Bandleader Simon Jeffes composed the leadoff track "Music for a Found Harmonium" on a harmonium he found abandoned on a Tokyo street, which offers an inkling of the musical inspiration that sprang from this remarkable Englishman. As usual, he gathers a loose aggregation of musicians who create stunning, free-flowing acoustic sounds that defy categorization…
Reissue with latest 2015 DSD remastering. Comes with liner notes. A bold little message from alto saxophonist Lenny Hambro – a very strong record that should have made him as much of a giant on his instrument as contemporary talents like Lee Konitz or Herb Geller! Hambro has some of the soulful edge of the latter, and lots of the crisp, modern chromes of the former – especially in the way he runs alongside some great guitar in the group from Dick Garcia – a player we mostly know for his work on the Dawn label at the time, but who really makes the record something special here. The rest of the combo features Wade Legge on piano, Clyde Lombardi on bass, and Mel Zelnick on rhythm – and Hambro's sax work is angular and very deft – already at the top of his game. Titles include the Legge originals "Slave Girl", "Message In Minor", "Moon Slippers", and "Hoof Beats" – plus Hambro's "Thanatopsis" and "The Lonely One".
Blue Dogs (2015). Named after The Muffins' 1978 debut album - one of the essential Canterbury-related releases - Manna/Mirage is the newest project by founding member Dave Newhouse (one of the band's two woodwind players). Not surprisingly, fellow Muffins Billy Swann and Paul Sears are also on board, as well as Newhouse’s son George, guitarist Mark Stanley (of Chainsaw Jazz and Thee Maximalists), and newest recruit, Steve Pastena, on French horn. The ensemble's debut, released in the autumn of 2015, bears the title of Blue Dogs - a title inspired by a painting by artist and RIO/Canterbury fan Gonzalo Fuentes Riquelme (aka Guerrilla Graphics), which graces the CD cover. The album was mixed and produced by none other than Mike Potter of Orion Studios - probably the most important venue for progressive music in the US, and the setting of The Muffins' most recent performance to date, in May 2015…
The first complete recording of the keyboard works of Andrea Gabrieli (1532-1585), one of the most famous and influential composers of the late Renaissance and the most important representative of the Venetian School. A native of Venice, he went to Germany to study with Lassus. Later he became organist of the famous San Marco in Venice, the most important post in Northern Italy at that moment.
Italy's foremost female rock singer, Gianna Nannini, was born in Siena on June 14, 1956, to a family that included a renowned industrialist and Siena Football Club president father and a Formula One pilot brother. Often described as the creative rebel in the family, Nannini attended the Lucca Conservatory throughout her entire adolescence, where she was trained as a pianist…
EU-only five CD box containing a quintet of albums from the late Austrian '80s hitmaker. This set contains his first three studio albums - Einzelhaft (1982), Junge Roemer (1984) and Falco 3 (1985) - plus two posthumous releases: Falco Symphonic and Donauinsel Live.