After supporting roles in Flying Down to Rio sent their movie careers soaring, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers starred for the first time in this witty and delightful escapade about marriage, divorce and all the romantic complications that come in between. The Gay Divorcee set the style, tone, and behind-the-camera talents for the Astaire/Rogers classics to come and captured five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.

MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY

SOMETHIN' TO RELAX WITH

Convergence: Live in China is the new album from William Hooker, featuring world-renowned musician and composer John King. It was captured from the duo's 2024 performance at the B10 Festival in Shenzhen. In tune with the open-hearted engagement and palpable respect of the audience, they deliver an exhilarating hour of improvisation. Hooker's thunderous drumming is blanketed by sheets of distorted guitar from King, both playing with formidable intensity. Recorded direct from the soundboard on 10/25/2024, the concert is available in vinyl, CD, and digital formats, with the latter two including three bonus pieces from the performance. Convergence: Live in China is the new album from William Hooker, featuring world-renowned musician and composer John King. It was captured from the duo's 2024 performance at the B10 Festival in Shenzhen. In tune with the open-hearted engagement and palpable respect of the audience, they deliver an exhilarating hour of improvisation. Hooker's thunderous drumming is blanketed by sheets of distorted guitar from King, both playing with formidable intensity. Recorded direct from the soundboard on 10/25/2024, the concert is available in vinyl, CD, and digital formats, with the latter two including three bonus pieces from the performance. Convergence: Live in China is the new album from William Hooker, featuring world-renowned musician and composer John King. It was captured from the duo's 2024 performance at the B10 Festival in Shenzhen. In tune with the open-hearted engagement and palpable respect of the audience, they deliver an exhilarating hour of improvisation. Hooker's thunderous drumming is blanketed by sheets of distorted guitar from King, both playing with formidable intensity. Recorded direct from the soundboard on 10/25/2024, the concert is available in vinyl, CD, and digital formats, with the latter two including three bonus pieces from the performance. Convergence: Live in China is the new album from William Hooker, featuring world-renowned musician and composer John King. It was captured from the duo's 2024 performance at the B10 Festival in Shenzhen. In tune with the open-hearted engagement and palpable respect of the audience, they deliver an exhilarating hour of improvisation. Hooker's thunderous drumming is blanketed by sheets of distorted guitar from King, both playing with formidable intensity. Recorded direct from the soundboard on 10/25/2024, the concert is available in vinyl, CD, and digital formats, with the latter two including three bonus pieces from the performance.

With this fifth volume, Jonathan Biss concludes one of the most ambitious and innovative Beethoven release series of the 21st century. Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto is many things, but foremost, it is a thrillingly taut construction, grabbing the listener by the collar and not letting go. It is the first work to take full advantage of the dramatic potential inherent in the concerto genre, pitting the soloist against the orchestra in often uneasy confrontation. In it's slow movement, it becomes something completely different, the tonality transporting us to a faraway place, time suddenly elastic, ferocity giving way to spirituality. The whole piece is a marvel. It is therefore very exciting to hear a voice as singular as Caroline Shaw's grapple with Beethoven's concerto and the process through which it was conceived. Shaw writes that her Watermark is "woven from strands and patches and patterns" of the earlier work. She imagines Beethoven imagining it, and in doing so, creates something wholly original. "This album brings to a close the Beethoven/5 project, which has challenged and stimulated me for the past decade. I look forward to spending the rest of my life with the ten remarkable pieces that comprise it."

At the Jazz Showcase is the first ever release of piano legend Ahmad Jamal's trio featuring bassist John Heard and longtime drummer Frank Gant captured live at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago, IL on March 20-21, 1976. The 2-CD set was mastered from the original tapes. The deluxe package includes newly curated liner notes

Crazy World is the bold and genre-blurring new album from As Is, the NY-based project fronted by vocalist Stacey Schulman and guitarist Al Schulman. This stunning release fuses vocal jazz with poetic commentary, rich orchestration, and experimental textures - including two compositions that creatively integrate AI-generated instrumentation. From the soaring opener "From This Very Moment On" featuring Grammy-nominated artist Kokayi, to a haunting jazz reinterpretation of "Tiny Dancer", and the aching balladry of "A House Is Not a Home", Crazy World balances technical artistry with emotional urgency. With appearances by Jeff "Tain" Watts, Gil Goldstein, Corcoran Holt, and a full string section, the album delivers both depth and dynamism. Tracks like "PrAilude" and "Children's Games" explore the intersection of humanity and machine - using Suno AI to challenge how we perceive musical authorship, while still grounded in melodic integrity and lyrical intention. Whether you're a jazz collector, audiophile, or a fan of modern vocalists pushing boundaries, Crazy World is a daring, deeply musical experience.

Gerald Albright launched his solo career in the infancy of what became the smooth jazz format, with Just Between Us in 1987 and has been a core part of the genre with chart-topping albums, countless radio hits and as a member of many all star tours, including Guitars & Saxes and Groovin' For Grover.

