Conductor and musicologist Jean-François Paillard was one of the most visible French exponents of Baroque music from the 1960s onward. Paillard earned a degree in mathematics from the Sorbonne, but he turned to music soon after. He attended the Paris Conservatory as a musicology student, where he won first prize in music history; he later studied conducting at the Salzburg Mozarteum with Igor Markevitch. He formed the Ensemble Jean-Marie Leclair in 1952, which was renamed the Jean-François Paillard Chamber Orchestra the following year.

The world was hardly clamoring for another recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos, but the Australian Chamber Orchestra has evolved into one of the world's top concert attractions, and it's natural that their fans would want to hear them in this ubiquitous work. Violin soloist Richard Tognetti plays a 1743 Guarneri instrument with a powerfully flashy tone, and he gets a large variety of sounds from it. These are complemented by the inclusion in the booklet of the four sonnets included by Vivaldi in the score (and possibly written by the composer himself).

After making a small buzz with the Inside Wants Out EP, John Mayer hired veteran producer John Alagía (known for his work with the Dave Matthews Band) to beef up his full-length debut with commercial polish. Released in September 2001, Room for Squares proved to be a well-timed album, quietly heralding the end of teen pop's glory days with clever wordplay, savvy chord progressions, and mature songwriting. Songs like "No Such Thing" and "Neon" mixed jazz chords with digestible choruses, fashioning a sort of brainy, college-educated pop hybrid that appealed to discerning listeners and mainstream fans alike.

Masada: Live in Jerusalem is a two-CD set documenting Masada's historic trip to Israel in their first appearance at the Jerusalem Festival, and is the first in a series of live records from venues all over the world. Masada: Live in Jerusalem features versions of "Zebdi," "Jair," "Kanah," and "Netivot" that showcase Masada's intensity.

"When I started reimagining the tunes I had composed for Trio or Quartet settings for a larger ensemble, I realised this would inevitably limit the improvisational freedom of each player. I also thought that abandoning the idea for this reason would be like comparing apples and oranges–the small ensemble, with its intimacy and full improvisational freedom, and the large jazz ensemble, with its rich palette of colours, interwoven melodies, and dynamic grandeur, are simply two distinct ways to express music, like changing the dress for a different occasion. And so, I began to sew a new wardrobe for the Songs and Dances on this recording.

When Peter Green issued Little Dreamer in 1980, it was the second straight year he had released an album after a nine-year gap. Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks must have wondered what he had gotten himself into because the opener, "Loser Two Times," ais almost as close to disco as the Rolling Stones got with "Miss You." Green continues in a funky vein with "Mama Don't You Cry," as if shaking off the cobwebs and actually trying to pay attention to the current scene. He goes right back to his roots on the album's third tune with "Born Under a Bad Sign" and stays with blues derivatives the rest of the way. The album-ending title track sounds like a seven-minute version of the dreamy Green tune "Albatross," a hit for Fleetwood Mac in the '60s. Sounding more confident than on his comeback album, he seems more like the Greeny of old, although the move toward funk didn't really suit him.

So much has been said and written about the Beatles – and their story is so mythic in its sweep – that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and they introduced more innovations into popular music than any other group of their time. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline who were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and didn't let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity and never losing the ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970. It's hard to convey the scope of the Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two.

EU-only four CD set that features 100 songs by the blues' biggest names from the genre's golden period of 1920-1962. This set contains the artists and songs that changed the musical landscape forever and influenced almost everything that followed. This set comes with a 28 page illustrated booklet including discographical information and an essay about this fascinating subject. The perfect snapshot for anyone interested in the genre or those wanting to know how modern rock music was formulated.

