One of Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists of All Time, John McLaughlin returns in peak form with Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2022, a stunning performance captured at one of the world's most iconic musical stages. The setlist draws from every corner of McLaughlin's expansive musical journey, including fan favorites like "New Blues Old Bruise" and "El Hombre Que Sabia"-a heartfelt tribute to friend and flamenco legend Paco de Lucia. The band also delivers inspired renditions of Pharoah Sanders' spiritual jazz epic "The Creator Has a Master Plan" and Piero Piccioni's cinematic gem "The Light at the Edge of the World." Recorded with cutting-edge mobile technology and mixed by George Murphy (Shakti, Mumford & Sons, Ellie Goulding) at Eastcote Studios in London, Live at Montreux Jazz Festival 2022 is more than a concert-it's an immersive experience that captures the soul, skill, and spontaneity of a guitar legend hailed by Jeff Beck as "the greatest living guitarist."

Jazz writer Walter Kolovsky has said that Friday Night In San Francisco "may be the most influential of all acoustic guitar albums." LPs of it have been a demonstration staple on turntables around the world for over 40 years. To celebrate the lasting impact of this singular album and the legendary concert that it represents, Impex Records is proud to announce the long-awaited follow up: Saturday Night In San Francisco. Working with hours of original 16-track live session tapes, Al Di Meola and his team have brilliantly curated this musical tour-de-force, bringing to life for the first time on LP, SACD-Hybrid and CD the explosively virtuosic final performance of Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, December 6, 1980. Impex worked carefully with Di Meola, mixing engineer Roy Hendrickson (SPIN Studio), and mastering engineer Bernie Grundman to recreate the magic of Friday Night In San Francisco so these never-before-released solos and trios burst out of your system with striking clarity, dynamics and technical brilliance. Super Audio CD. SACD Stereo SACD Layer. SACD-only Bonus Track. This Hybrid SACD contains an HDCD encoded Stereo CD layer which is playable on most conventional CD Players! Pressed at Sonopress in Germany. Deluxe new packaging with never-before-seen photos.

Jazz writer Walter Kolovsky has said that Friday Night In San Francisco "may be the most influential of all acoustic guitar albums." LPs of it have been a demonstration staple on turntables around the world for over 40 years. To celebrate the lasting impact of this singular album and the legendary concert that it represents, Impex Records is proud to announce the long-awaited follow up: Saturday Night In San Francisco. Working with hours of original 16-track live session tapes, Al Di Meola and his team have brilliantly curated this musical tour-de-force, bringing to life for the first time on LP, SACD-Hybrid and CD the explosively virtuosic final performance of Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, December 6, 1980. Impex worked carefully with Di Meola, mixing engineer Roy Hendrickson (SPIN Studio), and mastering engineer Bernie Grundman to recreate the magic of Friday Night In San Francisco so these never-before-released solos and trios burst out of your system with striking clarity, dynamics and technical brilliance. Pressed at Record Technology Inc. Deluxe new packaging with never-before-seen photos. Audiophile 180g Vinyl LP 33rpm.

Jazz writer Walter Kolovsky has said that Friday Night In San Francisco "may be the most influential of all acoustic guitar albums." LPs of it have been a demonstration staple on turntables around the world for over 40 years. To celebrate the lasting impact of this singular album and the legendary concert that it represents, Impex Records is proud to announce the long-awaited follow up: Saturday Night In San Francisco. Working with hours of original 16-track live session tapes, Al Di Meola and his team have brilliantly curated this musical tour-de-force, bringing to life for the first time on LP, SACD-Hybrid and CD the explosively virtuosic final performance of Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, December 6, 1980. Impex worked carefully with Di Meola, mixing engineer Roy Hendrickson (SPIN Studio), and mastering engineer Bernie Grundman to recreate the magic of Friday Night In San Francisco so these never-before-released solos and trios burst out of your system with striking clarity, dynamics and technical brilliance now available on Compact Disc!

Curated and compiled by John McLaughlin, this collection of his finest performances from six legendary concerts at the Montreux Jazz Festival includes rare and previously unreleased material from Claude Nobs' private collection. Expertly restored and remastered in superlative HD audio and released on superior audiophile heavy weight vinyl, this 2LP set features liner notes by John McLaughlin. Expertly curated by the MJF and BMG teams and overseen by Claude Nobs' partner and president of the Claude Nobs foundation, Thierry Amsallem, who will act as executive producer across the series. The Montreux Years series is a celebration of Claude's love of the artists and passion for the festival and are a fitting tribute to his legacy. The BMG and Montreux Jazz music festival design teams will work in partnership to produce new and authentic creative, faithful to the festival's reputation for iconic artwork.

