symphony’s world-class artistry.

Following on from Amadeus and Ludwig, the Zaïde Quartet continues its exploration of the great masters’ repertoire with Franz, an opus devoted entirely to Schubert. True to their original and daring approach to recording, the four musicians paint a striking portrait of the Austrian composer through one of his greatest masterpieces: Death and the Maiden. This masterpiece is framed by transcriptions of two lieder: ‘Le Roi des Aulnes’ and a sublime aria from the opera ‘Fierrabras’. The Schubertian universe is expressed here in all its existential depth, with a permanent duality between light and darkness, gentleness and blackness, life and death, leading to a final redemption of overwhelming beauty.

Far and away the season's best cabaret show… Sometimes, something remarkable can grow from the most unexpected juxtapositions. At 28, Marissa Mulder has a voice like a spring morning and a face to match. Her singing frequently puts experienced cabaret-goers in mind of Blossom Dearie's little-girl innocence, and therefore the least likely material she could tackle would be the gin-soaked, hard-luck, grimy inner-city stories of Tom Waits. No, she doesn't take the easy step of addressing the songwriter's lighter material, nor does she try to brighten up any of Mr. Waits's infamously dark, rumpled anthems. Instead, she takes his darkest and most profound songs and looks them straight in the eye. Complementing Ms. Mulder's starkly honest interpretations is pianist Jon Weber, who helps her extract the majestically dysfunctional beauty of texts like "Broken Bicycles" without merely prettying them up.

Trumpeter Joe Magnarelli is cut from the cloth of true New York bebop. Magnarelli has a lyrical, searching voice and plays a program of Monk, standards and some originals. With the legendary Mulgrew Miller on piano, Dwayne Burno on bass and Jason Brown on drums, this is a top-flight New York City jazz group captured live at Smalls for an exciting and gratifying set of music.