Morris, W. Meredith Violin Makers

Leila Schayegh, Václav Luks, and Felix Knecht present four of Franz Benda’s violin sonatas (and a movement extracted from another sonata) from a collection of 34 ornamented examples of the genre included in manuscript form among the holdings of the Berlin State Library. The ornamentation, provided for both the slow movements, for which Benda earned a reputation, as well as for faster ones, could serve as a sort of compendium of German period practice (Schayegh’s own notes suggest that the works hail from about 1760).

1943 was a banner year for the musical theater. For it was then that Rodgers and Hammerstein joined forces for the first time and wrote the memorable "Oklahoma." What happened after "Oklahoma" is history - and what a history it is! "Carousel", "South Pacific", "The King and I" were among the hits that followed, and now with "Flower Drum Song" add another triumph to the string of successes this team has contributed to the American musical scene.
"Flower Drum Song" is based on C. Y. Lee's novel of the same name and tells the story of a mix-up between a mail order bride from China who comes to San Francisco only to find that she and a brassy strip-teaser from San Francisco's Chinatown are about to marry the same fellow…

When Jerome Kern's "Roberta" opened on Broadway on November 18, 1933, few realized that they were witnessing what was to become one of the best-loved musicals of all time. Had Kern written only the score of "Roberta" it would have been enough to establish him as a composer of unusual gifts. For this is one of the few shows that can boast such a long list of all-time favorites. Each of the songs heard in this album by the Morris Nanton Trio is as fresh today as it was in the fall of 1933.
The plot of "Roberta" is one of those improbable stories which abound in the history of the musical comedy. It concerns the inheritance of a fashionable Paris dressmaking establishment by an American football player and his romance with one of the employees…

Most listeners will never have heard the name Ivan Khandoshkin (1747-1804), but violinist Anastasia Khitruk has admirably undertaken to bring this little-known solo-violin repertoire to wider attention. Published in the early years of the 19th century, Khandoshkin’s Op. 3 sonatas show the influences we might expect, given the composer’s exposure to a court musical environment that included musicians from Italy, Germany, and France.

The Time went down in history as one of the most exciting and influential funk bands of the 1980s, although the Minneapolis outfit was only around for about half the decade. In 1984, the Time broke up, and by 1985 Morris Day and Jesse Johnson were officially full-time solo artists. Released in late 1987, Day's second solo album, Daydreaming, generally falls short of the excellence of his work with the Time - and, for that matter, it isn't as consistent as his first solo effort, The Color of Success. Nonetheless, it's generally enjoyable, if mildly uneven; even at his second best, Day could easily smoke the competition in the 1980s. Many people tend to think of Daydreaming as a Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis project but, in fact, Day's former bandmates only produced two tracks: the ballad "Love Is a Game" and the sexy gem "Fishnet" (a major hit)…