I. Jordan

"On 'Tis The Season", the 2015 winner of "The Voice" Jordan Smith breathes fresh new life into 12 Christmas classics with his stunning style, spirit and soul. Produced by Grammy winner David Foster, the album features the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on "O Holy Night" and Cuban-born coloratura soprano Maria Aleida on "Ave Maria".

James Jordan writes: “I think when life challenges us, our common human tendency is to look toward the stars for wisdom and answers, for the abundances and peace that sometimes one’s focus toward the heavens brings to us. Looking toward the stars and the heavens often clears our vision so we can feel authentically with our hearts. Carols during Advent and Christmastime seem to also embody that spirit of mystical searching for hope and wonder.”

Philippe Jordan has already established himself as one of the most gifted and exciting conductors manning the podiums before the worlds great concert hall stages. At present, he is Music Director of the Opéra National de Paris and Music Director of the Wiener Symphoniker, but his many past and present European orchestral engagements suggest a conductor highly respected and in great demand. Giving its first concert in its earliest incarnation at the very turn of 20th century, the Wiener Symphoniker, led here by Mr. Jordan in Franz Schubert's final two, and greatest, symphonies, handles the lions share of symphonic activity that makes up the musical life of the Austrian capital. The preservation of the traditional, Viennese orchestral sound occupies a central place in the orchestras various artistic pursuits.

"Portrait Of Sheila" is the jazz singer’s widely acclaimed debut. Joined by Barry Galbraith, Steve Swallow and Denzil Best, the recording is one of Blue Note’s first vocal albums. In the 1963 Down Beat magazine Critics Poll, she was ranked first in the vocal category for "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition". Her distinguished tone dazzles on tunes including “Hum Drum Blues,” “Falling In Love With Love,” “Dat Dere” and more. This pivotal classic is included on The Penguin Guide to Jazz’s “Core Collection” and remains one of the finest jazz vocal debuts ever recorded. She did not record again as a leader for more than a dozen years.

Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter Jordan Rakei is back with his fourth studio album. What We Call Life is his most vulnerable and intimate album to date, lyrically and sonically. While the heart of the record will be familiar to fans of his neo-soul and hip-hop-infused work, here Rakei dives deeper into his sound world, merging electronic with acoustic, and rugged grooves with ambient atmospheres, to create something richer, more detailed, and more textural than before. Recommended if you like Arlo Parks, Hiatus Kaiyote, Loyle Carner and Tom Misch.

Cold, refined but utterly transcendental blues minimalism, documenting a duo performance by Jon Collin and Sarah Hughes that took place barely two months ago at Rhizome in Washington, DC.

GRAMMY-award nominated Jordan Rakei is a renowned multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter who, over soon-to-be-five studio albums, has been on a wide-ranging journey that explores the outer reaches of his inner psyche, traversing themes of emotional evolution, personal growth and family with unwavering sincerity. Always positioning himself in and amongst the bigger questions in life, he has navigated his musical journey with passion and precision, unveiling something new about himself through his songwriting at every turn. The Loop is by far Rakei’s most cohesive and evolutionary work to date following an impressive career of previous releases, each of which have demonstrated his natural curiosity and capabilities in exploring new sounds.

The music chosen for this recording is strangely and poignantly relevant, I believe, for each of us. We all now understand “The Fruit of Silence,” a motet that reminds us to visit those beliefs which are most sacred in the work by Cortlandt Matthews, or now, a deeply personal Requiem by Peter Relph that in reflection, remembers the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this pandemic. And then there is the LaVoy work “O Great Beyond.”

The Great American Songbook includes the most popular and historically important American songs from the 1920s to the 1950s. From Broadway musicals to Hollywood films, American Standards include works by composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and many others.