Airshowstuff From November December 2011

In listening to the five years of the Brad Mehldau Trio represented in this box set, one hears the unfolding of a new and significant part of modern jazz history, as the end of the 1990s opened the door on the explosive creative renaissance of the music in the 21st century. Nonesuch has compiled the five releases in the Art of the Trio series, as well as an additional disc of unreleased recordings from the same period (1997-2001), offering a serious reconsideration of what has already been accepted as a "next step" for the jazz piano trio's history. On Vol. 1, Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier, and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy intriguingly and seductively begin uttering the first sounds of their new language via Mehldau's originals, such as "Lament for Linus" and "Ron's Place"…

Formed in 1970, Grobschnitt was one of the best German band from the mid-Seventies. All of the members of the band adopted pseudonyms, namely "Eroc", "Mist", "Wildschwein", "Lupo" and "Popo". The band was created by Joachim "Eroc" Ehrig (drums, percussion), Stefan "Wildschwein" Daneliak (guitars & vocals), and Gerd-Otto "Lupo" Kühn (guitar, vocals). This nucleus was later completed by Wolgang "Popo" Jäger (bass) and Volker "Mist" Kahrs (keyboards, Mellotron, synthesizers). They were best known as Yes-inspired band, but they also explored other progressive rock styles (either psychedelic prog or more cohesive "Krautrock" with some stunning instrumental passages that will be familiar to anyone into the likes of Man, Amon Duul II, Wishbone Ash and many similar bands)…

Live at the London Troxy is a live album by New Order, recorded on 10 December 2011 at The Troxy in London.
This release was the first since the band decided to reunite with its new lineup, featuring the return of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, and Tom Chapman replacing former bassist Peter Hook. The sold-out show was their first performance in London in over five years, and the album includes the entire performance. During their 90-minute set, New Order performed songs spanning 25 years of hits, alongside songs not played live since the 1980s ("586", "Age of Consent", "Elegia", "1963"), culminating with a rendition of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".

Taking listeners on a journey through Rush's seminal, prog-heavy early period, Sector 1 is the first in a series of three box sets released by the band in 2011. Collecting the band's first five albums, Rush, Fly by Night, Caress of Steel, 2112, and the live album All the World’s a Stage, the set shows Rush finding their feet artistically as they grow from a Led Zeppelin-inspired blues-rock band on their debut to the wildly ambitious band that released 2112, an album with a 20-minute title track…

Harpist Giovanna Pessi has previously been heard on ECM recordings with Christian Wallumrod and with Rolf Lislevand. On her first leader date for ECM she introduces a unique project of old and new songs in which 17th century pieces by Henry Purcell are interspersed with 20th century ballads of Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake and 21st century songs of Susanna Wallumrod, all rendered timeless by the ‘early music’ instrumentation and Susanna’s pure, understated vocal style.

Neatly chopping up the band’s career into three segments, Rush’s Sector series of box sets breaks the Canadian prog rockers' early musical legacy into easy-to-digest morsels. On Sector 2, we find the band transitioning from its early developmental period into mainstream success with the albums A Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and the live album Exit…Stage Left…

Released in 1974, Hero & Heroine was one of the Strawbs' more popular albums, making the Top 100 in the U.S. This release is not the original recording, nor an expanded edition of it, but a much later reworking of the same material, recorded between November 2010 and March 2011. Three of the Strawbs who played on the 1974 Hero & Heroine album (Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, and Chas Cronk) remained in the lineup this time around, with John Young on keyboards and Tony Fernandez on drums. It's different from the original, of course, in the unavoidable different flavor given to it by more modern production and instruments, though also via the absence of John Hawken, the keyboard player on the 1974 album.

Sector 3, the third installment of Rush’s Sector series of box sets, finds the band diving headlong into the ‘80s with a more synth-oriented approach. Featuring the albums Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, and the live album A Show of Hands, this period of Rush's career finds them focusing more on Geddy Lee’s multi-layered synthesizer excursions and finds guitarist Alex Lifeson moving into more of a support role as he begins to experiment with a more effects-heavy sound…