Two months after recording what would become his hit record The Sidewinder, trumpeter Lee Morgan returned to Van Gelder Studio in February 1964 to create his masterful album Search for the New Land. For the session, Morgan assembled a sextet consisting of several young stars of the Blue Note roster including Herbie Hancock on piano, Grant Green on guitar, and Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, along with the dynamic rhythm team of bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Billy Higgins. The album opens with the expansive 16-minute title track, a musical odyssey that alternates a shimmering rubato theme with a loping exploration by each soloist. Four more indelible Morgan originals follow including jaunty numbers such as "The Joker" and "Morgan the Pirate," as well as the plaintive ballad "Melancholee."

Peggy Lee had a wide-ranging and diverse career as a singer, songwriter and actress. Tony Bennett called her "the female Frank Sinatra," and Frank Sinatra said that she "should be studied by all vocalists." The focus of this collection is the jazz-oriented recordings Lee made for Decca Records from 1952-56 and includes several tracks from her stellar album, Black Coffee.

PLAYS JAMAICA SKA

Greetings from Florida: Postcards from Paradise is a new genre-blending song cycle from composer Scott Lee featuring jazz vocalist-guitarist Camila Meza. The album explores the tension between an imagined Florida and the reality experienced by those who are drawn to the state: retirees, tourists, immigrants, and nature lovers. Eight poems by Cuban American poet Carolina Hospital serve as lyrics, each reflecting a different side of Florida, from tourism and retirement to climate crisis and ecological loss. Written for Camila Meza and chamber ensemble, the music blends contemporary classical elements with jazz idioms and pop song structures. Meza's jazz/pop vocals and driving guitar glide over top of noisy, pointillistic grooves performed by a top-notch chamber ensemble of Floridian musicians who deftly execute Lee's complex scores. Together, the poems and music invite listeners to look beyond the postcard and experience Florida in all it's complexity, fragility, and beauty.

Introducing Lee Morgan is a 1956 hard bop record by the heralded jazz trumpeter, originally released on the Savoy label. It also features Hank Mobley, Hank Jones, Doug Watkins and Art Taylor. Recorded when Morgan was just 17, the album features 7 cuts, including the Mobley penned "Hank's Shout." This new edition of the album is released as part of the Original Jazz Classics Series on 180-gram vinyl pressed at RTI with all-analog mastering from the original tapes at Cohearent Audio and a Stoughton Tip-On Jacket.

Sony Classical proudly announce the release of 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny' (Music from the Netflix Movie), featuring original score by Shigeru Umebayashi. The soundtrack also features the internationally acclaimed pianist, Lang Lang, on the song "Eternal Breath," which is performed by the famous Chinese vocalists CoCo Lee and Jam Hsiao.

"Being part of the soundtrack has been very special for me. It was an honor to work with CoCo Lee and Jam Hsiao on the track "Eternal Breath" and I'm very proud of the result. Shigeru Umebayashi created an amazing score with touching themes and melodies," says Lang Lang.

This CD is dedicated to early works by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov: "Avant-garde is an attempt to break out of an enclosed space into a more open one. In the attempt to break out of this space, the fireworks of avant-garde artists are like the outbursts of the Romantics. In my first works, I made it my goal to achieve a lyrical atmosphere." As early as 1967, Silvestrov - who calls himself a "lyricist and poet in music" - formulated with these words his compositional Credo, which has remained unchanged throughout the years. The symphony for chamber orchestra "Spectrums" was originally created as music for the film "Kiev Frescoes" by the famous director Sergei Paradschanow - a project that could never be realized, however.

This outstanding 5-disc set presents the complete symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven performed by the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Wojciech Rajski. The incentive for this series was for the whole of the symphonies to be available in Real Surround Sound. The project began in 2005 in Sopot, Poland, and ended when the ensemble performed the 9th symphony at St. John’s Church, Gdasnk, in the summer of 2015. Wojciech Rajski is known for his impeccable interpretation. He guides us through this exhaustive collection of ideas from one of the most famous composers, lacing the music with dazzling brilliance and sensitivity.