With his newest album, Liberation Time, McLaughlin draws from one of humanity's most fraught, uncertain epochs to produce music that gracefully reflects the uncertainty, vulnerability, and slowly awakening joy of our times. A direct response to the mandated restrictions imposed by the spread of Covid-19, the album is - unusually for McLaughlin's recent projects - not the work of one fixed ensemble. With physical proximity no longer a prerequisite, McLaughlin drew upon decades of experience as a bandleader to select musicians best suited to each composition. "As the Spirit Sings" introduces the album by contrasting churning rhythmic tension (stoked by drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and bassist Sam Burgess) with McLaughlin's soaring guitar figures - all underpinned by Gary Husband's subtle, supportive piano. The knotty post-bop figures of "Right Here, Right Now, Right On" mark one of the most jazz-inflected performances McLaughlin has laid down in some time, featuring Nicolas Viccaro (drums), Jerome Regard (bass), Julian Siegel (tenor saxophone), and Oz Ezzeldin (piano). The sense of brotherhood that bonds McLaughlin's current 4th Dimension ensemble (McLaughlin, Husband, bassist Etienne Mbappe, and drummer Ranjit Barot) is on full display during "Lockdown Blues," a playful refraction examination of blues tropes first released last summer to benefit the Jazz Foundation of America. With vaccination campaigns now in full effect and a more promising tomorrow coming into view, Liberation Time's title track can be felt as visceral anticipation - a rousing glimpse into an unbound future rich with possibilities. And while much of Liberation Blues revels in the sort of spontaneous interplay that has been denied by Covid restrictions, some of the album's most touching moments feature McLaughlin alone at the piano - an instrument he has not recorded on since his 1973 collaboration with Carlos Santana, Love Devotion Surrender. Liberation Time is a product of it's times, and yet it looks both forwards and backwards - at once drawing upon memories of better days yet reaching for a new dawn. Looking back at the album's transcontinental sessions, McLaughlin concludes, "The wonderful thing about music is that you put the headphones on and you are all in the same room."

On his farewell "Meeting of the Spirits" tour of America (2017), boundary-shattering English guitarist John McLaughlin teamed with one of his favorite musicians, American guitarist Jimmy Herring. Jimmy's band the Invisible Whip and John's band 4th Dimension join forces to resurrect the sound, spirit and classic tracks of the Mahavishnu Orchestra as you hear this concert at the Warfield Theatre. The groups wield telepathic interplay on "Meeting of the Spirits," "Birds of Fire," "The Dance of Maya," "Trilogy," "Be Happy," "Earth Ship," "Eternity's Breath" and more! Abstract Logix.

Also available on Blu-ray

The last days of the American icon Walt Disney form a powerful and poignant subject for Philip Glass's latest opera, which was filmed at its first performances in Madrid in January 2013. Phelim McDermott's spectacular production is worthy of Disney's own visual imagination and its definitive influence on American culture, while in the pit is the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, an experienced and authoritative champion of the composer's hypnotically beautiful music, which gives wings to Rudy Wurlitzer's operatic transformation of Peter Stephan Jungk's novel, using both fact and fiction to peer into Disney's troubled psyche as illness forces him to confront his mortality.

What the press said: ''...one of the crowning events of the past year's globe-trotting celebration of Mr. Glass's 75th birthday.'' The New York Times
Philip Glass
THE PERFECT AMERICAN

Walt Disney – Christopher Purves
Roy – David Pittsinger
Dantine – Donald Kaasch
Hazel George – Janis Kelly
Lillian Disney – Marie McLaughlin
Sharon – Sarah Tynan
Diane – Nazan Fikret
Lucy / Josh – Rosie Lomas

The Improbable Skills Ensemble
Madrid Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra
Dennis Russell Davies, conductor

Phelim McDermott, stage director

Recorded live from the Teatro Real, Madrid, February 2013

Bonus:
- Cast gallery

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 120 mins
No. of DVD: 1

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

The last days of the American icon Walt Disney form a powerful and poignant subject for Philip Glass's latest opera, which was filmed at its first performances in Madrid in January 2013. Phelim McDermott's spectacular production is worthy of Disney's own visual imagination and its definitive influence on American culture, while in the pit is the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, an experienced and authoritative champion of the composer's hypnotically beautiful music, which gives wings to Rudy Wurlitzer's operatic transformation of Peter Stephan Jungk's novel, using both fact and fiction to peer into Disney's troubled psyche as illness forces him to confront his mortality.

