Cambria Master Recordings is pleased to announce The Americus Brass Band Pays Tribute to James Reese Europe's Harlem Hell Fighters' Band on the 100th Anniversary of the original 1919 Pathe Recordings. Under the direction of Richard Birkemeier, the Americus Brass Band offers authentic performances of Europe's original recordings including W.C. Handy's ""St. Louis Blues"" and ""The Hesitating Blues"" --- both arranged by William Grant Still; Handy's ""The Memphis Blues""; Walter Donaldson's ""How 'ya Gonna Keep'em Down on the Farm""; Europe's ""On Patrol in No-Man's Land""; and seven additional hits from that era. The first two decades of the 20th century were a time of revolutionary change in American popular music. From the marches of John Philip Sousa, to the ragtime of Scott Joplin, the blues of W. C. Handy and the big band jazz of Duke Ellington, our music increasingly reflected the culture of African Americans. Introducing that culture to the European front during World War I and immediately afterward was none other than James Reese Europe and his Harlem Hell Fighters Band --- the WWI brass band that filled all France with jazz. Upon their triumphant return to America , exactly 100 years ago (May 1919), the group was joined by many of the most famous black musicians of the day including W. C. Handy, William Grant Still, Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle to record for Pathe Records in New York City a series of songs, marches, ragtime, blues and jazz that were all the rage at the time and helped set the stage for the forthcoming Jazz era during the1920s.

MOSKO, S.: Rupuze / String Quartet / Psychotropics / Darling

New Friends / Old Friends

Cambria Master Recordings is pleased to announce Where Freedom Rings - the title of AACI's new album showcasing compositions by four contemporary African American composers: Regina Baiocchi, Valerie Capers, Joshua McGhee, and John Robinson. Included are new works by Valerie Capers: Ruby, a "docu-cycle" and two songs to texts of Abbey Lincoln; three new chamber works by Joshua McGhee; a new piano trio and newly arranged piano duets by John Robinson; and solo piano and vocal/chamber music by Regina Baiocchi. The works by Capers, McGhee, and Robinson are AACI commissions, new additions to the chamber music repertoire. Performers on the album are soprano Yolanda Rhodes, pianists Josephine Gandolfi, LaDoris Cordell, and Deanne Tucker, Picasso Ensemble: violinist Susan C. Brown, cellist Victoria Ehrlich, pianist Josephine Gandolfi; flutist Stephanie McNab, bassoonist Douglas Brown, clarinetist Carol Somersille, trumpeter John Worley, trombonist John Monroe, bassist John Robinson, percussionist Jim Kassis, and vocalist LaDoris Cordell. The musicians are all members of the African American Composer Initiative (AACI), a group of classical and jazz singers and instrumentalists of the San Francisco Bay Area, and distinguished guest artists. AACI is dedicated to preserving the rich bounty of music by African American composers, historical and contemporary. Through live concerts of piano, vocal, and chamber music and an extensive website of video performances and publication information, AACI strives to increase awareness of this vast repertoire among the listening public and performing musicians alike, with the hope of sparking further explorations and performances.

Sung, S.: Mobiles / Terry, P.: Aria and Accidental Music / O

Lunde, L.: Alto Saxophone Sonata No. 1 / Higgins, D.: Alto S

Arnaud, L.: Noumea / Latin American Scenario / Midinette / I

Cambria Master Recordings is honored to present the legendary pianist Jacob Gimpel (1906 – 1989) performing two beloved piano concerti with the Berlin Symphony – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat Minor, Op 23 (Dr. Paul Otto Matzerath, conductor) and Edvard Grieg Piano Concert in A Minor, Op 18 (Artur Rother, conductor) (Cambria 1260). These stereo performances date from 1961 and 1959, when Gimpel was at the height of his career, and are now being released for first time in America. The Polish-born pianist, known by connoisseurs the world over as “a musician’s musician” and as one of the great piano virtuosos of the Twentieth Century, brought a classical elegance (authentically born of his intimate familiarity with the Polish music ethos and the cultural and stylistic brilliance of Imperial Vienna), combined with a formidable musical intellect and a rapturous poetic and tonal imagination. This great artist, teacher, and humanitarian, once the associate and protégé of the legendary violinist Bronislaw Huberman, was all too rarely heard in his adopted homeland of America, despite his spectacular European career, universal critical acclaim, and many outstanding recordings, a few of which were even distributed in the United States.

Vocal Recital: Brister, Wanda - Chausson, E. / Fauré, G. / D

Includes work(s) by John Beall. Ensemble: Laureate Wind Quintet. Soloists: Stephen Beall, Carol Beall, David Hastings.

Romancero gitano

Cambria Master Recordings is pleased to announce I Remember- featuring newly composed Canadian and traditional European chamber music, I Remember is a compilation of artists reflecting on youth through music. The recording explores themes of playfulness, passion, nostalgia, joy, and love. These themes were in mind when five Canadian composers wrote their music and the performers chose the other pieces. A number of prominent Canadian performers are involved, including pianist Derek Bate, violinist Conrad Chow, narrator David Fallis, violinist Aaron Schwebel, soprano Cynthia Smithers, and horn player James Sommerville. Several exceptional young Canadian musicians are making their commercial recording debut on this release. Composers Alex Eddington, Alexander Rapoport and Ronald Royer are established artists whose music can be found on previous Cambria recordings. Composers Sarah Shugarman and Billy Bao are making their debuts.

Richard Felciano likes to quote Picasso's remark that "Beauty is not the problem in painting; the problem is the materials." In music, the material is sound, itself, and Felciano became fascinated with acoustics and the way in which traditional instruments and voices, as well as new electronic resources, if better understood acoustically, might yield newly beautiful composite sonorities in expressive forms, appropriate to them. Richard Felciano grew up in California's wine country, went to Paris to study with Milhaud and Messiaen, then to Italy to work with Dallapiccola. A Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, he is founder of the Center for New Music & Audio Technologies, an interdisciplinary facility linking music, cognitive psychology, linguistics, computer science, and architecture, disciplines which have informed much of his work. The composer writes: "Boccaccio's 14th-century Decameron was in many ways the first modern work, portraying not gods or princes or humans represented allegorically, but real people in real situations - people in all of their contradictions, aspirations, suffering, humor, idealism, and absurdities. And he presented them all with an affectionate humanist embrace, reflecting the Renaissance of which he was a part. While modern America may seem far removed from Renaissance Florence, it is precisely this characteristic which I began to sense in reading Studs Terkel's interviews; I then knew that I wanted to create the present song cycle. Throughout the process, Studs has been wonderfully supportive, both of the music's creation and its recording."

Schumann, R.: Carnaval / Chopin, F.: Mazurkas - Nos. 6, 16,

Miaskovsky: Cello Concerto, Op. 66 & Cello Sonatas