Winner of the First Prize at the Maria Canals Piano Competition in Barcelona, Viv McLean has performed in all the major venues in the UK as well as throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. Viv's concerto work includes appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, Orchestra of the Swan, Orchestra of St John's, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of such conductors as Daniel Harding, Wayne Marshall, John Lubbock, Christopher Warren-Green, Owain Arwell Hughes, Philip Hesketh, David Charles Abell, Stephen Bell, Carl Davis, Christopher George and Marvin Hamlisch. Recent concerto highlights include Mozart K467 with the ECO at the Royal Festival Hall, Grieg with the LPO at the Barbican, Rachmaninov's 3rd Concerto with the RPO in Cambridge, Gershwin, Bernstein, de Falla and Ravel with the Hall� at the Bridgewater Hall, The Sage Gateshead and other venues in the North of England, and Beethoven's 5th Concerto with the Philharmonia at the Royal Festival Hall. Viv has recently been on tour with the London Concert Orchestra where he played Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Symphony Hall, Bridgewater Hall, St David's Hall Cardiff, Philharmonic Hall Liverpool and Leicester's de Montfort Hall. On this new release, he presents a programme of well-known George Gershwin compositions and transcriptions.

Principal cast: Laurence Naismith (Kris Kringle); Craig Stevens (Fred Gaily); Valerie Lee (Susan Walker); Fred Gwynne (Marvin Shellhammer); Janis Paige (Doris Walker); Paul Reed (R.H. Macy); David Doyle (Mr. Psawyer); Cliff Hall (Judge Martin Group).
Recorded at Columbia Records 30th Street Studio, New York on October 6, 1963. Includes liner notes and a plot synopsis by Didier C. Deutsch in English, German, French and Italian.
All songs written by Meredith Willson.
HERE'S LOVE opened at the Shubert Theatre, New York on October 3, 1963 and ran 338 performances, closing on July 25, 1964.

Classical Music

15TH INTERNATIONAL FREDERICK C

V1: PIANO CONCERTOS

This is a first-rate program of works for clarinet and strings. Tasha Warren brings these works to life, aided by a superb group of instrumentalists. Tasha Warren, assistant professor of chamber music at the Michigan State University College of Music, is an avid teacher and international performer. She has premiered numerous solo clarinet and chamber works working closely with composers and conductors including Shulamit Ran, Augusta Read Thomas, Cliff Colnot, and Oliver Knussen. She has recorded with Innova, Alba, and SCI Records, the I.U. New Music Ensemble, Hal Leonard Productions, CBC Radio, and PBC Korea Television. Crystal Records released her album, The Naked Clarinet, in December 2009, which garnered praise in reviews from International Record Review, Fanfare Magazine, The Clarinet Magazine and others.

This recording of a performance of the complete Suites Hebraiques gives us a particularly intimate view of the creative life of Srul Irving Glick (1934-2002), one of Canada's most prolific composers. His musical depictions of Jewish life in his Suites Hebraiques are particularly vivid examples of his chamber music. Born in 1934, Glick grew up in Toronto where, from an early age, he was immersed in music. Glick received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in composition and theory at the University of Toronto. He continued his studies in Aspen and then in Paris with such masters as Darius Milhaud, Louis Saguer and Max Deutsch. During his career he would go on to win the Yuval Award, and a Governor General’s medal. He was also appointed a Member of the Order of Canada. Each of the featured instrumentalists on this release are well-respected in their field, and bring excitement and verve to these pieces.

Schubert composed his three sublimely alluring Sonatas for Violin and Piano in the spring of 1816, though they had to wait until 1836 for posthumous publication by Diabelli, who re-named them ‘sonatinas’. With their sometimes subordinate role for the violin and deceptively uncomplicated style, these pieces sidestep the influence of Beethoven and return more to the world of Mozart’s later violin sonatas, particularly with the Sonata D 384. The minor-key works develop Schubert’s gift for drama and vocal melody further, including hints of his famous song Erlkönig from the previous year.

Maritana was one of the most popular of mid-nineteenth-century British operas. It's 1848 premiere was a triumph and was soon followed by performances in opera houses from Vienna to Philadelphia.

Tried & True is music with a big, beating heart. Two first cousins and sons of two members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, HM play country music with electric and rock influence. They are also joined onstage by former "Hot Band" member, Albert Lee. This DVD-Audio/Video disc contains bonus features including 40 minutes of additional live concert video, small club performances and a bus trip to Vegas.

Classical Music

A leavening of novelty for the curious-minded.

