Previously unissued release of studio recordings from pianist Bob James at Wollman Auditorium at Columbia University in 1965. Features James in two different trio settings: one from January 20, 1965 with bassist Larry Rockwell and drummer Bob Pozar, and one from October 9, 1965 with bassist Bill Wood and drummer Omar Clay, performing a mix of jazz standards and original compositions. Includes an extensive booklet with essays, new interviews, plus rare archival photographs. Tracks 1 through 4 were recorded on January 20, 1965 with Larry Rockwood on bass and Robert Pozar on drums. Tracks 5, 6, 7, and 8 were recorded October 9, 1965 with Bill Wood on bass and Omar Clay on drums.

Vinyl LP pressing. Etta James' approach to both singing and life was one akin to riot and rebellion that included violence, drug addiction, armed robbery and highly impulsive behaviour. She sang with unrivalled emotion and a pain that can leave the stoniest listener in emotional turmoil. The ferocity of her voice reflected her traumatic life... a neglected child, a teen drug addict, a woman constantly entering into bad relationships and an artist raging against an industry and a society that had routinely discriminated against her. Over a career spanning more than half a century Etta 'Peaches' James has become a true blues icon. Widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential female blues and R&B singers of the post-war era, she has been cited by critics, peers, younger artists whom she influenced, industry insiders and consumer aficionados, as one of most versatile and expressive blues singers. Effortlessly bridging the divides between pure blues, rhythm and blues, rock n' roll, sophisticated pop and jazz with an intensity and passion rarely matched. From Bonnie Raitt to Beyonce, Tina Turner to Adele, Etta James stands alone in her far reaching influence. This LP shines a light on her early career, showcasing some of her greatest and earthiest recordings. From her first single as a delinquent teenager The Wallflower, through to the distinctly Motown influenced Next Door To The Blues we hear just why Etta James is the true embodiment of blues.

From the original liner notes: "This recording is made of an assembly of estranging electronic sound effects, trite sports commentaries and the music of a beautifully improvising jazz trio. Bob James has, through this convulsion of out-of-context sound elements and music of a trio, tried to emphasize the strange acoustic complex of modern man in his city, in his world, in his cosmos". Features Bob James on piano, Barre Philips on bass, and Robert Pozar on percussion.

SEEMS LIKE YESTERDAY - COLLECTORS CLASSICS

MIDNIGHT CREEPER

This 1997 recording was James Wheeler's debut as leader. James had played guitar in the bands of Otis Rush (for seven years), B.B. King, O.V. Wright, Billy Boy Arnold, Otis Clay, Mississippi Heat and Willie Kent. "The Chicago native and prolific songwriter exudes a relaxed, knowing authority... simple, grounded, no-nonsense blues from the soulful elder with a milk chocolate voice." - Jazz Times with Billy Flynn, guitar; Ken Saydak, piano; Bob Stroger, bass; Vern Rodgers, drums; Golden "Big" Wheeler, harmonica (on two songs); and guest vocalist Gloria Thompson-Rodgers. Features eleven original compositions and covers of "I'm Just Your Fool" and "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl". (Previously deleted:4/1/06. Original release date:3/24/98)

Blues guitarist first started his own band way back in 1963, backing many greats as they passed through Chicago, inc. Al Green, Johnny Taylor, Etta James & others - this, his 2nd Delmark album, further establishes him as a tasteful & talented bandleader & recording artist.

Veteran jazz man leads an all star assault recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's place, feat. pianist John Hicks, trumpet/flugelhorn player Don Sickler, bassist Ray Drummond & drummer Kenny Washington

Jazz veteran plays alto sax, flute & bass flute, leading his quartet on standards, feat. Richard Wyands-pno, Ron McClure-bss & Tony Reedus-drms

ONCE UPON A TIME: THE LOST 1965 NEW YORK STUDIO

The combination of concept, effort and the right collaborators typically leads to good things no matter what the goal might be. These elements are especially integral to cohesion within a musical ensemble in performance, especially a group built of musicians who haven't previously played together. Pianist/composer James Carney was thinking along these lines when he came up with the idea and chose the musicians for his new recording, Pure Heart. // The sextet that Carney put together is quite an assemblage. For the horns, he recruited his longtime friend and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, bass clarinetist and alto saxophonist Oscar Noriega, and recent collaborator and trumpeter Stephanie Richards. Bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Tom Rainey met in their first time ever pairing. In fact, most of these players had never played together before, except Coltrane and Douglas and Noriega and Rainey.

