Ben Wolfe Unjust

Haunting, poignant and relentlessly physical, Julia Wolfe’s Anthracite Fields is a lovingly detailed oratorio about turn-of-the-20th-century Pennsylvania coal miners, and a fitting recipient of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. NPR Music’s Tom Huizenga describes the piece as “…almost a public history project and a music project at the same time,” which hints at the work’s universal appeal.

Just as the title implies, 25 Years of Greatness is a career-spanning 32-track compilation covering most of the highlights of the Wolfe Tones' first quarter of a century. There is the important caveat, however, that like many folk groups, the Wolfe Tones have recorded many of their most popular songs several times, and this collection tends to favor more recent and/or more arranged versions of the Spartan originals that graced early albums like Let the People Sing. That's not as much of a problem as it would be with some groups, however, as the Wolfe Tones have wisely resisted any temptation to "update," "modernize," or otherwise ruin a traditional Irish folk style that has worked for them for so long; even the Fairport Convention-like electric track of the new "Rock On Rockall" has a bracingly traditional feel to it. This is the Wolfe Tones set to have if you're having just one, but there's plenty more where this came from.

Diane Schuur is that rare songbird who is equally competent as a jazz singer and a pops entertainer. While some vocalists go with more lucrative popular music and some take the road of the jazz artist in the pure sense, Schuur is able to straddle the two careers. Frank Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole had a superb grasp of the jazz idiom, but they made the decisive choice to become entertainers. By contrast, Chris Connor, Betty Carter, and Johnny Hartman all had shots at the klieglights and hit parade but took the route of the jazz scene…

A seriously exciting set of new compositions from Bang On A Can's Cantaloupe Music, this album brings together four works by Julia Wolfe (b. 1958), each penned for multiples of single instruments. Says Wolfe: "With each piece I tried to dive into a psychedelic landscape, at one multilayered, fractured, ecstatic, silent, driving, cacophonous, and direct."

Brian Eno is a legendary musician, producer, visual artist, and activist who first came to international prominence in the early ‘70s as a founding member of the British band Roxy Music, followed by a series of solo albums, collaborations, and production work with artists such as David Bowie, Talking Heads, Devo, U2, Coldplay, his brother Roger Eno, and most recently, fred again.