The title of the disc speaks for itself, but there are intriguing moments for the unwary. If the Bloch pieces are by now staples of the repertoire we can note that the Bruch Kol Nidrei is heard here in an arrangement for five cellos made by Günter Ribke, and its textures are refined and malleable. And whilst Eli, Eli has been played by Mischa Elman as well as folk groups, Odeon Partos’s Yizkor will be a far less well known piece.
 
Cellist Amit Peled announces his musical precepts early, in Eli, Eli. He plays with lyric intensity but also with discreet emotionalism. It’s a quality, one of understated taste, that will recur throughout the disc. The cantorial declamation embedded in Bloch’s Meditation Hébraïque over the syncopated piano part is adeptly realised by Peled and by pianist Eli Kalman. If you want a more explicit take, however, you could turn to Parry and Frances Karp on Laurel LR856CD. The same is true when the Pered-Kalman duo turns to From Jewish Life. There’s a good sense of nobility in the Centaur performance of the Supplication and the Jewish Song is taken with directness and linearity. If one misses an infusion of expressive warmth however than that will be supplied by the Karps. This newcomer is a more cool look, though not without its own attractions.
 
Stutschewsky’s Hassidic Suite was written in 1946. There’s a yearning Bulgar opening, and a rather repetitious Chant for a second movement. Next comes a pleasing little scherzo. The most obviously Jewish movement is the finale, a Dance replete with lurching and rubato vivacity. By contrast Partos’ Yizkor (In Memoriam) is a haunted, brooding folk-based affair that sustains its ten minute length well. This is not the later 12 tone Partos. Mark Kopytman continues the mournful, elegiac feel with Kaddish, written in 1981. It’s written in three movements and the urgency and intensity of the first proves arresting. The central panel enshrines cleverly woven dance patterns – and there’s an ear catching role for the piano’s deft patterning. This is all leading to the keening soliloquy of the Lento finale, where it’s as if the enormity of loss has finally made itself apparent, beyond the forced vitality. The keening edge is rapt indeed.
 
So despite the conventional looking programme there is a leavening of novelty for the curious-minded. You don’t, as it were, have to be Jewish.
 
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Deemed a "record to die for" by Stereophile magazine, this DVD-Audio/Video disc features blues tunes by Dorian Michael, joined by Albert Lee and Laurence Juber. This disc contains 66 minutes of SD Video including bonus video interviews and behind the scenes footage, as well as biographies, discography and an extensive photo gallery.

This recording of recent compositions by Bright Sheng, "[a] leader in exploring and bridging musical traditions", demonstrates once again his distinctive lyrical and dramatic fusion of Western and Asian styles and sonorities. Earlier Naxos releases include works such as the Red Silk Dance (8.559610) and Spring Dreams concerto (8.570601).

Jacques Casterede's distinguished career was centered in Paris, but with musical roots in the early twentieth-century traditions of neo-Classicism and Les Six- the wide variety of scope and intent in his work was never meant to compete with the radical avant-garde. The balletic Flutes en vacances has become one of his most popular pieces, while Ciels ('Skies') was a competition piece for the Conservatoire. The colors in Trois moments musicaux d'apres Corot depict paintings in sound while the Sonatine de Mai is more neo-Classical in mood.

Not only was Robert Fuchs an admired friend of Brahms, but he nurtured a prodigious number of pupils, among whom were Enescu, Korngold, Mahler, Wolf, and Sibelius who called Fuchs a clever orchestrator, professional to his fingertips, and very happy as a composer. The three Violin Sonatas, composed over a 24-year period between 1877 and 1901, exemplify Fuchs superbly crafted and melodious grace, with soaring Romanticism spiced with occasional Hungarian color, folkloric themes, and vivacious finales.

Acclaimed Chinese/American composer Bright Sheng has been fascinated by folk music for his entire career and Northern Lights is his first work to use Scandinavian folk music, exploring its kinship with American sources such as Appalachian and Bluegrass music. Inspired by ancient Chinese poetry, Melodies of a Flute captures deep and sensuous moods of love and longing, while Hot Pepper refers to the spicy cuisine of Si Chuan province. Bright Sheng combines Chinese and Western musical ideas to create luminous, deeply expressive and rhythmic scores, giving new meaning to the idea of music as a universal language.