Classical Music

Classical Music

Gulda's “Symphony in G“, presented on this album, was discovered in the SWR archive in the course of research for the release of all the recordings the Austrian pianist made for the German Southwest Broadcasting Corporation (SWR). Until now nobody actually knew that this work existed for there are no indications of Gulda being commissioned or of a specific occasion for which he might have composed this symphony. Therefore, one listens here to the world première of a piece which – apart from being recorded in the studio on 20 November 1970 – has never been performed in public. At the beginning of the 1970s Gulda gave concerts that exclusively featured his own compositions. This also applies to his performance at the Heidelberger Jazztage in 1971, released here for the first time digitally and on album. Almost all of Gulda's jazz works, though often based on classical forms, cannot be played without knowledge of improvisation so as to “keep them away from bunglers” (as the pianist himself put it). One of Gulda’s few compositions without improvisation to be heard here is No. IV from the ten-part piano cycle “Play Piano Play”. “Prelude and Fugue" was probably Gulda’s favourite work and was the last piece of Gulda’s performance in Heidelberg. An exception on this album is Fritz Pauer's "Etude.” In 1966 Fritz Pauer won a prize in the jazz competition Gulda had initiated and so Gulda decided to include this work in the Heidelberg concert from 1971.

This live recording of Quincy Jones and his Orchestra was taken in Ludwigshafen in 1961. The orchestra had an all-star roster, including Freddie Hubbard, Benny Bailey, and Sahib Shihab. The program includes classics such as Summertime and Stolen Moments.

Founded in 1969, the 18-member United States Navy Band, Commodores, have been performing big band jazz for the Navy and the nation for over 40 years. They're held in high regard nationwide by concert patrons and critics alike, and have compiled an impressive roster of jazz artists who've guested with them (James Moody, Branford Marsalis, Chris Potter, and many more). This album includes an array of great jazz tunes, including “Caravan”, “Waltz For Debby” and “Lester Left Town”

A legend of progressive jazz, Stan Kenton led one of the most influential, innovative, and controversial jazz orchestras of the twentieth century. This album is a live recording from January 17, 1972, taken during the Stan Kenton Orchestra’s European tour. This release contains staples of the repertoire, including Rhapsody in Blue, Malaguena, Malaga, and Love Story.

Marimba/vibes veteran Steve Hobbs releases his strongest release in his 43-year career on Challenge Records. The recording is centered mostly around cutting edge originals by Hobbs encompassing modern mainstream examples of post-bop, Latin, Funk, Calypso, and more... arranged and performed with the typical creative and hard edged energy you are used to hearing on his past New York Recordings. Hobbs centered the music around marimba, dedicating the recording to his mentor and late friend Bobby Hutcherson. This is the group's third recording. It's a hot all-star group consisting of Steve Hobbs, Adam Kolker, Bill O'Connell, Peter Washington, and John Riley. The group's first album, released in 2007, was nominated Jazz Recording of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association of America and made it to #3 on the Jazz Week Jazz Chart. Next in 2010 the group released the critically acclaimed Vibes Straight Up, which hit #1 on it's second week of airplay on Jazz Week and remained at #1 for seven weeks! "This album is a beautiful tribute to Bobby Hutcherson. The playing is masterful, the compositions beautiful, and show a Bobby Hutcherson influence... in essence, a heartfelt and touching tribute." (Ron Miller)

Before he was a noted composer of such shows as Little Me, Sweet Charity, Barnum and On the Twentieth Century, Cy Coleman was the favorite of the New York cabaret and supper club scene. Now, for the first time, Cy and his fellow musicians play the scores of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg’s hit show Jamaica in addition to songs from the Rodgers and Hammerstein hits Flower Drum Song and South Pacific. The works from the latter production have been taken from rare transcription recordings, and are making their first debuts since being recorded in the early 1950s. While listening to this jazzy album, think of yourself sipping a Manhattan cocktail or a martini at the Shelburne or Park Sheraton hotels’ club while Cy Coleman and his fellow musicians regale you with a bevy of Broadway blockbuster tunes. It’s ‘50s jazz at its finest.

“There's a certain nakedness to a jazz duo. Everything is out there and exposed - no crashing cymbals to hide behind, or bass lines to get lost in. It often brings out a different side of your playing, a brutal honesty that is left after everything else is stripped away. Here is where we ended up...” Kevin Jones recently joined the Florida State University College of Music faculty as Assistant Professor of Jazz Trombone in 2016 after previously holding teaching appointments at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of South Carolina, Lander University, and Presbyterian College. As a performing artist, Dr. Jones toured with James Brown, Kenny Loggins, the Ringling Bros. Circus, and Princess Cruise Lines. He has numerous performing credits with jazz and commercial artists including the Temptations, Bucky Pizzarelli, Aretha Franklin, Joshua Redman, David Sanborn, Bill Holman, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Jim McNeely, Burt Bacharach, and Barry Manilow. Bill Peterson began his career in Chicago as a pianist and conductor/arranger/contractor for many celebrity artists, sharing the stage with celebrity greats including Ramsey Lewis, Diane Schuur, Patti Labelle, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Smokey Robinson, Red Buttons, Suzanne Somers, Steve Allen, Joan Rivers, Morey Amsterdam, Kathie Lee Gifford, Mary Hart, Bob Newhart, Tony Bennett, George Burns, Danny Thomas, and Las Vegas sensation, Danny Gans.

