CLASSIC ALBUMS

Ebo Taylor, the Ghanaian guitarist, composer, bandleader, and producer is a seminal figure when it comes to highlife music. Remined is proud to present these two classics as a 45 for first time, in conjunction with Mr. Bongo. "Will You Promise" and "Maye Omama" are both taken from Taylor's 1976 release "My Love And Music." Grab doubles and watch the dance floor fill up.

The Cecil Taylor Unit's performance at Salle Pleyel in Paris on November 3, 1969, was a notable moment in avant-garde jazz. Featuring Cecil Taylor on piano, Jimmy Lyons on alto saxophone, Sam Rivers on tenor/soprano saxophone and flute, and Andrew Cyrille on drums, the concert showcased the group's intense, free jazz style. The recording was transferred from the original tape reels at INA and restored and mastered by Matthew Lutthans at The Mastering Lab. Includes an extensive booklet with rare photographs from the show and liner notes by acclaimed jazz critic and author Phil Freeman.

As keyboard maestro James Taylor arrives at his 40th year leading his Quartet, he has re-signed with his original label Acid Jazz and is embarking on a series of the most radical projects he has ever worked on. Following his first classical album, Shadows and Dreams earlier this year, he brings the Quartet together for a remarkable new album. Te Deum sets the ancient, 4th-entury Christian text to intense jazz, funk, and Latin grooves. The music sees the James Taylor Quartet working alongside the children of the Benenden Chapel Choir, and a guest horn section and legendary Acid Jazz percussionist Snowboy. Lead track, "Have Mercy On Us," mixes Brazilian samba with Gregorian chants, "The Comforter" sounds like a Donald Byrd with voices Blue Note Records experiment, and last year's radio favorite "Wildflower," mixes bossa nova with sunshine pop harmonies and a positive message.

As keyboard maestro James Taylor arrives at his 40th year leading his Quartet, he has re-signed with his original label Acid Jazz and is embarking on a series of the most radical projects he has ever worked on. Following his first classical album, Shadows and Dreams earlier this year, he brings the Quartet together for a remarkable new album. Te Deum sets the ancient, 4th-entury Christian text to intense jazz, funk, and Latin grooves. The music sees the James Taylor Quartet working alongside the children of the Benenden Chapel Choir, and a guest horn section and legendary Acid Jazz percussionist Snowboy. Lead track, "Have Mercy On Us," mixes Brazilian samba with Gregorian chants, "The Comforter" sounds like a Donald Byrd with voices Blue Note Records experiment, and last year's radio favorite "Wildflower," mixes bossa nova with sunshine pop harmonies and a positive message.

Released to celebrate soul legend Johnnie Taylor's 90th birthday, One Step From The Blues is a 12-song collection from the "The Philosopher of Soul." Delivered in Taylor's distinctive style with roots in blues and gospel, the tracklist includes "Steal Away," "Cheaper To Keep Her," "Stop Doggin' Me," and the Hayes/Porter penned "I Had A Dream." One Step From The Blues is released on Stax Records and available on Softpak CD with liner notes by Memphis journalist Andria Lisle.

The soundtrack of the 1978 movie version of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway masterpiece, A Little Night Music finally finds its way to CD. Directed by Hal Prince, the all-star cast features Elizabeth Taylor, who sings the famous “Send in the Clowns,” Diana Rigg, Lesley-Ann Down, Len Cariou and Hermione Gingold. This newly-remastered CD is transferred from the original stereo masters, and includes a previously unreleased instrumental cue, along with two other instrumental cues taken from the mono soundtrack of the film. The complete version of "Every Day a Little Death" is also included from the mono soundtrack, as the carriage ride verse written for the film was not included on the stereo master. Featuring liner notes by Sondheim archivist Peter E. Jones.

MUSICAL NUMBERS

1 OVERTURE / NIGHT WALTZ (LOVE TAKES TIME) 4:20
Orchestra, Company
2 THE GLAMOROUS LIFE 4:52
Chloe Franks
3 NOW / SOON / LATER 7:53
Len Cariou, Lesley-Anne Down, Christopher Guard
4 YOU MUST MEET MY WIFE 3:51
Len Cariou, Elizabeth Taylor
5 EVERY DAY A LITTLE DEATH 2:28
Diana Rigg, Lesley-Anne Down
6 NIGHT WALTZ 1:06
Orchestra
7 A WEEKEND IN THE COUNTRY 6:04
Company
8 IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WONDERFUL 4:20
Len Cariou, Laurence Guittard
9 SEND IN THE CLOWNS 4:17
Elizabeth, Taylor, Len Cariou
10 POOR OLD FREDERICK 1:53
Orchestra Previously unreleased
11 SEND IN THE CLOWNS (REPRISE) / FINALE 4:31
Elizabeth, Taylor, Len Cariou, Company