This is the first complete recording of MacDowell's art songs. Between 1883 and 1902 he composed a total of 42 songs, which were, however, published out of chronological sequence. The earliest in opus number, the Two Old Songs, Opus 9, were actually the eighth group of songs MacDowell wrote. MacDowell's songs in their order of composition, marked a change in technical style. The earliest, dating from 1883, are full and opulent, but he soon began cutting back the piano score to the merest background for the vocal line. The earliest songs were composed in 1883 and published as Opp. 11 and 12 by C.F. Kahnt in Leipzig. In 1898 Breitkopf & Hartel reprinted the five songs as one set. Heinrich Heine is the author of the poems for Du liebst mich nicht (You Love me Not), Oben, wo die Sterne gluhen (The Skies, where Stars are Glowing) and Mein LiebGhen (My Love and I sat Close Together). The texts for the two songs of Opus 12 are by Emanuel Geibel and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. MacDowel1 was still very much under the influence of Raff and these five early songs are fairly Germanic in both style and beauty and some biographers have even compared them stylistically to early Richard Strauss.

LEES: Symphony No. 4, 'Memorial Candles'

Classical Music

DUPRE: Works for Organ, Vol. 1

Saint-Saëns: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

One of the most important contributions Edward MacDowell made to American music was his reputation: born in New York City, trained in Paris and Vienna, he was the first Native-American composer to win respect in Europe. Among his supporters were Grieg and Liszt, and while MacDowell's music is frequently compared to the Norwegian master's for its lyricism and use of folk melodies--heard in miniatures such as the 'Forgotten Fairy Tales'--there is also strong affinity to the Faustian heroics of Liszt, as evidenced by the Piano Sonata No. 4, the 'Keltic.'
James Barbagallo has the full measure of the sonata, reveling in its dash and fire, and is quite fluent in the legerdemain of the 'Twelve Virtuoso Studies' as well as the rustic reveries of the 'Fairy Tales' or the Six Heine Poems. The young American pianist was well into a series of the complete MacDowell piano music at the time of his sudden death from a heart attack in 1996, but this disc serves as a powerful reminder of his accomplishment.

All this music needs loving care and I can hardly imagine it played with greater warmth or affection than by James Barbagallo. The recordings are as natural as the performances ...I can hardly wait for a second volume.
- Gramophone

Barbagallo is every bit the piano-bard that MacDowell could have wished for...the recording communicating, however, the energy and range Barbagallo can deliver in person. I could listen to this fine player in just about any repertory he chooses
- American Record Guide

The first real school of American composers arrived in the last quarter of the 19th century and were known as the Boston classicists. Comprised largely of well-to-do New Englanders who were trained in Europe by way of Harvard and worshipped Brahms, they were a pretty conservative bunch all around. Prominent among them was Arthur Foote of Salem, Massachusetts. His studies with John Knowles Paine at Harvard culminated in the first graduate degree in music ever granted by an American university and though he did not go on to study in Germany, he spent the following summer at Bayreuth soaking up the rays before returning to Boston to teach, compose and serve as choirmaster and organist of the First Unitarian Church.
Foote's chamber music is strongly influenced by Mendelssohn and Brahms, neoclassical in outlook, graceful and lyrical with little hint of storm or stress. This disc, featuring the Piano Quintet along with the Op. 32 and Op. 70 string quartets, is one of two of all-Foote releases which are part of Naxos' admirable American Classics series. The recordings feature the Da Vinci Quartet, a very good Colorado-based ensemble which has undertaken the performance of all of this composer's chamber works.

Walter Piston was one of the more influential American musicians of the twentieth century. For nearly four decades he was a mainstay of the Harvard Music Department, authoring a series of widely used textbooks and teaching generations of composers. Like many Americans who went to Paris in the 1920s he fell under the influence of Stravinsky and neoclassicism and it was that aesthetic that prevailed at Harvard and in Piston's own composition.
Piston worked in all the formal genres, leaving a substantial legacy of quartets, symphonies and concertos. His two violin concertos are among his most important works and Naxos has provided an invaluable service by placing both on one disc, along with the later Fantasia, as part of their American Classics series. The performances by erstwhile prodigy James Buswell are strong, he is able to get inside these cerebral scores and light the fires within. Theodore Kuchar and the Ukraine National Symphony lend solid support and the recording is first rate.