Noren & Crossley

Curtis Nolen and Raymond Crossley may not have been the biggest names to record for Motown in the 80s, but the duo serves up some mighty nice work in this overlooked set – a package of self-produced original material that comes across with a great 80s groove on both the uptempo numbers and mellow steppers! The mellower moments are maybe even some of our favorites – as they have this cool, compressed vibe that's maybe more in the Capitol Records soul mode of the time – post-disco, post-70s soul – with a mature mode that's mighty nice, and a great blueprint for their songs. The groovers are good, too – never too obvious in any sort of 80s pop soul mode – and a few almost seem to hint towards more of a Mizell level of modern soul complexity. Titles include "Salsa Boogie", "Face On The Photograph", "Chance", "Satisfied", "Into The Groove", "Ready Or Not" and "Nice To Have You Back".

Why this superb recording has not garnered more attention is amazing: it is one of the very finest selections and performances of lesser-known but brilliant works by Stravinsky. Recorded in the terrific acoustic of the Snape Maltings Concert Hall (the home of the Aldeburgh Festival) in 1988, these delights are performed by Stravinsky specialist pianist Paul Crossley with the firm support of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the London Sinfonietta.

The strings vibrate gently. Accurate tone, unconditionally clear. And quietly. The longest ngers of jazz seem to dance weightlessly along the wooden bridge; yearning, ligree and elegant. No one else sounds like Ron Carter. His double bass often produces a crisp groove like an electric bass, yet it is always clearly de nable as the sound of a classical music instrument. Then the sound under the scorpion-like hands irresistibly swells. Payton Crossley gently caresses the cymbal, and Jimmy Green, the „new member“ on the tenor saxophone as well as pianist Renee Rosnes push the chorus onto the nely crocheted rhythm cover. “With us, nobody knows exactly what happens when,” Carter praised the Foursight Quartet‘s unique selling point. “This is precisely why every concert is a real challenge. We almost always play 35 to 40 minutes without a stop at the beginning. No breaks, just slight changes that show the beginning of a new song.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Anyone who loves twentieth century music, who loves English music, or who just plain loves music will love this collection of the music of Michael Tippett. Culled from previously issued but long out-of-print Philips, London, Argo, and l'Oiseau-Lyre LPs, most of these recordings were world premieres made in close consultation with the composer and in the hands of conductors Colin Davis, Georg Solti, Neville Marriner, pianist Paul Crossley, and the Lindsay String Quartet, they receive what can fairly be described as definitive performances. From the ecstatic lyricism of the Suite for Double String Orchestra of 1939 through the luminous vitality of the First Symphony of 1945, the radiant sensuality of the Ritual Dances of 1955, the blues-based modernism of the Third Symphony of 1972, to the glistening transcendentalism of the Fourth Symphony of 1977, Tippett's unique fusion of line, drive, color, and form is performed throughout with passionate dedication and absolute faith in the music's greatness.

Following on acclaimed releases of Bellerophon and Phaeton, Christophe Rousset continues his revival of Lully's tragedies lyriques for the Aparte label with Amadis. One of the composer's finest scores, Amadis is a masterpiece of French Baroque music. It was Louis XIV himself who asked Lully and his librettist Quinault to base an opera on Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula. Avoiding the usual mythological subjects gave the composer and librettist an opportunity to expand the scope of the tragedie lyrique genre.

In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music. The works for which he is best known are the Concerto for Double String Orchestra, the oratorio A Child of Our Time and the Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli.