Mutsuyuki Motomura And The Jugong Boys & Co. Neapolitan Recorder Concertos (2020)

In recent years, research into 18th century Neapolitan music has progressed significantly. Along with socio-historical investigations, rediscoveries of lost masterpieces from the massive collections of uncatalogued manuscripts in libraries are not uncommon. A revival performance after 300 years is no longer a rare occasion. Such new developments urge us all to change our views on Western music history, and surely comprise one of the most enticing areas in early music today. And among the rediscoveries, recorder players are delighted to find what is for us a new fertile repertoire for the recorder as well.

Recorder player Mutsuyuki Motomura's latest album is titled "Portraits in French Baroque Sonatas". Spreading the wings is to spread the wings of an insect, etc., so that it can be used as a specimen. The "Sonata", which has a taste for France and Italy, is programmed like a beautiful picture with small pieces of personality mixed in.

A trailblazing force behind the evolution of the contemporary gospel sound, Edwin Hawkins was best known for his 1969 classic "Oh Happy Day," one of the biggest gospel hits of all time and a major pop radio smash as well. Born in Oakland, California in 1943, he began singing in his church youth choir while still a toddler, and by age five was playing piano; just two years later, he assumed full-time piano accompaniment duties for the family gospel group, making their recorded debut in 1957. A decade later, Hawkins and Betty Watson co-founded the Northern California State Youth Choir, drawing on the finest soloists from throughout the Bay Area to build the 50-member ensemble, which soon entered the studio to cut the 1968 LP Let Us Go into the House of the Lord, its modern, R&B-influenced production pointing the way to a new era in gospel recording.

Japanese Recorder Master Mutsuyuki Motomura, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of Jacques Ottotere's birth in 2024, attempts to highlight the charm of the recorder from a recorder player's point of view. The single-hole recorder, reproduced by instrument maker Fumitaka Saito as faithfully as possible to the specifications of the time, is played according to the fingerings left by Ottotere.

First off, let's clear up some discographical confusion: this album was originally titled Live in London and released overseas in 1970. When it was issued in the States in 1976, the title was changed to Beach Boys '69; further obfuscating matters, the performances were actually recorded in 1968.

Thanks to the surprising success of the compilation Endless Summer, the Beach Boys entered the studio in 1975 for the first time in almost three years. The album that followed, 15 Big Ones, balanced covers of rock and doo wop standards with seven new Beach Boys songs (including five Brian Wilson compositions). Most of the covers are mistakes, part of a misguided attempt by the aging Beach Boys to recapture the energy of their youth.

Beginning their career as the most popular surf band in the nation, the Beach Boys finally emerged by 1966 as America's preeminent pop group, the only act able to challenge (for a brief time) the overarching success of the Beatles with both mainstream listeners and the critical community. From their 1961 debut with the regional hit "Surfin'," the three Wilson brothers – Brian, Dennis, and Carl – plus cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine constructed the most intricate, gorgeous harmonies ever heard from a pop band. With Brian's studio proficiency growing by leaps and bounds during the mid-'60s, the Beach Boys also proved one of the best-produced groups of the '60s, exemplified by their 1966 peak with the Pet Sounds LP and the number one single "Good Vibrations." Though Brian's escalating drug use and obsessive desire to trump the Beatles (by recording the perfect LP statement) eventually led to a nervous breakdown after he heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the group soldiered on long into the '70s and '80s, with Brian only an inconsistent participant.