In a Detroit classroom, two budding musicians with a love of soul and jazz became acquainted, they were guitarist Earl Klugh and drummer Gene Dunlap In 1978 Earl was a featured artist for Blue Note on an album “Blue Note Meets The L.A. Philharmonic” supported by Gene on drums. As Earl became more established as a solo performer, Gene played for him on professional dates and the affiliation continued through Earl’s solo recordings with United Artists and Liberty, part of the Capitol Records family of labels. It was Earl who took Gene to Capitol in 1981 for the two albums presented here.
“It’s Just The Way I Feel” and “The Party In Me” come from 1981, both albums ooze the quality of the period and with the benefit of Gene’s contributions in the songwriting came the classic recordings on both.
Sylvia St. James began at Elektra on her debut album Magic with two further giants of jazz fusion, both also with affiliated with groups, Lenny White (Twennynine) and Larry Dunn (Earth Wind & Fire). Also contributing is a long term affiliate of Lenny White, and legend in his own right Don Blackman. Sylvia had previously worked with Lenny White on Twennynine s 1980 album Twennynine featuring Lenny White , but for her second album Echoes & Images Andre Fisher was brought in as producer who had previously produced Brenda Russell and worked with Sylvia St. James between projects for Betty Wright and Sheree Brown utilising top Los Angeles players.
A great little groover from keyboardist Charles Earland – and an album that definitely lives up to its title! There's plenty of street sounds going on here – lots of modern R&B modes that echo the changing styles of early 80s soul music, especially on the east coast! And as part of that, there's a good deal of vocals on the record, alongside Charles' keyboards – work by singers who include Larry Hancock, Bruce Gray, and Sheryl Kendrick – each of whom adds plenty to the record, working over jazzy grooves nicely scored by Earland. Titles include "Be My Lady", "Take Me Away", "Feels So Good To Me", "Burning Devotion", "Tell Me What It Is", and "Go All The Way". CD features a bonus track – "Be My Lady (7" mix)".
This 2014 Hyperion collection of 22 hymns sung by the Choir of Westminster Abbey is a straightforward presentation of familiar versions for choir and organ. For the most part, the arrangements are conventional four-part settings, with occasional interpolations of seldom-heard harmonizations and descants, and the performances by the men and boys are appropriately reverent and joyous. The majority of selections are hymns of praise, including Praise, my soul, the king of heaven; Thine be the glory; and Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, though Drop, drop slow tears; I bind unto myself today; and Let all mortal flesh keep silence bring a more somber and penitential mood to the program. The recordings were made in late 2012 and early 2013 in Westminster Abbey, so the sound of the album is typically resonant and spacious, and the choir has a well-blended tone, though the trade-off for the glorious acoustics is a loss of clarity in some of the words.
This is the "Masterworks Expanded Edition" of Leonard Bernstein's Quadrophonic 1972 London Symphony Orchestra recording of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps. It was Bernstein's second go at the work in the studio, the first being made at the tail end of the mono era in January 1958 with the New York Philharmonic. CBS was very heavily into "Quad," and this justified a second recording of Bernstein in Le Sacre du printemps in order to show off the boom and bang of the new system. Whereas the 1972 Sacre is definitely exciting in spots and is a wildly colorful performance, it is also inconsistent in tempo, orchestral balance, and intonation.