Millennium Apollo 440

No need to worry about Apollo 440 turning intelligent in the wake of electronica's growing experimental leanings. Their third album overall, Getting High on Your Own Supply is a ride through sampladelic breakbeat that's just as mad as 1997's Electro Glide in Blue. Seemingly oblivious that even their youngest listeners could spot their samples, Apollo 440 pillage Led Zeppelin and Status Quo (among others), blending styles from trance, ska, hip-hop, dub, and disco with a tossed-off feel that's quite charming. From the breakout single "Stop the Rock" to the unabashed, old-school silliness of "Cold Rock the Mic" and a remix of last year's "Lost in Space" theme which fuses black metal with jungle breakbeats, Getting High on Your Own Supply is another dumb but infectious party album to file alongside Fatboy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby.

As part of MCA's 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection, the 12-track Best of Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs disc highlights the group's best-known material originally released on MGM in the mid-'60s. Besides the obvious hit singles "Wooly Bully" and "Lil' Red Riding Hood," the real highlights are the timeless "Ring Dang Doo," "(I'm in With) The Out Crowd," "Oh That's Good, No That's Bad," and "Ju Ju Hand." This is fun stuff with more groove and a slight edginess that, criminally, Sam the Sham was never given proper credit for.

Cleveland's phenomenal early music ensemble Apollo's Fire ought to be proud of its 2010 double-disc release of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046-1051, augmented with the Harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1052 and 1056, and the reconstructed Violin Concerto, BWV 1052, for this set is quite comparable to other excellent period versions on the market. Led by Jeannette Sorrell from the harpsichord, the group is vibrant and fully engaged in making lively music, so the performances are far from stodgy museum pieces.

The Cleveland-based baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire, with their founder/ director Jeannette Sorrell, has made an indelible impression on the international music market since launching on Avie with recordings of Bach, Mozart and Monteverdi. Vivaldi and Friends is a presentation of concertos by the Red Priest with a twist: two authentic Vivaldi Concertos – one for four violins, the other for two cellos – are interspersed with J. S. Bach’s transcript ion of Vivaldi’s A minor concerto for four harpsichords, and Jeannette Sorrell’s own transcription of ‘Summer’ from the ever-popular Four Seasons. Sorrell’s arrangement mirrors the widespread baroque practice of transcribing violin works for keyboard. In her unique version, she performs the original violin parts on the harpsichord.

Apollo’s Fire has won critical acclaim and enjoyed Top 10 Billboard Classical chart success with their half-dozen releases on AVIE. Returning to their baroque roots, they offer a selection of works by Handel that showcase the Apollo’s Fire chorus. The centerpiece of the album is the grand Dixit Dominus, written during the composer’s early days in Rome. In a gesture to Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee year, Sorrell has chosen two works written for the monarch’s forbearers: the “Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne” and “Zadok the Priest.” As a bonus, Sorrell includes “The Lord Shall Reign” from the epic Israel in Egypt.

The group Apollo's Fire, also known as the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra, was founded by its present conductor Jeannette Sorrell. Playing on period instruments, the modestly sized ensemble delves into the later end of the repertoire with this Mozart disc on the Avie album. Sorrell makes the curious choice to open the program with the well-known, powerful Symphony 40 in G minor, a work that concludes with such fervor and drama that it would seem more appropriately placed at the conclusion of the disc. Sorrell's vision for Mozart seems to be one of modest intensity and tempo diversity. Neither of the outer movements are noticeably driven or brisk, and the inner movements are likewise unsurprising in their execution.

Apollo's Fire's founder and director Jeannette Sorrell is "a masterful musical storyteller" (Seen and Heard). The Maestra and her acclaimed baroque orchestra add to their distinguished AVIE discography that includes Handel's Dixit Dominus and Messiah, with her own adaptation of the composer's oratorio Israel in Egypt.