Denon

LA Workshop Norwegain Wood II is a project arranged by LA Workshop. This album features Lee Ritenour, Joe Sample, Steve Lukather, Jeff Porcaro, Richard Tee, Jeffrey Vanston and more great musicians from the sessiondays.

A totally excellent Buster Williams album from the 70's, and one of the best (and hardest to find). The bassist has always been one of our favorite talents – and this little gem is one of the few albums he's cut on his own, a majestic bit of straight-ahead jazz and bop, recorded with a very hip lineup!

Inbal and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra are nearing completion of their Mahler cycle, which on the whole is highly distinguished. This two-disc set gives us the climactic Ninth Symphony, arguably the greatest work of its kind composed in this century, and the opening Adagio of the Tenth in the Erwin Ratz 1964 edition. Presumably Inbal rejects the Deryck Cooke performing version, which is an immense pity because judging from his incandescent interpretation of this first movement, he would have something special to tell us about it.

As a diehard Mahlerite, I have to say I thought I knew the Seventh fairly well, but Inbal manages to make this familiar (to me) work seem utterly new and strange while holding it firmly together (which too often isn't the case in performances of this problem-child of the Mahler family). And he does this without seeming to impose his personality on the music. This is the only Seventh on disc I know of that can match the Bernstein versions (Sony and DG). And it's better-recorded than either of them. Hey Denon–when are you going to reissue all of Inbal's Mahler recordings in a boxed set, as DG did for Bernstein? This is a missed opportunity.

These performances of Szymanowski's String Quartets and Webern's Langsamer Satz by Carmina Qt are hard to describe with words. The ensemble captures varying shade and light of Szymanowski's magical soundscape by vivid imagination and formidable technical refinement. There is a wondefully crafted performance of Langsamer Satz by Leipziger Qt (MDG), but this one surpasses it by the sheer beauty of tonal blend and the emotional depth and intensity. It doesn't surprise me that this disc received 1992 Gramophone Award in chamber music category and was nominated for Grammy award.

A jazz vocal group consisting of mainly new or emerging artists. Personnel includes Daryl Bosteels, Melissa Hamilton, Van Hawk, Christopher Humphrey, Jeff Auger, Marty Ballou, Fred Haas, and Les Harris, Jr. They've made four albums thus far for Denon, one a Christmas release, with their most recent effort featuring a guest stint from Clark Terry. In spite of this CD being self-titled, it is not the first recording by the vocal quartet the Ritz, but their initial release in a series of discs for Denon. The group had been in existence for five years at the time of these studio sessions. They do a great job with a fun-filled driving take of Louis Jordan's "Saturday Night Fish Fry," a lush arrangement of the moving "It Never Entered My Mind," an almost runaway Latin-flavored "Invitation," as well as a tightly negotiated through the ultimate bop roller coaster, "Scrapple From the Apple."

A great little session from this excellent Japanese alto player - and although the title and track list might make you think that the record's a straight run of classic bop tunes, it's actually got a lot of Watanabe's modal groove and a very nice edgey feel that pushes it way past the regular Charlie Parker tribute. The groove's pretty modern, and although the tunes are all bop classics - the group (which includes trumpeter Terumasa Hino and pianist Kazuo Yashiro) make the record sound a lot different than the source material.