Canna 艾丽 格拉姆 Elli Ingram

Ingram Marshall (b.1942) is a composer who refuses to be categorised. He feels strongly that too many convenient ‘tags’ are placed upon artists simply to make discussions of art easier; he resists attempts to lump him together with minimalists (itself a term purloined from the visual arts), downtowners, New Romanticists or the "California School". In fact he is on record as saying, 'I hope my music is remembered for its personality rather than its style or historical position … I feel strongly now that music always points to something else, has other meanings, and in that sense I am an ‘ expressivist’' These comments are interesting in the light of the present disc, which probably represents the best of his current aesthetic.

—Tony Haywood

Savage Altars, from a concert performance by the Tudor Choir, derives its title from the Roman historian Tacitus' Annals Book I, which chronicles the Roman campaigns against the German tribes. They suffered a devastating defeat by the Cheruscan soldiers in the Teutobugian forest. Six years later, the remains, bleached out bones, splintered spears and debris, of three Roman Legions, were found, the whole of which was named "barbarae arae"—savage altars. Elements of the hymn Magnificat, and the canon "Sumer is i cumen in" are also interwoven in melodic and textual contributions. This was written on the eve of the first Gulf War under Bush the elder.

—Ingram Marshall

Grouped together, as they are on the double-disc From Q with Love, producer/arranger/conductor Quincy Jones' love songs sound an awful lot alike. The high-gloss production, the silky smooth harmonies, the lead singers – who all happen to bear a strong vocal resemblance to Jones' most famous client, Michael Jackson – and even the tunes themselves have a one-note, suite-like sweep to them that can be mind-numbingly tedious after a couple hours. It helps that From Q with Love is loaded with hits from Jones' past 30-plus years (Patti Austin and James Ingram's "Baby, Come to Me" and "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?," Ingram's "One Hundred Ways" and "Just Once," Jackson's "Human Nature," and a handful of tracks from Jones' 1989 golden showpiece Back on the Block.

'Trio Grande' is the debut statement from a brand new project that unites three of the most innovative, exciting and accomplished musicians working at the interface of New York's contemporary musical culture - British-born saxophonist Will Vinson, Israeli guitarist Gilad Hekselman and Mexico City native, long-time Jackson Heights, Queens resident Antonio Sánchez. The trio first came together at one of the city's legendary club residencies at the Cornelia Street Café, and the chemistry and excitement was immediate. Each brings their own formidable reputation as bandleader and composer in their own right, but when they started playing together, following their impulses with all the freedom afforded by the baseless trio format, they found the music taking on its own creative directions that surprised and delighted them all.