There are no surprises in sound and style on Morph the Cat, Donald Fagen's long-awaited third solo album, nor should any be expected – ever since Steely Dan's 1980 masterwork, Gaucho, his work, either on his own or with longtime collaborator Walter Becker, has been of a piece. Each record has been sleek, sophisticated, and immaculately produced, meticulously recorded and arranged, heavy on groove and mood, which tends to mask the sly wit of the songs. When it works well – as it did on Fagen's peerless 1982 solo debut, The Nightfly, or on Steely Dan's 2001 comeback, Two Against Nature – the results go down smoothly upon first listen and reveal their complexity with each spin; when it doesn't quite succeed – both 1993's Kamakiriad and the Dan's 2003 effort Everything Must Go didn't quite gel – the albums sound good but samey on the surface and don't quite resonate.

The cantata Opening of the Wells, one of Martinu’s most intimate professions of love for his native land, simply cannot be absent from the Supraphon catalogue. The composition is inspired by the ancient custom of saying good-bye to the winter and welcoming the spring, when children come to “open” springlets and purify them of deposits of sludge. A “rite of spring”, yet one entirely different to that we know from Stravinsky. In the character of the wanderer, the composer himself too returns to his native land – at least in his memories, since from 1938 until the end of his life he had no chance to come back home. Martinu also completed the other two cantatas – Legend of the Smoke from Potato Fires and Mikeš of the Mountains – in the final years of his life, homesick, with the memory of his native region and folk songs in his heart.

The two dozen songs on Sugar, Sugar… come from the first four long-players issued in conjunction with the CBS-TV animated program The Archie Show and the expanded Archie Comedy Hour. The project was spearheaded by pop music mogul Don Kirshner. Having scored notable success with early Monkees sides, he found another batch of recording studio pros to provide material and audibly animate the Archies. Among the primary contributors were Ron Dante (vocals/guitar), Andy Kim (vocals), and Jeannie Thomas (vocals), who was replaced by Toni Wine (vocals). The Archies (1968) was the prefab combo's debut and despite an appearance in the album charts, this package yields only the churning midtempo "Truck Driver," the pseudo-affective and hormone-driven ballad "Seventeen Ain't Young," and the infectious bubblegum frolic "Bang-Shang-A-Lang"…

Keb' Mo' and Taj Mahal have been friends and colleagues for years but 2017's TajMo is the first time the pair have recorded an album. It also marks the first time Taj Mahal has entered a studio since 2008 - Keb' Mo' last released an album in 2014 - and if this seems like it should be a momentous occasion, what's striking about TajMo is how casual the whole affair is. The duo designed TajMo to be an upbeat, life-affirming listen, something that emphasizes how the blues can also offer a good time. If the album can occasionally seem a little too crisp and polished - it's bright and shiny without a hint of grit - it's also true that this reflects the lightness at the heart of TajMo. Sometimes it gets so light it's almost glib - witness the cover of the Who's "Squeeze Box" - but Taj Mahal and Keb' Mo' are also determined to broaden the scope of the blues…

In the '60s, Motown paired the Supremes and Temptations; in the '70s, the Supremes and Four Tops united for three albums of pop-soul splendor. Here are all three (two on CD for the first time) PLUS 11 more songs they did together! The Magnificent 7, Return of the Magnificent Seven and Dynamite take you back to 1970 and '71 for their hits River Deep-Mountain High and You Gotta Have Love in Your Heart ; their versions of For Your Love; Stoned Soul Picnic; Everyday People; Gimme Some Lovin'; It's Your Thing 46 tracks including unreleased ones and new mixes.

When the violin maestro Josef Suk, celebrating his 80th birthday this year, recorded for Supraphon a CD of Antonín Dvorák’s and Josef Suk’s chamber works (SU 3976-2) last year, the reviewers marvelled at the album’s intimate mood, tone and interpretational directness. These attributes are also characteristic of his latest release, “Romance”. On these 30-year-old recordings, Suk is backed by the two finest Czech orchestras. The album is abounding in the very qualities synonymous with Suk’s illustrious name: the beautiful, mellow and cultivated tone of his Stradivarius, sparkling technique and depth of feeling. These pieces by Czech and foreign composers are as though tailored to Suk’s virtuosity.

If Verve needed a concept for Mel Tormé's last album on the label, there were certainly a few available. For one thing, My Kind of Music features five of Tormé's own songs, including chestnuts like "The Christmas Song," "A Stranger in Town," and "County Fair," as well as lesser-knowns like "Welcome to the Club." The other half-dozen compositions are by the underrated songwriting team of Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, creators of the '50s Broadway hit The Bandwagon. Though they're rarely spoken of in the same breath as Rodgers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Loewe - could it have anything to do with the lack of smoothness in pronouncing their names? - Dietz and Schwartz wrote many standards, including "You and the Night and the Music," "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan," "Dancing in the Dark," and "By Myself"…