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Now Playing - Curtis Mayfield - vinyl LP - Rhino Records

Curtis Mayfield / Now Playing (SYEOR24) [Grape Vinyl] / The Curtis Mayfield "Now Playing" vinyl includes 10 seminal tracks from across the artists' catalog, including smash singles "Move On Up" and "Superfly".Compiled on a 1LP grape color vinyl, it's priced for the savvy record shopper in mind and drops just in time to kick off Rhino's Black History Month releases. - Curtis Mayfield was an American soul, rhythm and blues and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American Music. He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums.

Principal cast: Laura Cherici (Soprano - Martesia) ,Mary-Ellen Nesi (Mezzo Soprano - Antiope), Zachary Stains (Tenor - Ercole), Randall Scotting (Counertenor - Teseo), Marina Bartoli (Soprano - Ippolita), Filippo Mineccia (Countertenor - Telemone), Luca Dordolo (Tenor - Alceste).

John Pascoe, director, set & costume designer.
Sara Erde, choreographer.

NTSC All Region
Sound: LPCM 2.0; Dolby Digital 5.1
Color
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Duration: 136 mins.
Subtitled in Italian, English, German & French

Singers of great renown were called upon for the first performance of Ercole sul Termodonte by Antonio Vivaldi in Rome, “in the hall of Signor Federico Capranica”, on 27th January 1723. An exclusively male singing cast, as was the custom on Roman stages, to tell the tale of the battle between Hercules, accompanied by the heroes Theseus, Telamon and Alceste, and the Amazons led by Antiope. The story, which is based on the ninth of the legendary labours of Hercules, and which concludes with the traditional happy ending here decreed by Diana, who proclaims the nuptial unions of Hippolyte, Antiope’s sister, (with Theseus, prince of Athens) and of Martesia, Antiope’s daughter (with Telamon, king of Ithaca), was arranged by the “regular canon of La Carità of Venice” Don Giacomo Francesco Bussani, on a libretto that had already been performed in 1678 at the San Salvatore theatre in Venice. The opera was successful, winning appreciation and at the same time astonishment , through its introduction of many passages written in a new “manner”, with an exciting, incisive rhythmic gait. This style so excited the Romans that from then on they demanded it almost exclusively in melodramas.

After the success of 1723, however, Ercole did not circulate widely and at a certain point the score was thought to have been lost. It has only recently been reassembled thanks to the precious rediscovery of some thirty arias and two duets in various archives, and has been reconstructed in its recitative passages. Arias and recitatives are indeed the traditional dramatic pillars supporting the dénouement of the story. The recitatives are generally “secco”, recreated along Vivaldian principles of expressivity and flexibility to accentuate the quality of the individual verses and respecting the general tone of the discourse. The orchestra, however, is present, punctually and in elaborate manner, not only in the more dramatic moments but also in the bucolic, descriptive arias, and stands in the service of the voice to accentuate onomatopoeic effects and to offer clearer depictions of the characters and the feelings that drive them. Now in his twenty-second opera score, Vivaldi brings into play all the technical means at his disposal to render the story comprehensible and to present the state of mind of the individual characters. The main desire of the “red priest” was to proceed smoothly, following the expressive substance of the verses, using shifting melodic invention to set the various scenic moments against a ceaseless search for lively collaboration between voices and instruments and a skilled use of harmonies and of a fanciful search for colors. The final “product”, based though it was on the structures of Neapolitan opera, thus emerges as something unique and personal.

NOTE: Contains nudity

Classical Music

The Anglo Mexican Foundation celebrates it's 75th anniversary with this programme of three of it's recent commissions - from Mexican composers Alejandro Basulto and Arturo M�rquez - joining the first recording of M�rquez's harp concerto M�scaras, in an album that interleaves nocturnal warmth with an infectious spirit of dancing energy. Alejandro Basulto is a Mexican award-winning composer and orchestral conductor. His music is characterized by a profound Latin-American identity, a vibrant integration of contemporary popular culture, a continuous exploration of diverse techniques and the use of new narrative approaches. Arturo Marquez was born deep in the Sonoran desert in the colonial town of Alamos, Mexico. He currently works at the National University of Mexico, Superior School of Music and the National Center of Research, Documentation and Information of Mexican Music.

British-violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen – described by the late Ruggiero Ricci following a masterclass as the “most exceptionally gifted young violinist I have ever encountered” – adds to her prodigious reputation with a new disc of timeless works for strings by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. Joined again by the Orchestra of the Swan under David Curtis, the centerpiece of the program is a performance of Vaughan Williams’ enchanting The Lark Ascending. Of her previous disc: “Waley-Cohen makes the utmost of [the D minor Concerto’s] innocent, songful lyricism...” The Observer

Celebrated international pianist Peter Donohoe continues his series of Shostakovich releases on Signum Classics, following his recent release of the 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 (SIGCD396). For this new recording he is accompanied for the concertos by the Orchestra of the Swan under their artistic director David Curtis. In the years since his unprecedented success as Silver Medal winner of the 1982 7th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Peter Donohoe has built an extraordinary world-wide career, encompassing a huge repertoire and over forty years’ experience as a pianist, as well as continually exploring many other avenues in music-making. He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.

