Norah Jones - "Little Broken Hearts" - Norah Jones defied expectations with her 5th studio album Little Broken Hearts, a striking collaboration with Danger Mouse that arrived a decade after her debut Come Away With Me, prompting SPIN to call it "the 2nd essential record of Norah Jones' career." Deluxe Edition features an expanded 31-track set curated by Jones with rare bonus tracks, alternate versions, remixes, and a previously unreleased live version of the album recorded for Austin City Limits in 2012.

After two solid albums for Motema Music (which both earned Grammy nominations), Gregory Porter made his Blue Note debut with Liquid Spirit in 2013. The strength of Liquid Spirit lies in Porter's songs, based upon personal experiences with a relatable and emotional immediacy. Even more, his hooky melodies penetrate instantly.?10th Anniversary Edition 3 LP set includes the original album on 2 LPs, and a bonus LP of extra tracks and remixes, with 5 tracks on vinyl for the first time.

In themselves, Beethoven's quartets represent an odyssey, a round-the-world voyage," says Quatuor Ebene. The French ensemble is marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth with a global tour of 21 countries. In the course of their Beethoven Around the World tour, the Ebene will make live recordings in seven different cities: Vienna, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Melbourne, Nairobi and Paris. This first release, recorded at the Konzerthaus in Vienna, comprises the first two 'Razumovsky' Quartets, op 59 No 1 and op 59 No 2.

The young French cellist Edgar Moreau, an established Erato artist, is joined by his siblings - the violinists Raphaelle and David and the pianist Jeremie - for Dvorak's five Bagatelles op 47 and Korngold's Suite op 23. As David points out, works for the combination of two violins, cello and piano are unusual: "These are wonderful pieces that are rarely played, so this is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on them." When it comes to playing as a family, Edgar feels that "There's something that works almost instinctively," while Raphaelle explains that "We don't need to look at each other, and we breathe together in a certain way. There's something very strong about it." Completing the programme are transcriptions of much-loved operatic arias from Dvorak's Rusalka and Korngold's Die tote Stadt, performed by Edgar and Jeremie

Beethoven's 16 string quartets occupy a place of honour in the chamber repertoire and, like his nine symphonies and 32 piano sonatas, trace his progression through his creative life. 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth, and Quatuor Ebene is recognising this with an extensive tour, entitled Beethoven Around the World, which runs from Spring 2019 to December 2020. Over that period the French ensemble will give over 120 concerts in a total of 21 countries on six continents, focusing on complete cycles of the quartets from February 2020. Beethoven Around the World encompasses live recordings for Erato, building a complete cycle, made in seven of the world's great cities: Vienna (at the Konzerthaus); Philadelphia (Kimmel Center); Tokyo (Suntory Hall); Sao Paulo (Sala Sao Paulo); Melbourne (Melbourne Recital Centre); Nairobi, and, with the support of UNESCO, Paris (Philharmonie de Paris). Speaking of the ongoing tour, the members of Quatuor Ebene say: "This is where Beethoven goes global. The quartets are 16 masterpieces that form an eternally modern artistic canon of unparalleled breadth and depth - they translate the purest humanity into music. In themselves they represent an odyssey, a round-the-world voyage." The players believe that the composer's music "transcends all linguistic, geographical and political borders... Both modern and timeless, it is universal. It cannot be readily classified as Classical or Romantic, as German, or even as Western, but it is music that expresses itself freely and which addresses the audiences of the future rather than it's own time... It can seem complex at first, but everything becomes clear as it's essence emerges." The ensemble also emphasises that: "The quartet as a genre gives individual players the chance to shine, yet is simultaneously predicated on collaboration and Concord: it shows democracy in action. It's emotional and intellectual power is considerable, yet it is also universally accessible as it embodies underlying ideals - enlightenment, fraternity and humanism, as typified by Goethe and by Schiller in his Ode to Joy [the inspiration for the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony]. At the same time it is informed by Kant's ideas on morality, goodwill and the categorical imperative, all of which were gaining currency in Beethoven's time. It also reflects the German philosopher's view of our relationship with the natural world, which has such resonance for the environmental issues of today." Appropriately, the tour will be associated with a carbon offset programme devoted to reforestation.

'Mahan Esfahani couldn't make a routine recital of Bach's keyboard music if you paid him' was BBC Record Review's verdict on a previous release: prospective listeners to this wonderful new set should rest assured that any hint of the routine remains as distant a threat as ever.

The titular 'lion of nobility' was (probably) King John II of France, making the most expansive work on this album a lament for a historical event: the French defeat at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Elsewhere, Machaut's protagonist continues to scrutinize the joys and sorrows of courtly love in obsessive detail.

A comprehensive overview of every style available to Bach, from the archaic to the modern, Mahan Esfahani rises confidently to the challenge of his own brilliant appraisal of the Partitas in performances brimming with intellectual and emotional energy.

Angela Hewitt's notes for this important new album describe a teenager's moment of revelation when she first came to appreciate the epic masterpiece that is the Liszt Piano Sonata. Here we have a heart-felt recording where this palpable sense of wonder is manifest alongside Hewitt's enthralling technical facility at the keyboard. The program is completed by the second half of Liszt's dazzling second Annee de pelerinage collection: The three Petrarch Sonnets and the noble Dante Sonata, the latter composed as a fund-raiser for the Bonn Beethoven monument in 1839.

Vinyl LP pressing. As well as solo piano pieces, 'the skies: rarities' includes one track for choir and electronics ("Patterned Ground"), and one for string orchestra ("Breaking The Surface"), for which the instrumentalists of Scoring Berlin were asked to both play from the score and improvise. Guitarist Jon Goddard, meanwhile, appears on "Into Silence," giving the track what Eno calls "a particular flavor it would otherwise have lacked."

