Chicago bluesman Eddie Burks was born September 17, 1931, on a plantation outside Greenwood, MS - the 14th and youngest child of sharecroppers, his childhood was marked by tragedy, most notably his brother's lynching at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Burks discovered the music of Robert Johnson and Sonny Boy Williamson as a prepubescent, and began playing harmonica even before he relocated to the Windy City in 1946; there he worked at a steel mill while singing gospel as a member of the Greater Harvest Baptist Choir, famed for also launching the careers of Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke.
Despite the pull of the spiritual life, Burks could not leave the blues behind, playing so often at the old Maxwell Street Market that locals dubbed him "Jewtown Eddie" - still he became an Apostolic minister, with his own storefront church on Chicago's West Side…

Renowned for his avant-garde approach to the saxophone, Peter Brotzmann unleashes sonic landscapes that push the boundaries of free jazz. His playing style reflects a profound exploration of emotion and technique, making each note a revelation. Anto Pett, a virtuoso pianist and composer, weaves intricate musical tapestries with his nuanced playing. As a pioneer in improvisation, Pett brings an emotive and thought-provoking dimension to the ensemble. His harmonious interplay with Brotzmann and Bystrov creates a dynamic balance, elevating the collective improvisation to new heights. Vlady Bystrov's mastery of woodwind instruments adds a rich and diverse texture to the trio's sonic palette. His skillful exploration of timbre and tone enhances the improvisational landscape, providing a captivating interplay with Brotzmann and Pett…

Prog rock supergroup featuring members of Dream Theater, Spock's Beard, Marillion, and the Flower Kings. Transatlantic is Prog's premier supergroup. A truly illustrious collection of amazing talent that push the barriers which redefine the meaning of a progressive rock supergroup!
Drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment) had a brainstorm that gave birth to the band Transatlantic. He envisioned a band of himself, Neal Morse (Spock's Beard), and Jim Matheos (Fates Warning). As it turned out, Morse was available, but Matheos was not. Morse came up with the idea of recruiting Roine Stolt (Flower Kings) instead, and all that was left was a bassist. Portnoy contacted Marillion's Pete Trewavas and the group was set. They recorded and released their first album, SMPTe, in 2000, working around everyone's main band obligations…

Innovatively fusing traditional ethnic musics with state-of-the-art rhythms, the work of Deep Forest was best typified by their 1992 smash "Sweet Lullaby," which brought together the contemporary sounds of ambient techno with a haunting traditional lullaby from the Solomon Islands. The project was primarily the work of the French keyboardists and programmers Eric Mouquet and Michael Sanchez; after the latter returned from Africa with boxes of records he'd picked up across the continent, he and Mouquet began sampling the native sounds for use with their atmospheric dance tracks, and with the aid of producer Dan Lacksman, their eponymous debut LP appeared in 1992. Propelled by the international hit "Sweet Lullaby," Deep Forest was a surprise success; Mouquet and Sanchez soon began work on a follow-up, this time exploring such areas as Mongolia, India, and Hungary, recording several tracks with singer Marta Sebestyen.

Christoph Dallach, Andreas Dorau and Daniel Jahn present Echo Neuklang, a compilation which explores the question of how Krautrock has influenced generation after generation of musicians since its inception. A contentious genre at the best of times, the music within its spectrum is essentially intangible. The common thread running through it is a compulsion to seek out the new. Beginning in the year 1981 and extending as far as 2023, the music in this collection demonstrates how the idea of what passed for Krautrock in the 1970s has been interpreted or reinterpreted by a diverse array of artists with distinct approaches in the decades which followed, without recourse to any generic conventions.

Kris Needs repositions the roots of Sonny Blount aka Sun Ra on three discs (60 tracks) spanning his earliest 1933 recordings of big band jazz and be-bop, thru the birth of Sun Ra and the "future shock" of his later visions. "CD1 (Pre-flight) features Sun Ra’s earliest recordings from the 1940s, playing piano for Wynonie Harris and Lil Green, jamming with Stuff Smith, and coaching or arranging for artists such as Andrew Tibbs, the Hambone Kids and the Dozier Boys with Red Saunders’ Orchestra. Other artists he worked with featured here include pianist Dorothy Donegan, Joe Williams, Jo Jo Adams and LaVern Baker. There’s also an intriguing brace of tracks displaying his experiments with mid-1950s vocal groups such as Nu Sounds and Cosmic Rays, while introducing berserk space-preacher Yochanan. All along, Ra was blueprinting his sonic spaceship until the time was right to launch under his own name in mid-1956 with effervescent debut single, ‘Saturn’, on his newly-established label of the same name. Saturn is also the planet he claimed to be his birth-place. CD1 ends with the first 1956 Arkestra sessions, picked up again on CD2 (Lift-off), which runs through early Saturn singles such as ‘A Call For All Demons’, then tracks from Sun Ra’s early albums Jazz By Sun Ra, Sound of Joy, Visits Planet Earth and Super-Sonic Jazz, his sound tangibly expanding through the stunning Arkestral manoeuvres of tracks such as ‘Sunology’. CD3 ( Future Shock) mixes tracks from Sun Ra’s twin landmark albums Jazz In Silhouette and The Futuristic Sounds Of Sun Ra, with intoxicating one-off singles such as ‘Great Balls Of Fire’, ‘Space Loneliness’ and ‘Big City Blues’, the massively weird ‘Teenager’s Letter Of Promises’ with singer Juanita Rogers, before signing off with Yochanan’s demented ’Message To Earthman’."

