As relationships evolve, a special language can develop between partners. This language can foster new ways of approaching syntax and messages that have been often repeated. The duo of drummer Allison Miller and pianist Carmen Staaf found their voices together with repeated, enthusiastic involvement in a variety of musical settings. // The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic made it necessary for social distancing necessary in all aspects of life. Miller and Staaf's response to this distancing was to heighten their intimacy through music. Their new recording, Nearness, shows just how much their bond has grown and their creativity has blossomed.

As late as the 1960s the cheerfully elated rhythms of mento would be found at every village festival. In the age of modern and Afro-American pop music, however, the most important and oldest folk tradition of Jamaica - which developed from the displaced Africans' contact with European music - has fallen increasingly into the shadows. With violin, banjo, guitar, and rumba box this famous Jamaican group presents a piquant potpourri of mentos, folk tunes, religious songs, and American hits. The songs are not infrequently lewd, and they treat daily life with humor and satire.

The music of Glenn Miller's orchestra was central to the style and atmosphere of the Swing Era and is inextricably associated with the Allied victory in WWII, his hits keeping people's spirits up on both sides of the Atlantic, with Miller himself becoming part of the war effort until his mysterious disappearance in 1944. Such was his popularity that in the period of less than a decade from his launching his orchestra in the mid-30s through to his demise, he had over 120 hits, both with his instrumental classics and with the new songs of the time. This great value124-track 5-CD set comprises just about all of recordings on the Columbia, Brunswick, Bluebird, Victor and RCA-Victor labels which are listed as hits in standard industry sources, many from the era after the launch of the Billboard record sales charts in 1940. It features an extraordinary tally of 21 No. 1s, including "A String of Pearls", "(I've Got a Gal In) Kalamazoo", "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", "Moonlight Cocktail", "Chattanooga Choo Choo", "Tuxedo Junction", "In the Mood", "Blueberry Hill", "Fools Rush In" and many more. The featured vocalists include Ray Eberle, Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke, Kathleen Lane, Jack Lathrop, Dorothy Claire, Paula Kelly, Skip Nelson and The Modernaires. It's a substantial and entertaining showcase for one of the most important orchestras of the times, and an enormously evocative journey through the popular music landscape of a remarkable era in modern history.

Vinyl LP pressing in gatefold jacket. 2018 release from the bass great. Marcus Miller brings the influence of modern urban music to his trademark sound on his highly-anticipated, genre-defying album Laid Black. Miller recorded most of the nine tracks on Laid Black with his band in a New York studio and also recruited guest artists Trombone Shorty, Kirk Whalum, Take Six, Jonathan Butler, and Belgian singer Selah Sue. Of his band, Miller says: "My guys are incredibly talented. They play everything from bebop to hip-hop. All of the special guests I called have the same vision about jazz, which made it possible to create this mix of music. Oh and if you like bass, there's plenty of serious bass work on this album too!"

Mulgrew Miller thrives as one of the premiere jazz pianists of today. He returns with the second volume of Live at Yoshi's, his third recording as a leader since joining MAXJAZZ in 2002. That year he reassembled his famed group Wingspan and released the critically acclaimed album The Sequel.

On 5th House, Miller includes fantastic, dreamlike soundscapes where he creates harp-like sounds on his acoustic guitar ("Angel"); then again he produces galvanizing guitar sounds reminiscent of The Police ("If Only"). "Embrace" is a convincing soft-jazz track, whereas "Waves" is carried by the flair of Bossa Nova sounds, and classicist-sounding guitar arpeggios ("Catalan") alternate with full-volume band rock sounds ("Dead Head").

With RENAISSANCE, Marcus Miller surveys the landscape of not just music but society as a whole. In the same profound way that anointed gospel-soul singer Sam Cooke prophesized 50 years before in 1963, Miller feels that a change is coming. And just as with TUTU, he is ahead of the storm with RENAISSANCE, fortified by a team of hungry young players. Miller is creating the soundtrack for this musical, cultural and spiritual revolution.

