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Billy Joel - Piano Man (1973). Embittered by legal disputes with his label and an endless tour to support a debut that was dead in the water, Billy Joel hunkered down in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, spending six months as a lounge singer at a club. He didn't abandon his dreams - he continued to write songs, including "Piano Man," a fictionalized account of his weeks as a lounge singer. Through a combination of touring and constant hustling, he landed a contract with Columbia and recorded his second album in 1973. Clearly inspired by Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection, not only musically but lyrically, as well as James Taylor, Joel expands the vision and sound of Cold Spring Harbor, abandoning introspective numbers (apart from "You're My Home," a love letter to his wife) for character sketches and epics. Even the title track, a breakthrough hit based on his weeks as a saloon singer, focuses on the colorful patrons, not the singer…

The first CD issue of music from Manfred Schoof’s three ECM/Japo albums of the 1970s – “Scales”, “Light Lines”, and “Horizons”. “Resonance” is the German trumpeter’s personal compilation of his favourite music from this era, released as two CD set. Schoof’s quintet was a highly regarded band on the European scene of the 1970s, and the “Scales” LP won the German Critics Prize as Album of the Year (Grosser Deutscher Schallplattenpreis 1977). ~ ECM Records

Chris Smither spent a fair chunk of time in the mid-2010s looking back, culminating in Still on the Levee, a two-disc set from 2014 that found the singer/songwriter revisiting songs he recorded in the past. Arriving four years later, Call Me Lucky functions as something of an answer to that aesthetic, finding the singer/songwriter living squarely in the present. He opens the album with the lively blues shuffle "The Blame's on Me," which is quickly followed by a minor-key rendition of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene," and he effectively sets the pace for the rest of the album. As Call Me Lucky rolls on – the album proper is ten tracks, but there are six additional "B-Sides" featuring alternate takes of songs on the album, plus an introspective version of the Beatles' "She Said She Said" – Smither adds some slower, gentler touches (highlighted by the lovely "By the Numbers"), but he retains this same sense of immediacy. By playing so directly and simply – the album isn't unadorned, there are additional harmonies and guitars, yet it feels like it is – Chris Smither creates a bracing, intimate record, one that feels filled with earned truths.

Tape Five is an international studio project based in Germany created by multi-instrumentalist songwriter-producer Martin Strathausen. Tape Five combines a variety of styles and influences: The focus on Swing or Electro-Swing, but also Bossanova, Latin, Soul and NuJazz with their very own vivid retro interpretation in a classy way. For years, Tape Five has expanding global record sales and millions of Spotify streams, it´s albums frequently appear in the top 40 charts of the big international online-retailers… Selected songs can be found on about a thousand compilations (“Café del Mar”, “Campari Lounge”, “Swing Mania” and many more), they can be heard on Ad-campaigns from Spain and Hongkong to the USA and are playlisted on countless radio stations.

During the pandemic, Cecilia paused her busy schedule and took time to go back through her archives. She is now releasing this never-before-heard album ‘Unreleased’, a celebration of the most famous concert arias from Mozart, Beethoven & Haydn. Recorded with the Kammerorchester Basel conducted by Muhai Tang, and featuring Maxim Vengerov as solo violin on track 6.