Charles Gave

Every single brilliant side some 109 in all that this elegant, tremendously influential pianist cut for the Mesner brothers' Philo and Aladdin imprints from 1945 to 1956 is housed in this lavishly produced five-disc box set. Mosaic's customary attention to detail is evident in the packaging and the sound; Brown's brilliance makes the entire box a delight, from his earliest sessions with the Three Blazers through his hitmaking run as a solo star during the late '40s and early '50s. The genesis of the entire West Coast club blues style resides in this box; its expense is well worth it.

Charles Aznavour is perhaps the best-known French music hall entertainer in the world – renowned the world over for the bittersweet love songs he has written and sung, which seem to embody the essence of French popular song, and also for his appearances on screen in such wildly divergent fare as Shoot the Piano Player, Candy, and The Tin Drum. His status as the quintessential French popular culture icon is something of an irony for a man who identifies himself most closely with his Armenian heritage. Born Shahnour Varenagh Aznavourian, his French roots derive from the fact that his family fled the threat of massacre by the Turks – his father was a singer and sometime-restauranteur, while his mother was an actress and part-time seamstress.

Pithecanthropus Erectus is a 1956 album by jazz composer and bassist Charles Mingus. Mingus noted that this was the first album where he taught arrangements to his musicians by ear in lieu of putting the chords and arrangements in writing. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave it a maximum four-star rating and added it to its core collection, describing it as "One of the truly great modern jazz albums". In the same review, "the all-in ensemble work" in parts of the first track, "Pithecanthropus Erectus", is described as being "absolutely crucial to the development of free collective improvisation in the following decade".

Alexander Kastalsky was a student of Tchaikovsky and a mentor to Rachmaninov, becoming director of the Moscow Synodal School until the Bolshevik regime banned all sacred music, including the extraordinary Requiem for Fallen Brothers which consequently lay forgotten for over a century.

Henrietta Anne Stuart, youngest child of Charles I and Henrietta Maria, was born in June 1644 in the besieged city of Exeter at the very height of the English Civil War. The hostilities had separated her parents and her mother was on the run from Parliamentary forces when she gave birth with only a few attendants on hand to give her support. Within just a few days she was on her way to the coast for a moonlit escape to her native France, leaving her infant daughter in the hands of trusted supporters. A few years later Henrietta Anne would herself be whisked, disguised as a boy, out of the country and reunited with her mother in France, where she remained for the rest of her life.

The legendary American pianist Sir Charles Thompson (b. 1918) played with virtually everyone in the jazz hall of fame, including Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins, and Lester Young (who gave him the nickname "Sir"), but is now perhaps better known in Japan than in the US, as he has been living in Japan with his Japanese wife for some time. He is 94 years old (as of 2012) and is still performing and recording. We can point to his recent CD released by SSJ (Love Is Here To Stay), and now this new album from Marshmallow Records.