The Stan Getz volume in Verve's Quiet Now series is a stellar collection of ballads from the '50s and '60s when Getz and his bands led jazz polls continually. His bossa material, which is his best known, is represented here by three cuts – and no, "Girl from Ipanema" is not one of them – including "Corcovado." That said, it's his interpretations of standards such as "Little Girl Blue," "It Never Entered My Mind," "Sweet Rain," and "Serenade in Blue" that the great tenorman's true lyrical gift comes into play.
At the time of civilisation collapse, only the bold pave the way. Back to basics. Let us give CHROMB! a certain sense of responsibility: through this fourth album, entitled Le Livre des Merveilles, the quartet appears in a new light. Washed of their sins. Off with the worn out fusion-prog, the ten notes per second that were the trademark of the Lyon-based musicians, now the approach is radical and the demonstrative varnish fades away in favour of "knowledge". This same "knowledge" the XIIIth century cleric and knight Gervais de Tilbury praised in his Livre des Merveilles wich the band draws his inspiration from, even borrowing entire dizzying fragments…
Dorothee Oberlinger was born in Aachen and raised in Simmern. At the University of Cologne, she studied music education and German studies. After university, she studied recorder in Cologne, Amsterdam and Milan. Her teachers include Günther Höller (Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln), Walter van Hauwe (Amsterdam) and Pedro Memelsdorff (Milan). In 1997 she won the first prize at the international "Moeck" UK / SRP competition. In 1998, she made her solo debut at London's Wigmore Hall.
Symphonic keyboards, progressive guitars, driving bass and adventurous drums provide the backbone of this debut release by Gekko Projekt. The album opens with "Particle Dance", an energetic instrumental that contains all the elements of classic Yes. "Black Hole" sounds like it could be a hit single for the band without betraying the progressive nature of the album. Echoes of Weather Report and jazz-rock are evident in the following two instrumentals, "Cognitive Dissonance" and "London Vibe" before the band launches into its epic song "Avatar Jones".
Middle of the Road’s discography is complicated, the end effect of being a Scottish band whose popularity was built on European hits. Their first album was an Italian release, they had records released only on the continent then later repackaged for the U.K. as a premature Hits collection, they barely had anything in the U.S. Cherry Red/7T’s 2010 set The RCA Years performs a useful function of rounding up the released master takes - in other words, the three LPs Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, Acceleration, and Drive On, plus six cuts only on that Italian debut - presenting the complete recorded works and far too much Middle of the Road for anyone outside of Euro-pop obsessives.