Amazon review by Runmentionable
This is a comprehensive, well-selected and obviously well-informed collection of late 40s jazz and R&B (in the old sense) of the type you might expect to hear in nightclub scenes in films noir. Appropriately enough, both discs are bookended by the theme music from classics of the genre. Some of the selections are very familiar - Monk's original recording of Round Midnight - while others are drawn from deeper wells, like Leo Parker's exquisite Solitude. The key point is - they're all excellent representations of their genres. After that, it's down to personal tastes. I prefer Billie Holiday in more sprightly mode, but lots of people love the tracks here which I find a bit too self-pitying, and the difference of opinion don't signify when it comes to assessing this excellent compilation.

After Berg, Schoenberg, Bartók and Stravinsky, Isabelle Faust now tackles Britten with Jakub Hruša and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, revealing a little-known facet of the British composer. This concerto, highly personal in it's language, combines drama with humor, seriousness with satire, in music of overwhelming emotional depth. The program is completed by early chamber works.

Johann Sebastian Bach arrived in Leipzig on May 22, 1723. Just eight days later, on May 30, Bach presented his first cantata. On every Sunday and feast day outside the periods of Advent and Lent preceding Christmas and Easter respectively, it was the task of the Thomaskantor to direct such pieces in the churches. Bach composed the cantatas himself. This was not one of his duties. It testifies all the more to the passion and the enthusiasm with which he went about his new assignment. Of the cantatas performed up to Trinity Sunday, 1724, some sixety have survived: the completely new works are supplemented by pieces from earlier stages in Bach's career, notably at Mühlhausen and Weimar.

The popular 15th-century tune L'homme armé became the basis of at least 31 Masses over two centuries. Josquin wrote two Mass settings using the melody as a cantus firmus (sung in long note-values in one voice, usually the tenor). Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales begins the tune a tone higher in each succeeding movement; its texture is dense, with the four voices' ranges constantly overlapping. Missa L'homme armé sexti toni is more transparent, with the four voices' ranges spaced widely and sections for reduced voices numerous; its extraordinary final Agnus Dei à 6 plays two paired canons in the four upper parts against the cantus firmus in the lower voices–one singing it forwards, one backwards. The magical effect is often compared to the music of Philip Glass.

A repackaging of 1993's Midnight Mover: The Bobby Womack Collection, Anthology – released by Capitol's The Right Stuff subsidiary in 2003 – is an excellent overview (cheapo identikit design aside) that features just about every significant moment of Womack's most productive years. All his biggest hits, including "Lookin' for a Love," "Woman's Gotta Have It," "Nobody Wants You When You're Down and Out," "Daylight," and "Across 110th Street" are featured here, along with some album cuts that most casual fans will have no trouble appreciating. Short of picking up all the albums released during this era, you could not do any better.

"1st Avenue" Minneapolis 1994. Complete version of the live at 1st Avenue Club, Minneapolis, 5th December 1994 concert. Secret show played under “The O. D. Jubilee Band”.

Another Day is an impressive testimony to the extraordinary artistry of Oscar Peterson on piano, accompanied by the outstanding musicality of Jiri Mraz on bass and Ray Price on drums. The Peterson-Mraz-Price trio lasted for about a year, recording both Another Day and Walking The Line during November 10-13, 1970. The performances on Another Day show that this overlooked version of the Oscar Peterson Trio could hold its own with its more famous predecessors. The album captures the trio’s extraordinary synergy and enchants audiences with its timeless compositions and captivating improvisation. It includes interpretations of well-known titles such as ‘Greensleeves’, ‘Too Close For Comfort’ and ‘All The Things You Are’, one of the most popular Peterson titles, as well as lesser-known numbers and the original composition ‘Blues For Martha’. Remastered with the highest precision and using purely analogue techniques by the renowned, Grammy-nominated mastering engineer Christoph Stickel, this release marks the long-awaited revival of a jazz classic. Recorded in 1970 in the studio of MPS founder Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, this reissue gives Another Day the attention that this brilliant album certainly deserves.

Since making his debut as a leader with 2001's At Last, Marcus Strickland has established a reputation as a composer of remarkable depth and breadth. On Nihil Novi, his first Blue Note offering, Strickland showcases a new band – trumpeter Keyon Harrold, keyboardists Mitch Henry and Masayuki Hirano, bassist Kyle Miles, and drummer Charles Haynes. His new tunes offer an even greater array of styles, harmonic textures, and dynamics, and reveal his preoccupation with hip-hop beatmaking. (This isn't a jazz/hip-hop fusion record.) Nihil Novi was expertly and empathetically produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, who also guests on bass. Strickland also brings in some old friends and allies, including Robert Glasper, Chris Dave, Pino Palladino, and Chris Bruce.

The 2006 release of The Essential Gloria Estefan satisfied a long unmet need for a career-spanning English-language retrospective, one that includes the singer's popular hits with Miami Sound Machine in the mid-'80s as well as her subsequent solo recordings. For years, Estefan fans had few best-of choices to choose from – the Spanish-language Exitos de Gloria Estefan (1990), the two-volume Greatest Hits series (1992, 2001), and the latter-day Amor y Suerte: Exitos Romanticos collection (2004) – with no alternatives, not even budget-line knockoffs. The long-overdue release of The Essential Gloria Estefan thankfully resolved this gripe, for it includes the highlights from all aspects of Estefan's varied output, spread generously across two jam-packed discs.