Eric Drexler

Eric Clapton was already an acknowledged master of the electric guitar in January 1992 when he traded his signature Stratocaster for an acoustic Martin to record Unplugged. The live album captured the legendary guitarist, backed by a small band, performing acoustic versions of his own songs and several blues standards. Released later that same year, the album was an unqualified blockbuster, selling more than 19 million copies worldwide and earning six Grammy Awards, sweeping the top honors, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year and Song of the Year. Reprise Records celebrates Clapton's electrifying acoustic performances with a new 2-CD/DVD collection that includes a remastered version of the original album along with six unreleased outtakes on two CDs. The DVD features a newly restored version of the concert, as well as more than an hour of previously unseen footage from the rehearsal.

This is a reissue of the Time Pieces comp, a good single-disc collection of Eric Clapton's solo hits – including "I Shot the Sheriff," "After Midnight," "Wonderful Tonight," Derek and the Dominos' "Layla," and "Cocaine" – that has since been supplanted by the more thorough The Cream of Eric Clapton, which combines his solo work with selections of his Cream and Blind Faith work. Nevertheless, the compilation still provides a good introduction for neophyte Clapton fans, especially those who just want copies of his '70s hits.

In the spring of 1963, in the last full year of his life, Eric Dolphy recorded nine tracks in New York with producer Alan Douglas. Working with an ensemble that was mixed and matched in different configurations and included Prince Lasha on flute, Clifford Jordan on soprano sax, Woody Shaw on trumpet, Huey Simmons on alto sax, Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone (there was no pianist at the sessions), bassists Richard Davis and Eddie Kahn, and drummers J.C. Moses and Charles Moffett, Dolphy tracked material that clearly anticipated his landmark Out to Lunch album that appeared in 1964 while still providing a bridge to the more traditionally accessible work that preceded it…

This documentary contextualizes Eric Clapton’s role in contemporary music and cultural history. Told through his own words, it reflects on his traumatic childhood, his difficult struggle with drugs and alcohol, the loss of his son and how he always found his inner strength and healing in music. It features extensive interviews with Clapton himself, along with his family, friends, musical collaborators, contemporaries and heroes – including late music icons B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison…

Whether frontier his own ensembles with colleagues like Orrin Evans, Nasheet Waits, Kris Davis, Andrew Cyrille, Darius Jones and Jason Moran, double bassist Eric Revis has established himself as much for his experimentations into the unknown as with mainstream jazz forms (Branford Marsalis Quartet, Betty Carter). On his newest album as a leader, “Sing Me Some Cry” (Clean Feed), he goes a long way beyond anything he’s achieved before. “Sing” is the next step beyond 2013’s “Parallax” (Clean Feed), his first recorded pairing with multi-reedist and MacArthur Fellow Ken Vandermark, the Chicago experimental scion. It shows Revis’ astoundingly flexible range with a huge grounded sound.