Lady Lady (2013)

Brigitte Fassbaender rose to worldwide fame in the role of Octavian in the Strauss/Hofmannsthal comedy Der Rosenkavalier. Fassbaender took her Octavian to all the major centers including London, Milan, Vienna, New York and Tokyo and continued singing the role for over 20 years.

Chicago-based guitarist Melvin Taylor is a star in Europe, but it may take some time for U.S. audiences to catch on to just how phenomenally talented a bluesman he is. Part of the problem for Taylor may be his own natural eclecticism. He's equally adept playing jazz or blues, but in the last few years, he's forged a name for himself as a blues guitarist with a slew of releases for Evidence Music. Taylor may well be the most talented new guitarist to come along since Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Jack (Willem) de Nijs, artist name Jack Jersey, was a Dutch singer, composer, arranger, lyricist and producer of light music (popular music) who worked for national and international artists. He had his own production company, J.R. (Jeetzi-Rah) which means "Creation" / "Creational world" in Hebrew. He discovered artists such as André Moss, Nick MacKenzie and Frank & Mirella. Over the years, Jack de Nijs and the artists he represented were good for selling more than twenty million records.

Though not as relentlessly funky as his classic Blue Note debut Two Headed Freap, On the Avenue remains the most accomplished record of Ronnie Foster's career, proving commercial aspirations and accoutrements can indeed co-exist alongside traditional jazz sensibilities. Produced by George Benson and featuring the great Phil Upchurch on guitar and Marvin Chapell on drums, On the Avenue favors more mellow, nuanced grooves over the blistering funk of previous Foster outings. The velvety opener "Serenade to a Rock" and the title cut both draw heavily on Stevie Wonder's classic mid-'70s recordings, with a lithe cover of the Innervisions track "Golden Lady" further underlining the influence. Foster also expands his palette to include Afro-Cuban sounds ("Big Farm Boy Goes to a Latin City") and even assumes vocal duties for the first time on LP with "To See a Smile." Best of all is his rendition of Freddie Hubbard's "First Light"; arguably Foster's purest and most potent performance to date.

The 2005 released "The Inconsolable Secret" wasn't the best, but it was the most ambitious album of the two US-Retroproggers Steve Babb and Fred Schendel. The double CD was a monumental concept album, on which for the first time Fiauch used a real drummer. In the past, the two multi-instrumentalists had "drummed" or programmed corresponding machines themselves. They also put no less than fifteen guest musicians at the service of this epic work, including a four-piece "Girls Choir", a soprano and a tenor as well as various strings. The album was sold out for a long time - and is now coming back on the market in a deluxe edition. But what's special is probably CD 3, which contains "The Morning She Woke" as well as the four longest tracks of the original work in remix versions. Glass Hammer's current singer Jon Davison, who also serves on Yes, breathes new life into this track and "Long And Long Ago"…