James Ehnes picks up the viola for his first recording of the two Brahms sonatas Op.120 of 1894, in the composer's arrangement for viola and piano. Originally written for clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, Brahms made subtle changes for the viola versions, and in so doing he greatly enriched the meagre viola sonata repertoire with these two late masterpieces. Schumann composed his Märchenbilder (Fairy Tale Pictures) in a few days in March 1851. They are imbued with a potent sense of fantasy - imagination runs riot, from melancholy to drama. James Ehnes plays on the 1696 'Achinto' Stradivari viola for this recording, courtesy of the Royal Academy of Music.

“The Vogler Quartet also earned such approval on Sunday evening with its tightrope walk between late Romanticism and free tonality through the close-meshed texture of Alban Berg’s String Quartet op. 3, and above all with its cheerfully relaxed rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s unique quartet. Tim Vogler (first violin), Frank Reinecke (second violin), Stefan Fehland (viola) and Stephan Forck (cello) dispelled the great opera composer’s self-doubts about his occasional work with charm and cheerful serenity, especially in the cleverly dabbed staccatos of the final fugal scherzo.”

The Hyperion Trio was founded in 1999 and has gone on to earn an outstanding reputation in Germany and the international music world and to perform an extraordinarily broad repertoire. In its programs and the concert cycles designed for the cities of Hanover, Magdeburg, and Leipzig the Hyperion Trio has performed more than two hundred works, some of them as premieres or in programs in which great masterpieces are heard together with the music of more less known composers whose works have yet to be rediscovered.

Vol. 4 of the MMJ Live series documents the first night of My Morning Jacket’s 5-night run in 2010 at Terminal 5 in New York City. Performing their debut album, Tennessee Fire, in its entirety plus a 7-song encore, which includes covers of songs by Elton John and Jefferson Airplane.

Révélé à la fin des années 90 par l’album A Grand Love Story, Kid Loco s’est imposé comme une référence de la scène trip-hop internationale. Le Kid de Belleville revient en 2024 à ses premiers amours en faisant un clin d’œil à son 1er album culte avec Concrete Islands, Lies & Vanités ! Pour l’accompagner, des invités de marque tel que Horace Andy, Don Letts ou Lex Amor seront de la partie.

Nope, didn't think this would be much, either. A chairbound-acoustic Ig means missing the singular spectacle of him slithering about a stage like a spastic snake eating a runaway garden hose. But our Mr. Pop is, like Robert Pollard, an aggressive guitarist you rarely see playing an instrument (not even his ‘60s Iguanas gig, drums), so this is already interesting. On the DVD, he manhandles the thing in much the way he sings: full-out on hard stuff, and with dexterity on lighter tunes. No surprise he breaks strings near the onset of the eight-song acoustic troubadour Barcelona 1993 footage, including firm versions of Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso," Them's "Gloria," and Richard Berry's "Louis Louie" updated for the fall of the wall. There's also two Stooges tracks (and a few OK new American Caesar numbers–where was "Wild America?"). It's surprisingly good viewing, despite the immobile limitation. But truly compelling is the seven-song solo-electric 1990 Virgin Megastore appearance in Paris. Clearly feeding on a surrounding crowd, standing/moving, and tripling his guitar volume/density, the Ig lets 20 times more of his mayhem genie out of the bottle (and nearly his pants–showing the adoring French his underwear-clad butt). If he doesn't quite transform tepid Brick By Brick numbers, they're still better. And as for the four Stooges numbers like "Down in the Street" and "Loose," well… classic! Finally, the disc-two CD of demos is, frankly, boring. But the DVD is great for fans to view another side of a living legend.

Impellitteri is an American Heavy Metal band specializing in neoclassical hard rock and heavy metal with lots of shredding and speed. If you are not familiar with Impellitteri it was founded by Chris Impellitteri one of the worlds fastest and most gifted shred virtuosos, he has a similar style to Yngwie J.Malmsteen’s neo-classical shred technique.
Their 1996 album Screaming Symphony is a fine example of extremely fast, technical guitar solos, songs with positive encouraging messages, and most of all, powerful vocals by Rob Rock.