When the Darmstadt teenager Volker Kriegel (1943-2003) officially debuted his first chords in the late 1950s, the guitar was still an outsider instrument in jazz. It could boast a few luminaries, but actually everything was still open when, in 1963 and 1964, the autodidact from Hessen won first prizes as guitarist and soloist at the amateur jazz festival in Düsseldorf. The debut recordings in 1963, which Südwestfunk (SWF) recorded with the nineteen-year-old guitarist in trio at the Deutschhaus in Mainz, and the 1969 studio sessions in the Kammersaal Studio, are worlds apart. For one thing, the guitar itself had carved out a career. On top of this, Kriegel had gained in self-confidence. But above all, he had found a counterpart in Claudio Szenkar, who opened up perspectives not only in terms of communication and composition but also through Kriegel’s own instrument. The combination of vibraphone and guitar was then still fairly new. In 1968, Kriegel decided to make music his main profession. Thanks to "With A Little Help from My Friends" and an appearance at the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, he achieved the breakthrough into public recognition. Together with the vibraphonist Dave Pike, the bassist Hans Rettenbacher and the drummer Peter Baumeister, he founded the Dave Pike Set, which became for four years his artistic center and a beacon combo of European jazz rock. And for the SWF (Südwestfunk, today SWR) he went twice into the sound studio. With the exceptions of The Beatles’s anthem "Norwegian Wood" and "Mother People" by the young guitar berserker Frank Zappa, hardly any pieces by other musicians are still to be heard in these recordings.

This summit meeting of the two giants of post-war American jazz attracted enormous attention and accolade from the world jazz fans when released in 1974. Jackie McLean (1931 - 2006) and Dexter Gordon (1923 - 1990) who were at their pinnacle of creative aptitude joined forces to thrill the packed fans at Copenhagen’s Jazzhus Montmartre in the summer of 1973. After 49 years this 180g audiophile version may bring back the heat wave of jazz in Europe of the 70s. “…McLean and Dexter are naturals to play together and on this album they are both at their best.” (B. McRae – Jazz Journal) “This LP is a live recording of the best jazz performance from European live scene of 1973. I firmly believe that this document will carry its immortal value for the years to come…” (Teruo Isono – Swing Journal) 180g Audiophile Vinyl

Stomping Ground

Stable Mates

The Canadians who had the good fortune to be at the Forum on February 8, 1954 caught the Duke Ellington Orchestra in a wonderfully relaxed and even playful mood. Though the concert was recorded, it languished in a private collection and was never issued-in fact, it was never even broadcast! So here it is: two hours on 2 CDs, including the Mooche; Perdido, and many more!

Dig-It

Simone's Dance

Once in a While

Classical Music

Gardens of Stone

Trumpeter/composer Marcus Printup, stalwart of Jazz At The Lincoln Center Orchestra since 1993 presents his latest album here as In Memoriam of his late father filled with delightful compositions penned mostly by Printup to celebrate life. “Printup is such an accomplished and versatile player that he’s adept performing tunes from any point in the many decades of jazz dealt with here.” (Joel Roberts – The NYC Jazz Records on “Homage” SCCD 31730)

A Pl�cido Domingo prot�g�, soprano Angel Blue has enjoyed recent opera house triumphs in Valencia and at English National Opera. + Following her acclaimed 2013 Wigmore Hall recital, this new Rosenblatt Recital studio recording, on which Ms. Blue is accompanied by noted pianist Iain Burnside, features songs by Richard Strauss, Sergei Rachmaninov, a selection of zarzuelas, and George Gershwin's classic Summertime. + In partnership with Opus Arte, this and other CD releases will be based predominantly on studio recordings with occasional bonus live tracks. + A native of California, Angel Joy Blue's voice has been recognized for it's shining and agile upper register, "smoky" mid-register, and beautiful timbre. + She has performed internationally and won numerous awards. + "At her first meeting with Placido Domingo, he told her that she "reminded him of some of his former colleagues" - sopranos he'd worked with in the past, such as the great Leontyne Price." (The Telegraph)

Only a few, famous jazz bassists have ever gone beyond the limitations of their instruments and sought new opportunities on the cello. The cellist Valentin Radutiu turns the tables to show how well the cello suits jazz - at times taking the role of the traditional string bass, at others a resonant tenor guitar while at others giving it's voice wings. The repertoire on Remembering The Rain: A Jazz View, comes mainly from the "Great American Songbook", supplementing that glorious heritage with standards by John Lewis (MJQ) and Bill Evans, both of whom had their own anchors in classical music as well.

The cabaret singer Barbara Fasano releases a collection that features selection from the Great American songbook of classics as well as her covers of pop songs delivered with her recognizable purr that has won her fans worldwide.

This concert, which has lay forgotten for almost fifty years, is now available on CD. This concert, recorded June 22, 1964, established Albert Mangelsdorff as Germany’s international jazz star. Along with his quintet, he performs works such as Set ‘em Up, Far Out Far East, Okaka, and more.

This unique release contains live recordings taken in 1957 and 1958 from the broadcast concert series Eddie Sauter’s Music Time, during which Eddie Sauter was leader of the orchestra at the Sudwestfunk. Trumpeter and bandleader Eddie Sauter took over Kurt Edelhagen’s orchestra at the Sudwestfunk in 1957. This was his first time conducting a jazz Big Band without a co-leader. Eddie Sauter’s Music Time became a place for Sauter to experiment with his music. The programme recorded here shows a fantastic balance between standards, originals, and experiments.