Brooklyn's Finest 2009

In this much requested re-issue, Chandos presents the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra performing Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos and Sinfonia concertante.
Both these works were written in Salzburg. The Concerto for two pianos was intended for performance by Mozart and his sister. With his justly famous Sinfonia concertante, boundlessly energetic in the outer movements and including a slow movement of quite remarkable poignancy, Mozart achieved one of his finest orchestral works before arriving in Vienna.

It's an interesting idea to have seven symphonies by Franz Joseph Haydn performed by the Wiener Philharmoniker, but led by five different conductors. This recording offers Christoph von Dohnányi's No. 12 from 1991, Zubin Mehta's No. 22 from 1972, Franz Welser-Möst's No. 26 from 1998 and No. 98 from 2009, Nikolaus Harnoncourt's No. 93 and No. 103 from 2009, and Pierre Boulez's No. 104 from 1996.

Recorded in 1973-1974, Mirage was one of the finest albums of the 1970s by Animals front man Eric Burdon. The soundtrack for a proposed United Artists film with the Vietnam War as its subject matter, the music recorded by Burdon such as Dragon Lady, River of Blood, Mind Arc and Driftin / Geronimos Last Stand was some of the finest of his career. Exploring the genres of rock, psychedelia and African beats, the sessions also saw Burdon record the song Mirage, written by Jimi Hendrix on the night he died. Sadly, first the film and latterly a proposed double album release by Atlantic Records were shelved and the Mirage album and sessions were consigned to the archives. This CD release on Esoteric Recordings makes for the album's CD debut in the UK.

When most jazz singers do standards, they come from the "classic" American songbook, the one that includes show tunes and pop songs from a bygone era, one that was powered by names such as Gershwin, Lerner & Loewe, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sammy Kahn, Johnny Mercer, and so many others. That said, Cassandra Wilson is not just any jazz vocalist, and her Blue Note catalog – the label she's been with since 1993 – proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Wilson has explored her deep love of jazz and blues to be sure, covering everyone from Robert Johnson to Miles Davis, but along the way she's also covered tunes by modern composers, those who have stormed the pop charts in the last 30 years or so, and those who are still on them. Closer to You: The Pop Side is a retrospective collection that looks at this side of Wilson's complex musical persona, and offers a selection of 11 tunes from her Blue Note albums, all of them focusing on songs from the rock, pop, and soul genres, and all executed in her own idiosyncratic manner.

From Prefab Sprout's early-'80s singles up through their often brilliant but much maligned album The Gunman and Other Stories in 2001, Paddy McAloon has written some of the finest pop tunes you're likely to hear in your lifetime. Comparisons have been made with Cole Porter, Lennon/McCartney, Brian Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, Jimmy Webb, Elvis Costello, and many others, but he remains a truly original and gifted singer and songwriter. While Prefab Sprout could never be called prolific in terms of physical album releases, McAloon has continued to write and demo material throughout the band's 20-plus-year career.

Orchestral and choral arrangements of rock songs have been a curious subgenre ever since the mid-'60s when Andrew Loog Oldham arranged The Rolling Stones Songbook for syrupy strings, but The Kinks Choral Collection stands apart from the pack for the simple reason that it's not the project of some associate or admirer, but rather chief Kink Ray Davies. His very presence as arranger and lead vocal means The Kinks Choral Collection isn't nearly as stuffy and middlebrow as so many of these orchestral rock albums; he manages to inject some semblance of rock & roll by pushing the songs forward with guitar, and letting the rhythms swing instead of plod.

When asked who the most talented young musicians in Germany are, the answer echoes back from the rural town of Hückeswagen near Cologne. Surrounded by hills and forest live two brothers who play "with a magical tone" (Süddeutsche Zeitung) that is "of the finest quality" (JazzPodium). Their 2006 homage to Chet Baker, Remember Chet, was celebrated as a "stunning debut" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). In faraway Sweden, Nils Landgren heard about these young musicians' abilities through the jazz grapevine, and decided he wanted to produce the two shooting stars inviting the brothers to that famous sound kitchen in which Landgren has cooked up his own highly successful albums, the Nilento Studio in Gothenburg…