Carissa's Wierd Brooke Daniels' Tiny Broken Fingers

On this, Charlie Daniels' second release, there are obvious signs of a bright future for the guitar- and fiddle-playing hillbilly rocker. Along for the ride is Joel "Taz" DiGregoria, Charlie's longtime bandmate and keyboard wizard. Taz even takes lead vocal duties on one song, "Billy Joe Young," and his ivory tickling is a highlight of this historical Southern rock document. Daniels rocks with the intensity of a downbound train on "Great Big Bunches of Love," and on his cover of the Jerry Lee Lewis chestnut "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee." A true Southern poet, Charlie Daniels is seen here in the infancy of his artistic development, but even at this early stage, the poet is alive and well.

Originally titled HONEY IN THE ROCK and later renamed for its hit song (Daniels's first chart entry), UNEASY RIDER is the third Charlie Daniels album, but the first to put his name on the map. In addition to his previous southern-rock-meets-Western-swing sound, the album includes a significant R&B influence, making for an intriguing country-funk style. The title track's talking blues is particularly significant for espousing a hippie/counterculture perspective on the part of a man who'd later become known for championing more conservative values.

After a fine Handel recital CD, not to mention taking part in a dozen other major recordings, countertenor David Daniels has hit the jackpot. This fascinating, handsomely recorded CD offers us arias from Mitridate and Ascanio in Alba, and a concert aria by Mozart (the only one he composed for male alto), as well as some Handel and Gluck arias. With them, Daniels takes us through every quality a classically trained singer should have and comes through with flying colors. The arias are about vengeance, sorrow, love–the usual–but within baroque strictures that means that some require lush, limpid singing, others ferocious coloratura and exclamatory heft, and some all of these.

David Daniels' Rinaldo is surely the equal of his illustrious 18th -century predeccessors. His countertenor is one of the most accomplished voices I have heard… As Arimda, Noemi Nadelmann's voices started where her legs ended, and shet hrew coloratura at us as though it was going out of fashion (astride her pet Hydra being a particularly fabulous show-stopper). David Walker as Goffredo is no vocal sluch either; his voice is brighter edged than Daniels', and almostb as fluent.

The "Stabat Mater" is most substantial. Alternating recitatives and arias, often framed by instrumental ritornellos, it is heartbreakingly mournful, but ends peacefully before closing with a whole aria on "Amen." The other two works are real bravura pieces for the singer. They cover an enormous range and are full of florid coloratura passages and wide leaps. "Nisi Dominus" is very dramatic, with mysterious chromatic lines and big climaxes; "Longe mala" goes from defiant vehemence through fervent entreaty to serene resignation.

By the eighteenth century, Palermo-born Alessandro Scarlatti was the most widely performed Italian composer of vocal music having written more than sixty operas and well over a hundred cantatas. The cantata, more concentrated than opera, was considered at that time as the higher artistic form. Scarlatti was extremely prolific and many of his works including cantatas still remain unrecorded.

Off the heels of Grammy-nominated album, Heart of Brazil, comes jazz clarinet icon Eddie Daniels' new project, Night Kisses. Paying tribute to the world-renowned Brazilian musician/composer Ivan Lins, it brings Daniels together with legendary jazz pianists Dave Grusin and Bob James, plus top-shelf trio-Josh Nelson, Kevin Axt, Mauricio Zottarelli - and the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet. Features songs from Lins' classic `70s/'80s albums and new arrangements by Kuno Schmid and Josh Nelson.

It has been a several years since David Daniels’ last recital for Virgin Classics – in 2004 the renowned countertenor explored Berlioz’ Les Nuits d’Eté - and his most recent recital of Baroque works, the critically acclaimed Oratorio Arias by Handel, dates back to 2002. For this new release, Daniels returns to sacred works of the Baroque era with this programme of sacred arias and cantatas by Bach. He lends his beautiful countertenor voice and immense musicianship to this programme of famous cantatas, namely “Ich habe genug”, and arias from Bach’s Mass in B minor and the Saint Matthew’s and Saint John’s Passions. The programme was recorded in London in September 2007.

The ever-increasing popularity of Handel and his contemporaries, and their employment of alto castratos, has encouraged the development of countertenors capable of similar vocal feats to the original interpreters of the heroic roles in these works. Among these the distinguished American, David Daniels, who burst on to the scene here a couple of years ago at Glyndebourne in Theodora, is a leading contender. If I would place Scholl in the category of Deller and Esswood, with their luminous, soft-grained tone, Daniels is closer to the more earthy sound of Bowman, his voice — like Bowman's — astonishingly large in volume.