Louis Vaughn

Robert Vaughn, and his band The Shadows (not British rock group The Shadows), debuted in 1987 with a classic rock sound. He recorded another album with The Shadows on Alternative Records (1991's Songs from the Riverhouse), then headed up the thematic project, Southside Blades of Eden releasing the album Spirit, Love & Fire in 1993. Vaughn then formed the band the Dead River Angels, and released an album on Miramar Records (1994's Robert Vaughn and the Dead River Angels). A track from Vaughn's later band landed on the soundtrack album for the Steven Seagal movie, On Deadly Ground.

The Chicago guitarist/saxist spreads his stylistic wings considerably further than he did on his debut, embracing funk more fully than his first time around but offering enough tasty contemporary blues to keep everyone happy. The prolific triple threat (he's also an engaging singer) wrote all but three tracks himself (one of the covers is the shuffling "Small Town Baby"; its composer, veteran pianist Jimmy Walker, plays on the cut).–by Bill Dahl

This program offers three lively, colorful, and captivating orchestral works by two United States composers, born almost a century apart. These pieces exhibit the fruitful exchange and flow of musical material between North and South America that has long played a role in popular music, apparent not only in commercial song and dance music using Latin American melodies and rhythms but also in early jazz and blues where tango rhythms are so often heard, as in W. C. Handy's St. Louis Blues. And both Gottschalk in the 1850s, close to the beginning of a creative American musical tradition, and Gould in the 1950s, when such a tradition had flowered considerably, show a combination of seriousness of approach with a popular touch.

Having become the first ever band to reach the semi finals of Britain's Got Talent following up with a performance for Her Majesty The Queen as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, The Jive Aces have truly established themselves as the UK's top Jive & Swing band.The band are renowned for their hot, swinging music and high-energy stage show playing songs made famous by such greats as Bobby Darin, Louis Prima and Sammy Davis Jr. as well as a selection of superb originals.Their album, "King of the Swingers: A Salute to Louis Prima" was recorded in Hollywood, California and features very special guests such as Kenny Ball, Ray Gelato and Toni Elizabeth Prima (daughter of Louis Prima and Keely Smith)…

This disc includes all the music for string quartet written by Louis Andriessen, recorded by the Schoenberg Quartet in the years before the group dissolved in 2009. Even in the early Quartet in two movements, written when Andriessen was 18, the composer's inventiveness and quirky sense of humor peek through. It's an affable piece, entirely professional and assured, with enough individuality to be recognizably the work of a composer who has something to say and the wherewithal to say it.