Cd] Oxford New Highly Recommended Student's Book

JSP's New Orleans Guitar compiles four CDs of performances by Smiley Lewis, Guitar Slim, and T-Bone Walker. It's hard to go wrong with these 102 recordings cut between 1947 and 1955. The tracks have been remastered, making the majority of this material sound great. Unlike other packages of this type, the liner notes are informative, listing personnel, dates, and a concise history without going on ad nauseam. As an extra bonus this is a budget-priced set, making it highly recommended, especially for the blues novice.

What these sound recordings attempt to do is to bring you face-to-face — or, perhaps more appropriately, sound to-heart — with actual works of the troubadours and, occasionally, of others in their circle of influence. The task is daunting for so many reasons: songs got written down decades, even centuries, after their dates of creation; only about ten percent of the original melodies survive; and most direct knowledge of how performers worked out their interpretations at the time has been lost. We know nothing whatsoever about the singing style, or about the techniques of instrumental accompaniment that may have been employed. These performances, therefore, of necessity, reflect a confluence of musicological and philological knowledge with performers' instincts and intuitions, as all of these tendencies interacted with each other at a specific moment in history, the late twentieth century.

Chet Baker's West Coast cool comes to the Big Apple on Chet Baker in New York. The project would be Baker's first – in a four album deal – with the Big Apple-based Riverside Records. The bicoastal artist incorporates his decidedly undernourished sound and laid-back phrasing into the styling of Al Haig (piano), Johnny Griffin (tenor sax), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums)…

Francesco Cafiso has caught the attention of numerous critics since veteran writer Ira Gitler raved about the then-13-year-old alto saxophonist's stunning performance with pianist Franco D'Andrea at the Pescara Jazz Festival in 2002. This CD, recorded in the U.S. for a Japanese label with a seasoned American rhythm section, marks a series of firsts for Cafiso: his initial recording outside of his Italian homeland, plus his debut for a non-Italian label and first record date playing (though hardly his first performance) with American jazz musicians. With pianist David Hazeltine, bassist David Williams, and drummer Joe Farnsworth providing terrific support, Cafiso digs into a program filled with typical favorite standards, jazz compositions, and one bossa nova, sounding surprisingly mature and confident, as he was only 16 at the time of the sessions. The young man is still finding his voice on the instrument, but he is a natural who obviously has spent many an hour honing his craft before entering the studio. Highlights include a loping treatment of "Lullaby of Birdland," a passionate, extended treatment of "Estate" and a Phil Woods-like arrangement of "Willow Weep for Me" in which the rhythm section incorporates a bit of Miles Davis' "All Blues" behind his solo. Highly recommended!

If you want a good sampling of Copland's orchestral works, then this 2-CD compilation comes highly recommended, with excellent performances of works such as Appalachian Spring, Quiet City, El Salón México and others. (Presto Classical)

This single CD gives one a definitive look at Miles Davis' live show from his last three years. Using funky but unpredictable rhythm sections and leaving space for plenty of solos, Davis created a unique brand of fusion that has yet to be satisfactorily duplicated. Among his more notable sidemen during this era are altoist Kenny Garrett, Foley on lead bass (which he used as a lower-toned guitar), one or two keyboardists chosen from Joey DeFrancesco, Adam Holzman, Robert Irving III, Kei Akagi, and John Beasley, various bassists, drummers, and percussionists, and on "Amandla," the tenor of Rick Margitza. Davis is in consistently strong form throughout the numbers, which include "In a Silent Way," "New Blues," "Human Nature," "Tutu," and "Time After Time." Quite often the live versions of these songs are more creative and exciting than the ones previously issued.

Thom Brennan's Mountains is one of the finest and most ambient offerings that Thom Brennan had made thus far. Thom Brennan's Mountains explores deep and profoundly resonant sonic atmospheres that evoke the beauty of moonlight shining down upon a mountainous peak as one watches from miles away. This is an excellently consonant recording and one that is firmly based in the sounds of beautiful synthesizer music, along the lines of Steve Roach's quieter stuff, including Quiet Music-Complete and The Dream Circle. This recording is interesting because it's as if all of the sequenced beats and drumming have been removed from Thom Brennan's beautiful work and listeners are left instead with these slowly evolving sonic timbres. In places Thom Brennan's sequenced rhythms do come into play, but they are not as prominent as they are in some of his other works. Mountains is a fantastic recording, and one that is very accessible to fans of space, new age, electronic, and ambient music alike. This is a great recording, and one that is highly recommended.