DULCE Y SABADO

Gobi Canticle brings together eleven works for solo violin, violin and viola, and violin duo by ten composers of Asian heritage, many presented here in first recordings. Performed by Natalie Lin Douglas and Patrick Yim, longstanding advocates for new music with extensive experience commissioning, premiering, and recording contemporary repertoire, the album spans a wide expressive range from ritual and folk-derived sound worlds to contrapuntal studies and contemporary virtuosity. At it's centre is Lei Liang's Gobi Canticle, shaped by Mongolian musical traditions, microtonal inflection, and percussive string techniques. Zhou Tian's Duo provides a compact, high-energy showpiece, while Chen Yi's Energetic Duo distils rhythmic drive and color into a striking miniature. Several works draw on literary and seasonal imagery: Kai-Young Chan's Echoes of the Autumn Night reflects Tang-dynasty poetry through Cantonese speech rhythms, and Jungyoon Wie's Dan Poong traces the quiet transformation of autumn leaves. Across the program, composers engage imaginatively with string technique-scordatura, harmonics, ricochet bowing, hocketing, and microtonal tuning-creating a palette that is both refined and immediate. The result is a coherent collection that highlights individual compositional voices while revealing shared concerns with timbre, gesture, and cultural memory. Recorded in Watertown, Massachusetts, Gobi Canticle documents a significant body of contemporary duo repertoire and showcases two performers deeply committed to new music and collaboration.

SHAPESHIFTER

Mozart composed the concerto for two pianos in 1779, and performed it with his sister Nannerl. It is a less adventurous work than the previous concerto, No.9 K271, but it is an altogether more successful work than No.7 for three pianos K242, which the composer arranged for two pianos. It is brilliant in nature, especially the finale. It foreshadows in places the great Sinfonia Concertante K364, but does not match the grandeur of that work. No.24 K491 from 1786 is one of the greatest of Mozart's concertos. The dark, turbulent and tragic mood undoubtedly had an influence on Beethoven's C minor concerto.

LONG LONG TIME

Venezuelan trumpet virtuoso Pacho Florez wowed the packed Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms concert given by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under their chief conductor Domingo Hindoyan last year. Pacho and Domingo have a real chemistry on stage, they are old friends going back to their time in the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. This album showcases Pacho as composer as well as soloist - his own brilliant concerto Albares is vibrant, rhythmic and wonderfully written for the instrument. It, like the two other concertos on the album by Sierra and Ortiz have more than their fair share of ear worm tunes, and you won't be able to resist smiling and swaying to the infectious music.

Limited Edition 2-CD Digipak Remastered audio transferred from the original tapes Deluxe 2-LP Set Also Available Includes exclusive photos by Hugo Peeters and a special essay by renowned jazz author Kevin Whitehead Limited Edition 2-CD Digipak

VIEWPOINT

A dance teacher from Boston (Charles Collins) is tricked into joining a band of pirates, which leads to him being fitted for a noose in California. He catches a break when the mayor's daughter demands the hanging be postponed until he teaches her to waltz, but his problems are only beginning! The Dancing Pirate (1936) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Dance Direction, and was billed as The first dancing musical in 100% new Technicolor.

The Original Five Blind Boys of Mississippi were one of the premier gospel groups of what was a golden age for gospel in the immediate post-war decades, as the music developed it's more commercial stylings and positioning from it's traditional roots. Acrobat already has on catalogue a 2-CD set devoted to the group's earlier career ("The Five Blind Boys Of Mississippi 1943-54" Acrobat ADDCD3003), and this collection picks up the story from that point with only a couple of titles duplicated on the two collections. This 48-track 2-CD collection comprises just about all the A&B sides of their singles on the Peacock and Vee Jay labels from these years, plus the tracks from their Peacock album "Precious Memories", not otherwise featured on singles, and their Checker album "I'll Go". It features performances in what was known as the "hard gospel" style of the day, with the line-up including renowned lead singer and songwriter Archie Brownlee, fellow songwriter Lloyd Woodard, and after Brownlee's tragic death from pneumonia in 1960 at the age of 34, another distinctive lead voice of Roscoe Robinson. They were a hugely popular and influential group, and this collection captures them at the height of their powers.

WORLD HAS JUST BEGUN

Swiss pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier has been a defining figure on the contemporary jazz scene for 20 years and is at the epicenter of the New York music scene. She was also recently awarded the prestigious Swiss Grand Prix Musik 2025. She now follows up on the acclaimed recent releases - her solo album To be Other-Wise, and the atmospherically multi-layered duo album Angel Falls with the legendary Wadada Leo Smith - with a live album from her much-lauded trio with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Recorded during a European tour in February 2025, the album presents the quintessence of this outstanding trio. With each concert, with each album, the trio's working method becomes more defined. In deep musical trust with each other, the three exceptional musicians celebrate a detailed and precise music that is both ambiguous and wide open. "And that's what this album shows now. This joy, diversity, subtlety, this desire. (...) Losing oneself in the music, the delicious moment that unfolds heavenly. But so cunning, so complex, so pointed, as only true virtuosos can be," writes Ulrich Stock in the liner notes.