Leo 45

Greek mezzo-soprano, Mary-Ellen Nesi, who sings all five works, produces a stream of gloriously firm tone reminiscent of Bernada Fink, another superb mezzo on the scene these days. Her diction and moulding of phrases here is excellent. The two Leonardo Leo settings of the Salve Regina (in C Minor and F Major) which begin the disc are followed by a cello Concerto (also by Leonardo Leo) and a world premiere recording of an Alessandro Scarlatti setting of salve Regina (in C Minor) and then the two better known Pergolesi settings (in C and A Minor) conclude the disc. The cello soloist is lovely too and all works receive excellent support from Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco.

Gerard Hugh "Leo" Sayer is an English-Australian singer-songwriter musician and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. He is now an Australian citizen and resident. Sayer launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10 – a feat first registered by his first manager, Adam Faith. His songs have been sung by other notable artists, including Cliff Richard ("Dreaming").

The Emerald Duets is a crowning achievement among Wadada Leo Smith's many recorded duo collaborations with drummers/percussionists, that have previously featured such creative giants as Ed Blackwell, Jack DeJohnette, Milford Graves, Louis Moholo-Moholo and Gunter Sommer, among others. The Emerald Duets features four master drummers who have each, in their own unique fashion, contributed to the way modern drumming has developed in the past six decades and how it is now perceived. Pheeroan akLaff, Andrew Cyrille and Han Bennink are each featured on one disc and Jack DeJohnette on two discs, including Smith's five-part composition "Paradise: The Gardens and Fountains" that fills the fifth disc of this boxed set in its entirety.

The Show Must Go On offers a definitive collection of Sayer's 1970s bubbly dance-pop hits like "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing," "When I Need You," and "More Than I Can Say." A number of rare singles are also included, as is the unreleased cut "Tonight the Sky's About to Cry".

Gerard Hugh "Leo" Sayer is an English-Australian singer-songwriter musician and entertainer whose singing career has spanned four decades. He is now an Australian citizen and resident. Sayer launched his career in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, and became a top singles and album act on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s. His first seven hit singles in the United Kingdom all reached the Top 10 – a feat first registered by his first manager, Adam Faith. His songs have been sung by other notable artists, including Cliff Richard ("Dreaming").

Leo Kotke's 1995 release, Leo Live, is a welcome addition to his repertoire. Kotke has gotten past his earlier reluctance to perform vocals, and his voice here sounds comfortable and assured on tracks like "Room at the Top of the Stairs" and the talking blues "Jack Gets Up." Yet, as is characteristic of his style, it's his instrumental work on cuts like "Peg Leg," "Little Martha," and a mellow version of the old classic "Twilight Time" that show the artist in peak form. Kotke's mildly "Oddball" proclivities may come through in song titles like "I Yell at Traffic" and "Flattened Brain," yet whatever he names it, his playing is consistently top of the mark. Definitely recommended.

Léo Ferré (1916-1993) was a French-born Monégasque poet and composer, and a dynamic and controversial live performer, whose career in France dominated the years after the Second World War until his death. He released some forty albums over this period, composing the music and the majority of the lyrics. He released many hit singles, particularly between 1960 and the mid-seventies. Some of his songs have become classics of the French chanson repertoire, including "Avec le temps", "C'est extra", "Jolie Môme" or "Paris canaille".

The four Salve Regina recordings presented on this uniquely compiled new album cross the boundary between opera house and church a boundary that in 18th-century Naples was never very forbidding to begin with. In fact, Leo, Pergolesi and Porpora are all fine examples of composers who moved with unselfconscious facility between sacred and secular genres, between old counterpoint and the Monteverdian stile concertato that caressed each word with sensuous melismas and velvet harmonies. Porpora was a noted singing teacher of his day, intimately familiar with everything that a voice can do, and possessing a melodic skill that spins long and ornate vocal phrases of almost instrumental effect.