During the late '50s, Ella Fitzgerald continued her Song Book records with Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, releasing a series of albums featuring 59 songs written by George and Ira Gershwin. Those songs, plus alternate takes, were combined on a four-disc box set, Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, in 1998. These performances are easily among Fitzgerald's very best, and for any serious fan, this is the ideal place to acquire the recordings, since the sound and presentation are equally classy and impressive.
After the harrowing Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon returned to calmer, more conventional territory with Imagine. While the album had a softer surface, it was only marginally less confessional than its predecessor…
On The Three Faces of Yusef Lateef, Riverside seems eager to present Yusef Lateef, technical virtuoso, on a series of songs that step closer to jazz tradition than any of his work in the recent past. Largely absent are Lateef's experiments with Eastern modes, rhythms, and instrumentation, and in their place is a collection of largely upbeat, accessible songs, with a balanced mix of standards and originals. Much of the introspective, personal quality of his previous albums seems lost in the effort, but Lateef's playing still remains stellar, especially on oboe.
Bass-baritone Florian Boesch, top-class Lied-singer, blooms in a Schubert programme (finest orchestrations by Brahms and Webern) with the renowned Concentus Musicus, the Viennese orchestra now led by the talented Stefan Gottfried. Next to these sublimated pieces, the Concentus performs a finished version of the mysterious ‘Unfinished’ Symphony. A Scherzo by Schubert himself was completed by a composer (Nicola Samale) and a musicologist (Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs) so that the result is faithful to the musician special expression. And Rosamunde’s Overture concludes this re-enactment: a moving experience and a touching journey through time!