Though the musical universe of guitarist Ben Monder is vast, the paths to his aural galaxies are rather solitary and arduous. It takes considerable time for Monder to create his unique, mind-bending recordings, as the practice, sculpting, and arranging can take years. His latest recording, Planetarium, is a prodigious piece of art that showcases the widest breadth of his vision as a composer and craftsman. Monder is well known for his tremendous guitar contributions to a wide range of artists, including David Bowie, Maria Schneider, Guillermo Klein, and, most recently, as a member of The Bad Plus. Though he may be most celebrated for these contributions, his own projects deserve equal attention, as they are personal, large-scale works utilizing a select coterie of trusted associates. Planetarium's inception began in 2014 when Monder was awarded a grant from The Shifting Foundation to write and record an album. While that project ultimately took a different direction, work on this one would continue for the next ten years. The effort was thrust into high gear when the pandemic hit, as there were few distractions to composing and practicing. During this time, Monder also received a commission to compose what would become the ambitious piece, "Ataraxia." A most helpful association for Monder has been with engineer and producer Joseph Branciforte, whose Greyfade Studio in Mount Vernon, New York became a sort of second home for him during the recording process. Beginning in December of 2020, the two began to meet frequently at the studio, setting down ideas and inviting collaborators to add their unique contributions. These integral guests included drummers Ted Poor and Satoshi Takeishi, bassist Chris Tordini, and vocalists Theo Bleckmann, Charlotte Mundy, and Emily Hurst. After three years of recording, Monder produced his grandest statement yet as a composer and conceptualist. This three-disc set features vast, highly wrought sound poems as well as spontaneous moments of improvisational brilliance.

Klein has made a name for himself as an expert composer, who finds ingenious ways to make the complicated feel natural and evolve. Many of his pieces over the past decade have evolved out of strict studies of musical phenomena that Klein was able to exercise and mold into highly rhythmic and inviting pieces for Los Guachos and other notable ensembles. These endeavors include delivering highly wrought compositions that require time for construction and preparation from the ensembles. A break from these procedures would be a liberating experience for Klein, so when playing at New York's legendary Village Vanguard jazz club during the summer of 2022, Klein recruited old friends and a newcomer to the fold to play a collection of tunes that provides plenty of avenues for expressive dimensions provided by individual decisions on the bandstand.

The art of constructing a solo recording is the ultimate challenge for most musicians. Pianist Benny Green believes that the challenge provides the ultimate inspiration, as he is free to take the music in whatever direction he chooses. For his first solo recording in twenty years, simply named Solo, Green finds himself reflecting on pieces by pianists who have inspired him over the decades. Over his career, Green has solidified himself as one of jazz music's premier piano stylists. His command of the bebop, post-bop, and swing styles was harnessed and cemented through years of study and apprenticeship alongside the music's best, including jazz masters Walter Bishop, Jr., Oscar Peterson, and Art Blakey, with whom he played as a member of the legendary Jazz Messengers. The pandemic allowed Benny Green to reassess his goals and approach to music. It also allowed him time to further investigate the music of his heroes so that he could reinterpret them on his new recording, Solo.

Guitarist Ben Monder set out with the intent of recording a studio album with longtime collaborators, saxophonist Tony Malaby and drummer Tom Rainey, but circumstances led to a more informal situation, providing a visceral glimpse of these stellar musicians' rapport. // The performance world was on the brink of shutting down in early March 2020 due to the appearance of COVID-19. Monder decided to take the opportunity provided by his monthly Tuesday residency at New York City's stalwart jazz club, The 55 Bar, to present a recurring project with Malaby, a bass-less trio with drums. Rainey commanded the revolving drum chair on March 3rd and the two sets were recorded as a remarkable live document of fully improvised music making from three masters, released now as Live at The 55 Bar. // Three long improvisations were recorded that night, each piece unfolding organically. The ebb and flow and the building of tension to release demonstrate just how confident these musicians are in their craft of composing on the fly, in full control of their musical choices. The recording was made by the brilliant producer Joseph Branciforte, who was able to provide gorgeous studio quality sound and help with the narrative arc for the completed recording.

I planned Benny's Crib to be a continuation of the ensemble cast I'd presented on Then and Now, which is my working trio augmented by three guest performers, flautist Anne Drummond, vocalist Veronica Swift and percussionist Josh Jones for a few of the selections, as a further extensions of my basic instrumental palette of piano, bass and drums. With Anne's flutes and Veronica's voice, I like to "stack" or "layer" a virtual "few" of them to make chords and counterpoint, sometimes doubling the clusters I play on the piano with my right hand. // Bassist David Wong has now worked in my band longer than anyone, seven years, and again lends his impeccable service to Benny's Crib. The lone variation in personnel from the previous album is our new drummer, Aaron Kimmel, who we love. // It somehow just came about in the recording sessions and production of this album, that I found myself gravitating to the Rhodes quite consistently. Along the way, it occurred organically rather than by pre-conceived design that this is an all-electric piano album. That said: I don't believe that I was seeking to make any more of a statement by featuring the Rhodes on this album than simply going with my heart in what I was hearing at the time.-Benny Green

2017 release. Some of Green's best work has been in the trio format, historically a configuration that has been one of the most popular in the advancement of jazz. The ensemble featured here is made up of bassist David Wong and drummer Rodney Green. Benny Green has been performing at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center for more than 35 years. He was introduced to the stage while in the ensembles of Betty Carter and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Since then, Green has tried to make a point of playing the Northern California venue yearly. Begun as a non-profit and festival in 1975, Kuumbwa has maintained a steady presence in the jazz world as one of the premier jazz venues in the United States.