"Excellent renderings of familiar Liszt works by Gary Graffman, whose touch and style grow more impressive with each release." -- Billboard

"There is some magnificent piano-playing on this record." -- Gramophone

"This album marks Shirley Verrett’s debut on RCA Victor Red Seal records. She has chosen a program of Spanish songs which ranges through the multicolored moods of Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs to the tender lullaby, “Canción de Cuna” by Montsalvatge. In this varied and challenging program Miss Verrett shares honors with Charles Wadsworth, who plays the equally demanding piano accompaniments."

- Walter Starkie
from the original 1965 RCA liner notes.

Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.

Principal cast includes: Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway, Emily Yancy, Jack Crowder, Winston DeWitt Hemsley, and Chris Calloway.

Saul Schechtman, conductor.

So successful was Hello, Dolly! on Broadway that producer David Merrick took the bold step in 1967 of recasting the entire production with an African-American cast, led by Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway. The powerful response inspired a second cast recording of the original production, made on November 17, 1967 in Webster Hall in New York City. Produced by George R. Marek and Andy Wiswell, the recording captures Bailey and Calloway’s infectious performances, and the cast includes Emily Yancy, Jack Crowder, Winston DeWitt Hemsley and Chris Calloway, with Saul Schechtman conducting.

Recorded November 17, 1967, in Webster Hall, New York, NY.
Producers: George R. Marek and Andy Wiswell.

Tracks:
1. Overture
2. I Put My Hand In - Pearl Bailey
3. It Takes a Woman - Cab Calloway
4. Put On Your Sunday Clothes - Pearl Bailey / Jack Crowder / Winston DeWitt Hemsley / Roger Lawson
5. Ribbons Down My Back - Emily Yancy
6. Motherhood - Pearl Bailey / Chris Calloway / Emily Yancy
7. Dancing - Pearl Bailey / Jack Crowder / Winston DeWitt Hemsley / Emily Yancy
8. Before the Parade Passes By - Pearl Bailey
9. Elegance - Emily Yancy / Chris Calloway / Jack Crowder / Winston DeWitt Hemsley
10. Hello, Dolly! - Pearl Bailey
11. It Only Takes a Moment - Jack Crowder / Emily Yancy
12. So Long Dearie - Pearl Bailey
13. Finale - Pearl Bailey / Cab Calloway

"Brahms, a splendid pianist, had a special diffidence regarding chamber music for strings alone. He fussed endlessly with the string quartet medium and said in later years that he had written twenty before producing one good enough to publish – and at that, he published only three. He was forty by the time he allowed the first two to see the light of day, and they had occupied him for some eight years.
Perhaps Beethoven’s shadow, of which he was acutely conscious, loomed too heavily in this area. Brahms felt less hesitant writing for a medium Beethoven had never touched: he turned out two string sextets in his late twenties and early thirties.

All this puts a special focus on the two String Quintets. By the time Brahms wrote them (Op. 88 in 1882 and Op. 111 in 1890) he was at the peak of his powers. Whatever internal dilemmas he had faced had been successfully resolved, and also he had learned that a string quintet with two cellos – so memorably employed by Schubert – was not to his liking. But Brahms was always partial to dark coloring, and it seems natural that he would be strongly drawn to the dark-hued viola quintet."

— Excerpt from the original liner notes from ARC1-4849 by Shirley Fleming

DVOR·K: SYMPHONY NO 9 ENESCO:

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: SYMPHONIES 6

We come now to more modern fare, and firstly to a very colourful, immediately enjoyable work in Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Second Violin Concerto, written for Heifetz in 1933. This work is sub-titled I profeti (''The Prophets'') and the names of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Elijah head its three movements. Heifetz clearly relishes the score's attractive lyricism, and Wallenstein's conducting is full of personality too. The 1954 stereo recording is more than adequate. Howard Ferguson wrote his First Violin Sonata in 1931, when he was 23. This is a gently flowing, somewhat reflective piece, apart from a brief central Allegro furioso movement, to which Heifetz responds with alacrity. Elsewhere his rather sharp-toned, virtuoso approach tends to be somewhat at odds with the work's nature, and a rather close 1966 recording does not help. He is more suited to the early Sonata of Karen Khachaturian, who is Aram Khachaturian's nephew. On the evidence of this work, like his uncle, Karen writes in an outgoing, vigorous, uncomplicated style, which Heifetz plays in a cheerful, extrovert fashion. The recording was made at the same sessions as the Ferguson sonata. Francaix's String Trio is a typically brief, slight, but cleverly written piece, and here Heifetz and his two colleagues relax to give a delightfully spry, pithy performance, which is matched with a good 1964 recording. . . .

Heifetz was without doubt a uniquely gifted artist. It has been a very rich experience for me to explore these five discs, and I can do no more than give them the highest possible recommendation.