What the press said: ''...one of the crowning events of the past year's globe-trotting celebration of Mr. Glass's 75th birthday.'' The New York Times

Philip Glass
THE PERFECT AMERICAN
(Blu-ray Disc Version)

Walt Disney – Christopher Purves
Roy – David Pittsinger
Dantine – Donald Kaasch
Hazel George – Janis Kelly
Lillian Disney – Marie McLaughlin
Sharon – Sarah Tynan
Diane – Nazan Fikret
Lucy / Josh – Rosie Lomas

The Improbable Skills Ensemble
Madrid Teatro Real Chorus and Orchestra
Dennis Russell Davies, conductor

Phelim McDermott, stage director

Recorded live from the Teatro Real, Madrid, February 2013

Bonus:
- Cast gallery

Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 120 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

Digitally remastered two CD set containing a pair of albums from the legendary guitarist and Mahavishnu Orchestra leader: Electric Guitarist and Electric Dreams (both released in 1979). Ex-Graham Bond and Brian Auger guitarist McLaughlin's career took off when he went to the States in 1969 to join Tony Williams' Lifetime. From then on, he became one of the most acclaimed Jazz/Rock guitarists of the '70s and beyond. 15 tracks. Beat Goes On. 2010.

For the first time, an intimate view of what happens at a John McLaughlin recording session. Filmed over a period of five days, during the making of John's new record Floating Point, you can see how great musicians work together with spontaneity and vitality. For this meeting of the minds John invited some of the most outstanding instrumentalists including Indian vocalist Shankar Mahadevan. Through the interviews of all musicians, you will get to know how they approach John's compositions. In addition, there is an extra audio track with John commenting on the entire recording. This movie lifts the curtain on the making of music today.

2007 five CD set, a great installment in Sony/BMG's Original Album Classics series that brings together rare and out of print titles with some best sellers from the Sony/BMG Jazz catalog. Many of these albums have been unavailable on CD for some time and are sought after by collectors. Each set is presented in a high quality, rigid cardboard slipcase containing five 'vinyl replica' mini LP sleeves. This collection from the Jazz guitarist features the albums Shakti, a Handful of Beauty, Natural Elements, Electric Guitarist and Inner Worlds.

In 1979 and 1980, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell and Paco de Lucia formed a guitar super-trio and toured Europe. The spellbinding quality of the music that the collaboration created as an ensemble and the dazzling audience reaction to the performances has never been surpassed and has rightfully passed into Jazz folklore. At long last an original, authenticated master of one of the concerts on the tour is available; anybody interested in jazz guitar HAS to hear and see this!

Henry Kimball Hadley (1871-1937) came from a highly musical Massachusetts family and showed considerable compositional promise early in his life (he completed his first opera at age 17). A major figure in Hadley's development was George Chadwick, with whom he studied counterpoint and composition before continuing his musical education in Vienna. Hadley's music shows an accomplished technique and, as with that of many American composers of his generation, it bears heavy European influence (though in Hadley's case, it also contains occasional traces of his home soil). The Ocean, composed between 1920 and 1921, is as atmospheric as its title suggests, displaying Hadley's skill at evocative orchestration. The musical language sounds at first to be purely impressionistic, but further along there are indications of the German post-romantic style, especially Zemlinsky. The Culprit Fay (1908) revels in the pre-impressionist sounds of Paul Dukas (La Peri comes to mind) as it relates Drake's fairy-tale poem.


It's surprising that Hadley's Symphony No. 4, composed three years later, sounds stylistically like a much earlier work, with roots firmly planted in the 19th century. The four movements act as a musical compass, describing the four regions of the globe: North portrays the frigid artic regions in terse declamations reminiscent of Richard Strauss' Macbeth; East is spiced by "oriental" modes and colors; South, the most "American"-sounding movement, captures that region's flavor with the use of ragtime melodies; and West combines adventurous "outdoors" music with Native American melodies and rhythms in a movement that not surprisingly brings to mind Dvorak's New World Symphony. This is really fine music and you can't help but wonder how it all but disappeared from modern concert programs. But if it had received anything like the wholly persuasive and committed (as well as enjoyable) performances provided by John McLaughlin Williams and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, it certainly shouldn't have. This team once again has put together an irresistibly fresh and rewarding program, and Naxos has captured it all in fine sound.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Featuring a cast of Who's Who of modern jazz and pop/rock, the Promise has something for everyone - starting with the power trios: Joey DeFrancesco and Dennis Chambers, Sting and Vinnie Colaiuto; to the charged fusion of Jeff Beck, Tony Hymas, Pino Palladino, Michael Brecker, Jim Beard, Don Alias; continuing with the Eastern music of Zakir Hussain, Nishat Khan and Trilok Gurtu and ending with sensational acoustic performances with Paco de Lucia and Al DiMeola. Full album to jazz and college radio.