2020

Soul Jazz Records new ‘Apala: Apala Groups in Nigeria 1967-70’ is the first ever collection of Apala music to be released outside of Nigeria. The album focusses on a wide selection of recordings made in Nigeria in the 1960s, a time when Apala music was at the height of its popularity. Apala is a deeply rhythmical, hypnotic and powerful musical style that combines the striking nasal-style vocals and traditions of Islamic music, the Agidigbo (thumb piano), and the equally powerful drumming and percussion rhythms and techniques of the Yoruba of Nigeria.

A few years after the success of her album crossing Baroque music with folk, Love I Obey (ALPHA538), the Franco-American singer Rosemary Standley visits Schubert, this time with the complicity of the Ensemble Contraste: ‘We all have a few notes of Schubert buried deep inside us’ say the artists, who have got together around his music and brought to it an original sound texture, the result of their varied influences – classical, pop, jazz, folk.

Cellist Camille Thomas’ program of beautiful cello arrangements invites us to find hope amid uncertainty, to see light in the darkness. From Purcell’s grief-stricken “When I Am Laid in Earth” to Bruch’s yearning “Kol Nidrei” and Dvořák’s nostalgic “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” Thomas finds beauty deep within pain. But in Donizetti, she celebrates the power of love, in Wagner gentleness, and in Mozart steadfastness. Fazil Say’s 2017 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, “Never Give Up”, a musical response to the terrorist attacks in Paris and Istanbul, is searing and often upsetting, cello flowing like tears, orchestra twisted, demented. Birds bring peace, at last, to a modern masterpiece that confronts anguish and distress with strength and optimism.

In her new project, City Lights, Lisa Batiashvili gathers all the places and memories that have been important in her life and career together with some of the world’s most beautiful music. A journey from her native Georgia to Paris, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Hollywood that features ground-breaking collaborations with artists as diverse as Miloš, Katie Melua and Till Brönner. City Lights shares the beautiful melodies from Cinema Paradiso and Chaplin’s own compositions with all time classics from Piazzolla, J.S. Bach and the late Michel Legrand - all in new arrangements by Nikoloz Rachveli - and last, but not least a new song by Katie Melua about the magic of London.

GoGo Penguin the instrumental trio from Manchester, England consisting of Chris Illingworth (piano), Rob Turner (drums) and Nick Blacka (bass) have fielded plaudits and rave reviews for inspiration and originality at every turn since 2013. Now back with their self-titled album out on June 5th, which signifies their conviction that they’ve struck upon the motherlode, hit the jackpot, stepped up and generally arrived at a point they’ve always striven for but never quite attained before.

Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna is once again this year the beautiful backdrop for a classical music concert in a class of its own. Every year, the famous summer night concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra takes place there. This year, the orchestra is conducted by Valery Gergiev, who has been working with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for many years. For the first time this year, the German world star Jonas Kaufmann will be the star guest at the Summer Night Concert. The programme is still secret, but as every year it will be a particularly beautiful mixture of classical hits and special works by Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Jacques Offenbach, Jules Massenet, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Emmerich Kálmán, Maurice Jarre, Aram Khachaturian and Giacomo Puccini.

Duke Ellington wrote Sacred Concert in the mid-1960's and performed the work with his orchestra and various soloists between 1966 and 1974 at churches around the USA and Europe. Ellington never wrote a score of Sacred Concerts, and it wasn't until 1993 when John Høybye and Peder Pedersen produced a score mostly meant for choirs, but including the full vocal lines and harmonies. Ellington's own performances were all different. The amount and order of the movements and everything about interpretation was agreed just be-fore the start of each show, and the musicians and soloists improvised in true jazz style.The movements of Sacred Concert are reflections and allusions of traditional gospel songs and the historic roots of soul music in America, and the songs sung by black slaves in the hellish working conditions of the cotton fields. The threads of freedom, brotherhood, God's mercy and praise run through each lyric.The album was recorded at the Kokkola Church in 2017, one long take at a time, making the improvi-sation sections genuine. The choir parts have been recorded post-production in a studio by Anu and Marzi.

Extremely rare debut LP by this obscure Japanese heavy psych/hard rock group. Blazing acid guitar jamming, wailing vocals, the works! The second side in particular (recorded live in early 1973) will blow your mind, but the whole album is very strong and would be much better known if it wasn’t so hard to find. A must for fans of Flower Travellin’ Band, Blues Creation, etc.

Phish recorded the majority of the nine-track effort at guitarist Trey Anastasio‘s Barn in Vermont over the period of a week this past November. Vance Powell, Michael Fahey, Ben Collette and Jared Slomoff all helped with the recording process. Powell mixed the album at Sputnik Sound in Nashville with mastering handled by Pete Lyman at Nashville’s Infrasonic Mastering. All nine of the songs on Sigma Oasis had been performed live by the band prior to the release of the album with “Steam” dating back to 2011 and “Evening Song” debuted live on December 28, 2019. The LP includes strings arranged by Don Hart and vocal production and arrangements by Raab Stevenson.

The ultimate exploration into Elton John’s extensive back catalogue, ‘Jewel Box’ encompasses a selection of deep cuts chosen by Elton himself; rarities from the earliest stage of his and Bernie Taupin’s musical journey; B-sides spanning 30 years, and songs discussed in Elton’s best-selling, critically acclaimed 2019 memoir, ‘Me’. The eight discs come in a beautiful hardcover book, enclosed in an outer slipcase. Each section contains extensive notes and, for ‘Deep Cuts’, there is track-by-track commentary by Elton. The set contains an unprecedented number of previously unheard, unreleased tracks from 1965-1971, the years that cemented the foundations of the iconic John-Taupin partnership: ‘Jewel Box’ truly is a treasure trove for Elton John fans.