BONUS TRACKS

12 EVERY DAY A LITTLE DEATH (FILM VERSION) 4:00
Diana Rigg, Lesley-Anne Down
Previously unreleased, mono recording
13 NIGHT WALTZ (FILM VERSION) 1:47
Orchestra
Previously unreleased, mono recording
14 END CREDITS (FILM VERSION) 1:27
Orchestra
Previously unreleased, mono recording

The purpose of the album "Little Cathedrals" is to create that ambience for the listeners to transport them and take them to a higher and nobler dimension within themselves. Born in Chicago, Jonathan Sargent began his musical studies at the age of five with celebrated guitarist Irene Lorence. After graduating from Columbia University in New York City, he was granted a full scholarship on the classical guitar in Washington D.C. with Sophocles Papas (Andres Segovia’s emissary in the U.S.) Switzerland. Jonathan completed his formal guitar education with performances at the master classes of: Alirio Diaz, Angel Romero and Musica de Compostela

In the tradition of the West Africa griots and the ancient Greek epic poets / storytellers, calypso music has long provided a form of social commentary for the Trinidadian and Tobagonian peoples. • Originating from the kaiso music of Western Africa and evolving with various influences over time, calypso is to Trinidad and Tobago as reggae is to Jamaica and samba is to Brazil. • Despite tackling often-serious subject matter, a calypsonian conveys it all in a humorous – sometimes bawdy – but always inherently enjoyable manner. • This collection highlights a selection of classic and modern calypsos.

Hear the images; see the music. Here in a few words is what touches me in New Wave cinema (Godard, Truffaut, Malle, and Demy). How to bring together the music of these films into a single program? This disc was conceived as an image of what I love in these films. The musical themes were only very slightly arranged and were regarded as raw material, leaving room for respectful improvisation and thematic appropriation, while retaining the greatest uniting principle: freedom. - Stéphane Kerecki

Handel's Saul is an operatic oratorio with ever intensifying action and increasingly drastic scenes. Handel seems to have been especially moved by this particular text. He gives each of the five main soloists a distinctive profile. Even the vocal supporting roles are unique and intentionally individual. In none of his other oratorios does Handel call for a more differentiated orchestra. Alongside the strings, he uses oboes, recorders, bassoons, trumpets, timpani and trombones. For me, Saul is one of the great high points of Handel's works. All of the performers on this recording thoroughly enjoyed taking on the challenges brought forth by this music. - Helmuth Rilling

Classical Music

Exceptional singers like Thomas Quasthoff and Ingeborg Danz Recorded during the Oregon Bach Festival "Beautifully crafted and very lovely" (Soundscapes)"... a consummate performance leaving nothing to be desired" (Seddeutsche Zeitung)

Classical Music

Bach, J.S.: Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (Highlights)

Fernando Benadon has a rich background as a composer, saxophonist, improvisor, and scholar. He brings this experience to his most recent recording project, delight/delirium, particularly to the final two tracks, Búgi Wúgi and Rhythmensional, both of which engage with the boundaries between improvised and notated music in interesting ways. For Rhythmensional, Benadon recorded an improvised drum solo by acclaimed Cuban jazz drummer and composer, Dafnis Prieto. Benadon then composed a through composed piece to be performed along with the recording of Prieto's solo - essentially turning Prieto's improvisation into fixed media. As a scholar, Benadon has had an enduring interest in the field of "microtimings", which investigates the aspects of time in a performer's performance that go beyond notation, particularly as they relate to different styles. By recording Prieto and then placing his playing at teh foundational level of the piece, in a sense, Benadon has frozen the microtimings in the improvisation while guaranteeing microvariation in the rhythmic realization of the score by the live performers playing along with Prieto's track. Búgi Wúgi consciously goes in the opposite direction, achieving the looseness of ealry jazz piano masters Earl Hines and Bubber Miley adn the post-modern sensibility of contemporary experiemental improvisors like Ethan Iverson and Vijay Iyer by keeping the left hand steady and meticulously notating improvised "sounding" material in the right hand. Cotxes in inspired by the visual imagery of Barcelona, as this unique quartet of sax, vibes, harp, and piano spin out lush, impressionistic harmonies through notated lines that again sound improvised. delight/delirium opens with materal that perhaps could be improvised, but reveals itself clearly as a fully through composed piece when we hear tightly coordinated unisons between clarinet and piano near the on eminute mark. Nevertheless, the work often falls forward like an improvisation, with a sense of structure that is less oriented towards managed development of material than it is towards a journey whose changes of directions are suggested each moment anew. Cosmicomics is the odd man out aesthetically on the recording, not only because it is the only large ensemble work, but also because it inhabits a more conventionally composerly sound world. The work ebbs and flows between the gently pulsating, impressionistic chords of the opening and more explosive moments that bristle with orchestral color. Cosmicomics is a more direct look at Benadon's material palette apart from his engagement with exploring the subtle boundaries between improvised and notated music.

