This excellent live recording served as my introduction to the wonderful Italian-flavoured progressive rock of PFM back in '74. The songs represented are all superlative, and the musicianship is amazing…
I Solisti Italiani is a chamber string orchestra consisting of about 12 players, known particularly for their spirited readings of works from the Baroque and Classical periods. They have performed and recorded much Vivaldi over the years and have devoted nearly as much effort to the works of Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Rossini…
Two years after Thick as a Brick 2, an explicit 2012 sequel to the 1972 prog classic, Ian Anderson embarked on another ambitious journey, this time assembling a concept record called Homo Erraticus. A loose – very loose – album based on a "dusty, unpublished manuscript, written by local amateur historian Ernest T. Parritt (1873-1928)," Homo Erraticus is an old-fashioned prog record: it has narrative heft and ideas tied to the '70s, where jazz, classical, folk, orchestral pop, and rock all commingled in a thick, murky soup. Divorced from Tull, Anderson favors fruitiness – he likes ripe melodies and baroque arrangements that showcase either his flute or the dexterity of his band – and if the music by and large isn't as forceful as Aqualung, partially due to the absence of muscular musicians, it nevertheless demonstrates a clear-eyed conception that is in the same lineage.
PFM were already Italy's premiere progressive rock band when Emerson, Lake & Palmer signed them to the British trio's own Manticore label in 1972 and turned to King Crimson alumnus Peter Sinfield to write English-language words (sung phonetically) for this, the Italian group's debut international release. A phantasmagorical creation, Photos of Ghosts is filled with lush melodies and rich musical textures, all wrapped around Sinfield's frequently surreal lyrics, which seem an extension of some of his better work from King Crimson's Lizard and Islands albums…
As PFM's work showed the increasing influence of electric jazz, the releases showed more impressive chops and yet also became less compelling to listen to. Jet Lag is the first release of theirs to cross this line, as it's noticeably less enjoyable than the previous year's Chocolate Kings…
Limited two-disc edition (HQCD + standard CD) for comparing sound. The collection includes Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Chet Baker, Duke Ellington, Sonny Clark, Art Pepper and others…
With combined U.K. album sales of nearly three million copies, Georgian-born Katie Melua has quietly become one of the biggest-selling female artists of the decade. Without the media profile of Britney Spears, the powerhouse vocals of Anastacia, or the critical acclaim of Dido, her success has been based purely on old-fashioned songs that have managed to have appeal beyond the usual folk-pop market. Indeed, just like her biggest influence, Eva Cassidy, who appears here on a posthumous cover of "What a Wonderful World," Melua's soothing and jazz-tinged tones found an audience through repeated plays on Terry Wogan's BBC Radio 2 show. So the fact that the majority of The Katie Melua Collection never really moves past first gear shouldn't come as any surprise.
Limited remastered reissue paperlseeve edition released by indie Japanese label, Muzak. HQCD, 24-bit remastering. One of the first European recordings from Sahib Shihab – a classic set that's the start of an amazing 60s run on the continent! Shihab here is quite different than his American dates of the 50s – bolder, and blowing with a really open, fluid sort of groove that marks a great development in his sound – using baritone sax, soprano, and flute – a range of instruments that really creates a wide range of feeling in the set! The performance is a live one, and the group is great too – with Allen Botschinsky on flugelhorn, Ole Molin on guitar, Niles Henning Orsted Pedersen on bass, and both Alex Riel and Bjarne Rostvold on drums.