Two CDs. Love You Madly: Live at Bubba's is a previously-unissued recording of the Jamaican jazz piano icon Monty Alexander captured live in Fort Lauderdale, FL at Bubba's Jazz Restaurant on August 6, 1982. Recorded by legendary engineer Mack Emerman, Live at Bubba's features bassist Paul Berner, drummer Duffy Jackson and the acclaimed percussionist Robert Thomas, Jr. The deluxe limited-edition 2CD set includes an extensive booklet with photos, essays and interviews.

On Echoes of the Masters, Taru Alexander creates an aural tribute to his father, the great Roland Alexander, and the tremendous musicians who passed the tradition down to him and the future generations through their impact on the bandstand and their examples off of it. Drummer Taru Alexander was endowed with music by his father, saxophonist Roland Alexander, and an extended family of professional musician mentors in his native Brooklyn, New York. The younger Alexander celebrates the legacy of his father and his father's peers on Echoes of the Masters, a collection of pieces by well-known jazz composers performed by an outstanding group of musicians who came of age under the tutelage of legendary performers on the bandstand. // A lifetime of musical experience has imbued Alexander with the skills, the knowledge, and the swagger to play jazz as it should be played. His credentials spread from bands led by Roy Hargrove, Gary Bartz, Carlos Garnett, and many more, so when he was considering who should join him on his new recording, Alexander wanted to include other musicians who had truly paid their dues. Pianist James Hurt has been a focal part of the New York jazz scene since he arrived in 1994. Alexander met saxophonist Antoine Roney and bassist Rashaan Carter on a recording session led by saxophonist Michael Marcus in 2008. Roney has been a stalwart leader and sideman in New York alongside fantastic musicians like Jacky Terrasson, Donald Byrd, John Patton, and his brother, Wallace Roney. Carter carries the history of the jazz bass on his shoulders having studied with Buster Williams, Reggie Workman, and Ron Carter.

Classical Music

MILHAUD: Scaramouche / GLAZUNOV: Saxophone Concerto / IBERT:

Puccini: Madama Butterfly (Highlights)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, opus 68; Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn in B flat major, opus 56a. Performed by the BRT (Belgian Radio and Television) Philharmonic Orchestra, Brussels, conducted by Alexander Rahbari. Recorded in 1989 in Brussels. First published by Naxos as 8.550278 in 1990.

Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 & Symphony No. 3 i

BAROQUE FAVOURITES

DEBUSSY: Images / Le martyre de Saint Sebastien

BRAHMS: Symphony No. 4 / Tragic Overture

Bizet's opera Carmen was first produced at the Opera-Comique in Paris in 1875. The French genre of opera-comique had arisen in the eighteenth century as a Gallic counterpart of the Italian opera buff, injecting an air of contemporary realism into operatic form. The success of operetta in the nineteenth century offered a challenge to the form, which retained the characteristic of the German Singspiel, spoken dialogue taking the place of the recitative of opera serial or French grand opera, but increasingly lacked power or conviction. Carmen, in it's original version with spoken dialogue, derived largely from Prosper M�rim�e's novel on which the opera was based. Created something of a scandal, and opened the way to a new form of opera. While nineteenth century French audiences at the Opera-Comique might find in Micaela a recognizable character, Carmen, a vicious outcast from decent society, was not the ideal heroine for popular family entertainment.

RACHMANINOV: Symphony No. 1 / Caprice Bohemien

Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 3 - Melodie in E - Polichinelle

With Miriam Gauci as Nedda, Nicola Martinucci as Canio, and Eduard Tumagian as Tonio. Rahbari/Czech/Slovak RSO.

Classical Music

GLUCK, C.W.: Paride ed Elena [Opera]

Classical Music

RUSSIAN BALLET FAVOURITES

Glazunov, A.K.: Orchestral Works, Vol. 5 - Symphonies Nos.

Glazunov, A.K.: Orchestral Works, Vol. 11 - Concerto Ballata

1998 release. Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865-1936) Orchestral works 8, the Seasons, Op. 67; Scenes de Ballet, Op. 52, Scene Dansante, Op.81 performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra Alexander Anissimov conductor. Recorded at Mosfilm Studio, Moscow, Russia in August 1995.

Alexander Anissimov was a conductor unfamiliar to me (some may have heard his much-praised Tchaikovsky Cherevichki at Wexford). He keeps the Moscow Symphony Orchestra on their toes: the strings are keener of articulation than their Bolshoi or Kirov counterparts while balances and dynamics are all observed in an end result of greater sophistication than you might expect from this source (with handsome sound to match). Anissimov excels in the grand symphonic unfolding of the first two numbers and the two Entr’actes, over which he takes more time and care than Fedotov [conducting Kirov].

-- Gramophone [8/1996]

Bach, J.S.: Violin Concertos, Bwv 1041-1043