This 52-disc (no, that is not a typo) comp, ABC of the Blues: The Ultimate Collection from the Delta to the Big Cities, may just indeed live up to its name. There are 98 artists represented , performing 1,040 tracks. The music begins at the beginning (though the set is not sequenced chronologically) with Charlie Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson, and moves all the way through the vintage Chicago years of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, with stops along the way in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, New York, and all points in between. Certainly, some of these artists are considered more rhythm & blues than purely blues artists: the inclusion of music by Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Bo Diddley, and others makes that clear…
This reissue offers music lovers a golden opportunity to hear one of the truly great sets of Brandenburg Concertos. Listeners familiar with the fast, super-bright sound of certain famous British and German authentic instrument groups such as The English Concert or Musica Antiqua Kцln, will find much to savor in these warmly dark-toned versions. Gamba player turned conductor Jordi Savall treats each work with positively epicurean relish.
This reissue of Fusion and Thesis, the two albums the new Jimmy Giuffre 3 made in 1961, prior to their breakthrough and breakup in 1962, is nothing short of a revelation musically. Originally produced by Creed Taylor, who was still respectable back then, the two LPs have been complete remixed and remastered by ECM proprietor and chief producer Manfred Eicher and Jean Philippe Allard and contain complete material from both sessions resulting in one new track on Fusion and three more on Thesis.
A record-breaking pop phenomenon, Steps have always been dedicated to the dance floor. This remastered 3CD anthology brings together no less than 37 full-length mixes of their classic hits, including Tragedy, One For Sorrow, Deeper Shade Of Blue and many more. Alongside sought-after mixes from Almighty, Xenomania, Sleazesisters, Tony Moran and PWL’s Work In Progress team, an exclusive new Matt Pop remix of Say You’ll Be Mine takes Steps right back to their Hit Factory roots.
EU-only eight disc (seven CDs+DVD) box set from the former Pink Floydian. Contains all of his solo studio work to date plus his live album In The Flesh. Features: The Pros And Cons Of Hitch-Hiking (1984), Radio Kaos (1987) Amused To Death (1992), In The Flesh (two CDs/2000) and Ca Ira (two CDs/2005). Also includes the live In The Flesh DVD recorded June 27th, 2000 at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon. Roger Waters was a primary creative force in Pink Floyd from 1965 to 1983. He first met Syd Barrett, who would become the band's lead singer and guitarist, during his school days when both attended a Saturday art class. He moved to London to study architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic and there formed a band with drummer Nick Mason and keyboardist Rick Wright; he played bass and sang. Barrett joined them, forming Pink Floyd. Though Barrett was the band's main songwriter at first, Waters wrote or co-wrote three songs on the first LP, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (August 1967), including the solo composition "Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk."
Haydn himself was in a particularly heightened state of awareness when he commenced writing his Op. 33 String Quartets, even going so far as to suggest in a letter to music-loving friends that these quartets were 'composed in an entirely new and special way'. It had been ten years since he last wrote for the medium (his Op. 20), and he had learned many things since that time, producing a series of wonderful symphonies and a number of operas.
Trumpeter Maynard Ferguson led his greatest big band during the years that he was signed to Roulette and all of the music from his 13 Roulette LPs (plus 11 previously unissued selections) are included on this deluxe limited-edition ten-CD box set. Although three of the LPs were originally recorded as dance records (and stick close to the melodies), this box as a whole finds Maynard at his peak and with an orchestra that includes such talented soloists as trombonists Slide Hampton and Don Sebesky (both of whom contributed arrangements), altoist Lanny Morgan, the tenors of Carmen Leggio, Willie Maiden, Joe Farrell, and Don Menza, pianists Jaki Byard and Joe Zawinul, and drummer Rufus Jones in addition to the leader. The music is very jazz-oriented and contains more than its share of classic moments, particularly the sessions that resulted in A Message From Newport and Newport Suite. It's highly recommended.