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Classical Music

Recorded at Teatro Comunale, Ferrara, January 2008

Motezuma is Vivaldi’s only opera set in the New World. The manuscripts for this rarely performed and rarely heard opera were only rediscovered in 2002 and currently only one CD version exists recorded by Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco.

Of the CD recording, BBC Music Magazine wrote: “The instrumentalists of Il Complesso Barocco are on excellent form as indeed is Vivaldi himself in a rewarding score”.

Alan Curtis, one of the leading experts of Baroque music, returns again with the same orchestra, renowned Baroque specialist Vito Priante and another expert cast for the World Premiere Recording on DVD.

Region Code: 0 (All)
Sound format: 16:9
Picture format: LPCM 2.0
Running Time: 153 min. + extras
Booklet notes: Ita / Eng / Fre / Ger
Subtitles: Fre, Eng, Ger, Spa, Ita

Vinyl LP pressing of this collection from the soul/R&B legend.

Demofoonte dates from the early ‘Milan years’ of Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787), long before the radical ‘reform operas’ for which he is most famous and his break with opera seria and the librettos of Pietro Metastasio. Gluck arrived in the northern Italian city in 1737 and was mentored there by composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini. Though Sammartini primarily composed symphonies and music for the church, Milan boasted a vibrant opera scene, and Gluck soon formed an association with one of the city's up-and-coming opera houses, the Teatro Regio Ducal. His first opera, Artaserse, on a libretto by Metastasio, premiered there on 26 December 1741 and opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742. Gluck went on to compose an opera for each of the next four Carnivals at Milan, Demofoonte being the second of these and his third opera overall, premiering on 6 January 1743. In celebration of Gluck’s 300th birthday, the early music scholar and harpsichordist Alan Curtis (1934–2015), founder of Il Complesso Barocco and leader of the period music ensemble for nearly four decades, prepared Demofoonte for performance. All of the arias had been preserved, but nearly all of the secco recitatives were lost. Curtis composed new recitatives in Gluck's style, using Gluck’s earliest fully extant opera, Ipermestra, written less than two years after Demofoonte, as a model. This modern revival was given its first performance on 23 November 2014 in Vienna and was recorded with the same excellent cast of singers the week before, in Northern Italy.

Classical Music

Vinyl LP pressing. Acoustic Sounds celebrates Contemporary Records with this new reissue of Curtis Counce's 1957 album You Get More Bounce With Curtis Counce! Originally released in 1957 the album sees Counce (bass) alongside Jack Shelton (trumpet), Harold Land (tenor sax), Carl Perkins (piano) & Frank Butler (drums). Recorded by Roy DuNann this edition is pressed on 180-gram vinyl pressed at QRP with (AAA) lacquers cut from the original tapes by Bernie Grundman and is presented in a tip-on jacket.

John Ireland’s music is often a response to landscape and romantic sensitivities, and with its significant musical clues, broad, songlike melodies and turbulent finale, the Sonata in G Minor is one of his most expressive and passionate works. A Downland Suite is one of Ireland’s most attractive compositions, especially for its exquisite Elegy and popular Minuet made familiar through its use in radio and television. Ireland’s evocative piano works lend themselves well to string orchestra arrangement, including the poetic Soliloquy, and In a May Morning inspired by spring on Guernsey.

Curtis Mayfield was best known for writing and producing the soundtrack to the film Super Fly. Super Fly is one of the few films ever to have been out grossed by it's soundtrack.

With a career spanning forty years, award-winning soul, blues and R&B vocalist/harmonicist/songwriter Curtis Salgado is a one-of-a-kind talent whose music is as compelling as his story. From co-fronting The Robert Cray Band to leading his own band (and recording nine solo albums) to helping transform John Belushi into "Joliet" Jake Blues to touring the country with Steve Miller and Santana, he is a true musical giant. The Beautiful Lowdown, Salgado's 2016 Alligator album, is the singer's most fearless and adventurous release to date. For the first time in his career, he wrote or co-wrote virtually the entire album himself. He co-produced it along with Marlon McClain and Tony Braunagel and contributed to the horn arrangements and background vocal parts.

NUMBER STATIONS

Trombonist Curtis Fuller was born and raised in Detroit, a hotbed of new jazz talent in the '50s. In '57, Fuller went to New York to make his recorded debut as part of the Yusef Lateef Quintet. He was 22 at the time and possessed a unique style and sound. After only eight months in New York he had made six albums as leader and fifteen as sideman including John Coltrane's Blue Train. He also recorded with Jimmy Smith, Bud Powell, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter and many more. "Up Jumped Spring" was recorded in August, 2003 while Curtis was in Chicago for the Chicago Jazz Festival. With Brad Goode, trumpet; Karl Montzka, piano; Larry Gray and Stewart Miller, bass; and Tim Davis, drums.

Blues pianist's solo album from 1962 contains 2 alternate takes & descriptive notes by Bob Koester.

Curtis Fuller is a clearly one of the trombone's most distinctive voices and a consistently creative force in jazz for over forty years. His latest effort KEEP IT SIMPLE is a must hear for jazz fans!

Classical Music