Brian M Alman

Deutsche Grammophon has delved into its vaults to reissue the very first "complete" studio recording of Handel's Serse. (Absent are one recitative and the B section of Serse's aria "Più che penso," crossed out in Handel's autograph score.) Recorded in 1965 and originally issued on the Westminster label, this fine performance has never been available on CD, nor has it previously been issued complete on LP outside of the United States.

Sonny Rhodes is one of the blues world's great original characters. He deliver a smoking mix of contemporary blues. For the past four decades he has garnered well deserved accolades from his contemporaries, peers, and fans worldwide. Sonny is a genuine Texas bluesman, a blistering instrumentalist, Rhodes is a gritty singer with a real passion for the music he performs, one of the very few artists in the blues history who play the lap-steel guitar, an instrument who that gives to his music a unique sound. On stage, with some of the most colorful suits, Sonny is an unforgettable dashing figure, that provides a contrast to the gritty power of the songs he writes and the music he makes……

Joshua Redman is joined by drummer Brian Blade, bassist Scott Colley, and trumpeter Ron Miles for Still Dreaming—an album inspired by his father Dewey Redman's 1976–1987 band, Old and New Dreams—due on Nonesuch Records May 25, 2018. Along with the senior Redman, Old and New Dreams featured an all-star lineup of Ornette Coleman collaborators—cornetist Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden, and drummer Ed Blackwell—who continued pushing musical boundaries as they had with Coleman even after their former bandleader moved in a new direction. Still Dreaming features six new compositions by the new band as well as one tune by Haden and one from Coleman.

Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a huge number of chamber cantatas – about 600, in fact – most of which are, like the five delightful examples on this disc, for solo voice. These ones are sung by countertenor Brian Asawa with stylish support from members of the Arcadian Academy, who provide varying types of accompaniment, sometimes with continuo alone, at other times with a larger instrumental colloquium. Only one of the five cantatas here, Clori vezzosa, e bella, is written for voice and basso continuo throughout, the others calling for two violins and, on occasion, viola. The first work in the programme is the most elaborate of the group with its three-movement instrumental introduction and four each of alternating recitatives and arias.

World-renowned acoustic and electric bassist Brian Bromberg hasn’t released an album in the U.S. since 2012, a fact that might not have been cause for concern if you know that at one point he released three albums in one year. Every man deserves a break. However, once you realize that this chameleon with over 20 projects in his catalog recently had reason to believe that he might never play music again, you understand the gravity of his latest acoustic jazz project, Full Circle - one he says may well be “the most important record of my career.” Like all of his work, Bromberg’s latest features a stellar cast that includes trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, saxophonists Bob Sheppard, Kirk Whalum and Doug Webb, pianists Randy Waldman,Mitch Forman and Otmaro Ruiz, and percussionist Alex Acuña. The project also finds ‘the man that refuses to sit still’ mixing styles from New Orleans funk and a legit jazz cover of Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop `Til You Get Enough” to Cubop - with a sizzling relentless swing throughout.