Limited vinyl LP pressing. Sting, in whose band Dominic Miller has been a permanent member since 1991, describes him as my right and my left hand. That's why he has been involved in every Sting production since The Soul Cages in 1991, is on every tour and makes a significant contribution to Sting's sound aesthetic with his gentle and unobtrusive creativity. Together they composed the song Shape Of My Heart, which became a hit. In addition to Sting, he has also enhanced the productions of other stars such as Tina Turner, Paul Young, Phil Collins, The Pretenders and Steve Winwood, to name but a few. But Miller is not only active as a sideman. In 1995, he released his first solo album First Touch, which was to be followed by eleven more up to date. Gradually, the trade press and the public were also impressed by the qualities of the guitar all-rounder. He received euphoric reviews in which terms such as grace, gracefulness and sensuality were among the descriptors. When he has the time, he is increasingly touring the world with a high caliber band. Many of his fans still consider his debut album First Touch, which Miller released on his own at the time, to be his best.

Track Listing
1. Moonlight Serenade
2. King Porter Stomp
3. Little Brown Jug
4. In the Mood
5. Tuxedo Junction
6. Pennsylvania 6-5000
7. String of Pearls, A
8. Elmer's Tune
9. Chattanooga Choo-Choo
10. Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)
11. American Patrol

Personnel includes: Glenn Miller (leader); Ray Eberle, Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke, The Modernaires (vocals).

Recorded in New York and Hollywood, California between September 27, 1938 and April 2, 1942. Includes liner notes by Ira Gitler.

This is an essential collection of West Coast music that San Francisco’s Other Minds founder and longtime KPFA radio host Charles Amirkhanian called “a classic anthology of American new music.” Although bound together by a common concern with music’s basic sensuality, the pieces collected here are wide-ranging in style—process-driven works, through-composed pieces, ambient soundscapes, and music that glances in the directions of world music and avant-pop. In instrumentation, the music is also wide-ranging—from a celesta solo to a marimba quartet to a player piano solo to works for speaking voices and wineglasses to music for piano and bullroarer to music for pedal steel guitar accompanied by a choir of banjos to relatively traditional instrumentions. This anthology has something for everyone—and its incautious eclecticism is no doubt one of the reasons for its long-resonating popularity. International Record Review wrote, “Throughout, the music communicates the excitement of the new, the fresh, the experimental: most of the pieces convey a sense of delight and wonder in the sheer creative freedom of their approach to sound—an approach radically loosened from old rhetorics and rooted instead in a belief in the almost unlimited potential of texture and color…. a trove of small-scale pleasures and surprises, in which a sense of fun, curiosity, and the thrill of invention are never far away.” All-Music Guide wrote, “As avant-garde music at the turn of the century seemed confined to the extremes of noise and stamina on the one hand and the post-Feldman search for disappearance of sound on the other, one feels uncertain about how to approach the loveliness of the music on Cold Blue. Recommended.” And The Wire magazine called it “A rewarding snapshot of composition in the decade or so leading up to 1984… Cold Blue anticipates the new tonalities that characterize the post-minimal generation.”

Cassandra Wilson's stunning third album, now available on vinyl! On Blue Skies, Cassandra moves into the arena of jazz standards with fluid ease, never failing to put her own stamp on these classic tunes. 180-gram vinyl, analogue recording, analogue remastered, folie-cutting. CD release topped Billboard's Jazz Album Chart at #1 back in 1988!

In 1999-2000, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen was given the chance to make a studio recording on the occasion of Duke Ellington's 100th birthday. For this duo session, NHØP chose Mulgrew Miller, whom he had heard, but never played with. Both were at the height of their careers, giants in their own right, and with totally different backgrounds. NHØP was born into the Danish folk high-school milieu that promoted freedom of thought and had a prolific song tradition. Growing up as the child of plantation workers in Greenwood, Mississippi, Mulgrew had his roots in gospel music and the racially divided USA of the 1960s. A Duke Ellington connoisseur, he had played with the Ellington Orchestra under direction of Mercer Ellington. Recorded live, all the tracks on this never before released concert remain in the same order as the two masters chose that evening at the North Sea Jazz Festival. They are at the peak of their abilities, combining new version of the Ellington songs they had previously recorded together with jazz standards. Niels-Henning and Mulgrew have sadly passed away, but are remembered as intelligent and insightful musicians on and off stage, but also as unconditionally generous mentors and influences for generations of musicians after themselves.