Montreal Bslakirev

A wonderful feast of jazz. A truly original voice in jazz heads an illustratious quintet at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Charles Lloyd's saxophone is a distinctive voice in jazz. His music is explratory and accessible at the same time, and here in June 2001, at the head of a quintet whose every member is a star in his or her own right, he revisits his recent ECM album, The Water Is Wide. The program is aa special as each of the five contributing musicians, ranging from original compositions to spirituals and folk songs, from standards to lesser-know pieces by Ellington and Strayhorn.

In this 1988 Montreal concert, Al Di Meola explores the many influences,and the many accomplishments as a guitarist,that had already made him both a virtuoso and a jazzrock superstar.

Among modern recordings of the opera, this one is a safe bet, assuming you want a safe version of this opera. Unlike Herbert von Karajan's oppressively string-heavy reading with the Berlin Philharmonic on EMI, this is a balanced, idiomatic account of the score, given a special luster by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's coloristic instincts and the warm recording acoustic at St. Eustache Church. Conductor Charles Dutoit has a fine instinctive feel for Debussy in general and this score in particular. The singers in the title roles–Didier Henry and Colette Alloit-Lugaz–have both come to terms with the opera's enigmatic dramaturgy. However, it's very much a symphonic rather than operatic performance, clearly a product of the recording studio rather than of the stage.

False Priest is the upcoming tenth full-length studio album by indie-pop group, of Montreal, set to be released on September 14, 2010. The band will also be touring with Janelle Monáe to promote their new album where she appears several times.