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of Sir Michael Tippett, Chandos is releasing Richard Hickox's acclaimed recordings of his symphonies and the Suite from the opera New Year, packaged in a handsome box - and at a special price: 3 discs for the price of 2.

Mezzo-soprano Eva Zaicik, who has signed up with Alpha for several recordings, is one of the most prominent vocal artists of her generation. She was chosen as 'Revelation lyrique' at the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2018, and elected the same year a Laureate of the prestigious Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Competition. She has participated in the "Jardin dex Voix" of les Arts Florissants under William Christie, and regularly collaborates with Le Poeme Harmonique and Vincent Dumestre- but her constant accompanist is the harpsichordist Justin Taylor. Together with two other musicians- violinists Theotime Langlois de Swarte and Sophie de Bardonneche, they have founded Le Consort, to explore both sacred and secular works by composers such as Charpentier, Campra and Clerambault. For this recording they are joined by the flautist Anna Besson and gamba player Lucile Boulanger, both well-known to the Alpha label, as well as Louise Pierrard and Thibault Roussel. This recording is devoted to the Cantatas of Lefebvre, Monteclair, Clerambault and Courbois, more than half of which have never previously been recorded.

This new release of early Irish music follows the success of Francois Lazarevitch’s earlier release, For ever Fortune, early music from Scotland. The repertoire here consists of old airs, dances, songs in Gaelic, and instrumental works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Lazarevitch performs here with Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, as well as with American tenor Robert Getchell.

Classical Music

Ave Maria

Originally released in 1996 and now re-issued as part of Linn's ECHO series, 'Years Apart', Martin Taylor's second recording with his Spirit of Django band, featured a star-studded guest list that included legendary violinist St�phane Grappelli, Britain's leading jazz vocalist Claire Martin and pianist Brian Kellock. Released to critical acclaim and public popularity, the album won two British Jazz Award categories: 'Best Guitar' and 'Best Small Group'. 'As revivalists go, Martin Taylor's Spirit of Django rank among the more ingenious.' (The Guardian)

Lisa Delan and Luna Pearl Woolf write of their new release: “We were dreaming of lullabies. Each of us, unbeknown to the other, imagined creating the kind of recording we wanted to hear as we tucked our children in at night. Meeting in this shared land, our commingled dreams sowed the seeds of Angel Heart. Buds broke through in the farm of songs that we gathered from disparate corners of the world, with vastly differing musical languages. Delighted with the landscape, what, we wondered, would it look like in full bloom? When we laid our seedlings at the feet of Cornelia Funke, the flowering began. Her words took root around the songs to form a single story: a tale told by voices in speech and in song, suspended above a rich bed of cellos. Bringing pictures in to play, our nursery blossomed with contrast and color. Come, lay a blanket down among the stalks and petals and experience Angel Heart through music, story, sight, and touch. Join us!”

Composers include Robert Anderson, C. Coleman, Fanel Cornelius, Thomas A. Dorsey, Robert Fryson, G. Haenssler, Brendan Keeley, Robert McGimsey, Lars Morlid, Kenneth Morris, Lukas Di Nunzio, Peter Sandwall, Felicia Taylor, Ken Taylor, Leon Taylor and Lee Weisman. Lyricists include James Waddell Alexander, Robert Anderson, Anonymous, Bible - Old Testament, C. Coleman, Thomas A. Dorsey, G. Haenssler, Lars Morlid and also includes such artists as Choralerna, the Golden Gate Quartet, Mahalia Jackson, Soul Affair, Tullamore Gospel Choir, Brendan Keeley and more.

Martin Taylor is recognized as among the world’s foremost exponents of solo jazz guitar playing. Spirit of Django (1994) embraces the legacy of Django Reinhardt and Gypsy Jazz. Taylor delivers a world-class swinging, virtuoso performance on this, one of his most enduringly popular albums. Among his many awards are a record fourteen British Jazz Awards. ‘A new and entirely original way to explore and extend the musical world of Django Reinhardt.’ (The Observer) ‘Martin Taylor is one of the most awesome solo guitar players in the history of the instrument.” (Pat Metheny)