Ipc J Std 001e 2010

West coast bluesman Coco Montoya has been known as a major guitar threat for years – we are, after all, talking about a guy who learned at the feet of Albert Collins – but after all this time spent focused on pursuing the blues fret-burner path, Montoya shows a new side of himself on I Want It All Back. There's plenty of piercingly lyrical guitar work, of course, but it's Montoya the singer who emerges as the dominant figure in these sessions, leaning into a smooth, soulful lilt that's not a million miles away from the sound of Los Lobos lead vocalist David Hidalgo. Not only that, Montoya is letting this cool-crooning approach lead him down different musical avenues, as well.

Hamish Milne makes a welcome return to the Romantic Piano Concerto series with two recherché delights from the nineteenth century.
Józef, ‘the other Wieniawski’ is the brother of the more famous violinist, Henryk. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire and had a wide-ranging and successful performing and composing career. His highly attractive Piano Concerto in G minor is in the mould of those by Chopin and Liszt, with the piano very much in the foreground. The Rondo finale demands a spectacular display of technique, living proof of Wieniawski’s own brand of virtuosity.

Veteran producer Mike Vernon, known for his work with John Mayall and other British blues stars of the 1960s on Decca Records' Deram label and his own Blue Horizon imprint, came out of retirement to handle this, the second album by 19-year-old guitarist and singer Oli Brown, and it's easy to tell why. Brown is very much in the tradition of the people Vernon used to work with, which is to say that he is steeped in that distinctly British version of the blues, a style that has a heavy complement of rock & roll in it. Enough teenagers have turned out competent blues guitar records to make Brown's authority, even at so young an age, believable. Fans always talk about the feeling necessary to play the blues, but the mechanics of it require a technical dexterity that can be commanded by players with young, supple fingers.

This release is part of a set of Bach cantata recordings by the Belgian group Il Gardellino and director Marcel Ponseele: not an entire new Bach cantata cycle but a set of thematically oriented recordings that may also include works by other composers. "De profundis" (from the depths) offers three cantatas based on Psalm 130, which begins with the words "From the depths I cry to thee, Lord" and was translated into German in several ways.