Buddy Rich, the most remarkable drummer to ever play jazz, can easily have his career divided into three. During 1937-1945 he was a notable sideman with big bands including those of Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw, and Tommy Dorsey. In 1966 he formed his own successful orchestra that capitulated him to his greatest fame. During the 20 years in between, Rich led short-lived bebop big bands, a variety of combos, toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic, recorded with all-star groups, and had stints with the orchestras of Dorsey and Harry James. This seven-CD set draws its material from Rich's second period and it can also be divided into two. The first half has Rich recording for producer Norman Granz in a variety of combos.
King’s College Choir are the most famous choir in the world. This 29-CD set of the complete Argo recordings celebrates David Willcocks’ tenure from 1957-1973 and includes some of the most beautiful choral music sung with the choir’s trademark richness and purity of sound. Six albums are released on CD for the first time – David Willcocks’ 1964 Festival of Lessons & Carols and Tye Masses and four albums from Boris Ord, Willcocks’ predecessor. Also includes works by Bach, Tallis, Haydn and others.
This 28 CD box set includes the Argo jewels from Marriner’s early recording days with the chamber orchestra he founded in 1958, The Academy of St Martin in the Fields. The edition spans the years 1964-1981, and includes a bonus CD of the first recordings from 1961.The collection concentrates on the Argo years, when the pattern for the Academy’s success was set. Winning performances by soloists such as Alan Loveday and Iona Brown — who in 1974 became Marriner’s successor in directing from the violin – were a key part of the fabric of the Academy’s unique sound.
Handel's Giove in Argo (Jupiter in Argos) is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, a pastiche (or, in the parlance of the time, pasticcio) of numbers from earlier operas stitched together into a mythological-pastoral plot that is absurd even by the standards of Baroque opera. It is a notable sign of the success of the Baroque opera revival that this has appeared on a semi-major label, Virgin Classics. The pieces were all from operas that were fairly recent at the time, and it's possible that the work was intended as a kind of greatest-hits reprise, but London audiences did not bite; the opera was long thought to be lost, and it had its modern premiere only in 2006, with newly written recitatives.