-- Gramophone [from a review of five titles featuring Jascha Heifetz]

SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN SERGEI EDE

N

Track Listing
1. I'll Forgive You 'Cause I Love You, But the Wrongs You've Done I Can't Forget
2. I'm Gonna Lose Myself Way Down in Louisville
3. My Old Daddy's Got a Brand New Way to Love
4. Sugar - Fats Waller
5. Beale Street Blues
6. Fort Worth and Denver Blues
7. Penitentiary
8. Better Boot That Thing
9. Bogey Man Blues
10. Whistling Woman Blues
11. Blood Hound Blues
12. Dirty Tee Bee Blues
13. Moaning the Blues
14. Telephoning the Blues
15. Showered With Blues
16. Wrong Doin' Daddy
17. Elm Street Blues
18. When You Lose Your Daddy
19. Mr. Forty Nine Blues
20. Good-Bye Rider

Recorded from 1927 to 1930. Includes liner notes by Billy Altman.

Digitally remastered by Jay Newland (June 1992, BMG Studios, New York City).

ZEMLINSKY: LYRIC SYMPHONY, 6 L

Personnel includes: Doc Severinsen, Snooky Young, Tom Brown, Richard Perry, Bobby Bryant, John Audino (trumpet); Mac Kenley, Robert Alexander, Lloyd Ulyate, Gene Cipriano (trombone); Vincent DeRosa (French horn); Lew Tabackin, Bud Shank, Ernest Watts (woodwinds); Ross Tompkins, Pat Rebillot, Michael Woodford (piano); Dennis Budimir, Peter Woodford, Tommy Tedesco (guitar); John Williams, Meyer Rubin (bass); Fred Stites, Ed Shaughnessy (drums); John Pacheco, Michael Collazo, Larry Bunker (percussion).

Producers: Don Sebesky, Pete Spargo, Dick Hyman, Joe Reisman.

Compilation producer: John Snyder.

Recorded at RCA Studios, New York City and RCA Studios, Hollywood, California on April 29 & 30, 1971; June 2, 1971; June 12, 1972 and August 22, 1973. Includes liner notes by Mort Goode.

Digitally remastered by Joe Lopes (May 7, 1992, BMG Recording Studios, New York, New York).

This compilation contains tracks recorded for RCA from 1971-1973.

Performers include: Gil Evans, George Russell, Johnny Carisi and Rod Levitt.

A lot of unusual music appears on this Bluebird CD. Altoist Hal McKusick (with arrangmeents contributed by George Russell and Gil Evans) performs five numbers (including a version of "Blues for Pablo" that was cut a year before Miles Davis's recording) with a variety of musicians including trumpeter Art Farmer and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland. Arranger John Carisi (heard here on trumpet) interprets seven previously unreleased numbers with an octet and trombonist Rod Levitt performs five of his arrangements with his own advanced octet. Although these performances would have little influence on future developments in jazz (the free jazz movement of the 1960s overshadowed the trend toward using elements of modern classical music in charts), the music still sound quite fresh and unpredictable today.

Track Listing

Disc 1:
1. Sweetie Dear
2. I Want You Tonight
3. I've Found a New Baby
4. Lay Your Racket
5. Maple Leaf Rag
6. Shag
7. Ja-Da
8. Really the Blues
9. When You and I Were Young, Maggie
10. Weary Blues
11. Indian Summer
12. One O'Clock Jump
13. Preachin' the Blues
14. Preachin' the Blues
15. Sidney's Blues
16. Sidney's Blues
17. Shake It and Break It

Disc 2:
1. Shake It and Break It
2. Old Man Blues
3. Old Man Blues
4. Wild Man Blues
5. Wild Man Blues
6. Nobody Knows the Way I Feel Dis Mornin'
7. Make Me a Pallet on the Floor
8. Shake It and Break It
9. Saint Louis Blues
10. Blues in Thirds
11. Blues For You, Johnny
12. Blues For You, Johnny
13. Ain't Misbehavin'
14. Ain't Misbehavin'
15. Save It, Pretty Mama
16. Stompy Jones
17. Muskrat Ramble
18. Coal Black Shine

Personnel includes: Sidney Bechet (vocals, soprano saxophone, clarinet), Rudolph Adler (tenor saxophone), Henry "Red" Allen, Tommy Ladnier (trumpet), Sandy Williams, Teddy Nixon (trombone), Mario Janarro, Sonny White, Henry "Hank" Duncan, Cliff Jackson, James Tolliver, Earl Hines (piano), Bernard Addison, Teddy Bunn (guitar), Wilson "Serious" Myers (bass, vocals), John Lindsay, Harry Patent, Elmer James, Wellman Braud (bass), Kenny Clarke, Morris Morand, J.C. Heard, Manzie Johnson (drums).

Recorded in New York between 1932-1940 and Chicago in 1940. Includes liner notes by Don Waterhouse.

This is part of RCA's Jazz Tribune series.

Of all the overlapping Bechet reissue series, this series of two-LP sets released by French RCA is easily the best, with all of the Victor sides by the great soprano-saxophonist and clarinetist (including the valuable alternate takes) being issued complete and in chronological order. The first two-fer is highlighted by the blazing session by The New Orleans Feetwarmers from 1932, four selections from the "Really the Blues" date with trumpeter Tommy Ladnier and clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow, and such Bechet classics as "Indian Summer," "Old Man Blues" and "Nobody Knows The Way I Feel 'Dis Mornin'." ~ Scott Yanow, AllMusic.com

BEETHOVEN: COMPLETE VIOLIN SON