Origin Jordan Rakei

Marc Jordan, an icon of the West Coast sound, fuses jazzy, grooving rhythms onto his cool and upbeat songwriting style. Perfect for lovers of smooth rock-pop, 1979's Blue Desert features such gems as the power ballad 'Twilight.'

This 1997 concert marked the first time that vocalist Sheila Jordan and bassist Cameron Brown had performed live as a duo. Nerves aside, they had their Belgian audience captivated from the opening of the set. Jordan improvises much like a horn with her interesting choices of notes as she sings the lyrics to standards like "The Very Thought of You," while Brown is also a superb musician, comping perfectly for her and launching on inventive solo flights of his own.

Pianist Bill O'Connell keeps it nice and lean here – working in a core quartet that moves its instrumentation around, but always in ways that maybe bring more of an edge to the record than some of O'Connell's previous records – yet all without losing the soulful charms that make him so great! Bill himself plays acoustic piano, but switches to Fender Rhodes on two cuts – a theme that's followed as Craig Handy plays soprano sax on three, and tenor on two more – while bassist Lincoln Goines shifts between acoustic and electric basses. Steve Jordan handles drums, and Pedrito Martinez adds percussion on a few tracks – exploring some of the Latin currents that Bill sometimes adds to his records.

This was the first and last time Pepper worked with Jordan, and came about as a result of Pepper's usual pianist, George Cables, being unable to make the dates at Club Montmartre in Copenhagen. To Pepper's dismay, Danmarks Radio decided to record the first gig of the Montmartre series. Pepper need not have worried – the show was a rousing success, with the band tackling a set of standards (and a couple of Pepper originals) with such verve and determination that relatively simple tunes turned into astounding solo workouts (there are several drum and bass solos to be heard on this record), the amazing highlight of which is a shot at "Besame Mucho" that rounds out to twenty-two minutes. Art Pepper was in the process of dying at the time this recording was made, but there's no lack of energy, no loss of vitality. A two-CD live jazz set that's well worth having and should not be overlooked.

Originally cut for the Japanese Baystate label and then later released by French RCA, this trio set by pianist Duke Jordan (with bassist Harry Memmery and drummer James Martin in Holland) differs from his usual recordings in putting an emphasis on blues, although not exclusively. Jordan performs six of his originals (including "No Problem," "Ben Sugar Blues," "Jordu" and "From Duke to Duke") plus "All the Things You Are," "C Jam Blues" and "St. Louis Blues." The classic bebop pianist's consistency holds up on this set (cut when he was 61), making the obscure LP worth searching for.

The third and final volume in the complete recordings of Beethoven’s Piano Concerti, by François-Frédéric Guy and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Philipe Jordan. Following the critically-acclaimed first two volumes in this series the flourishing musical partnership between François-Frédéric Guy and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Philipe Jordan continues with Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3. Beethoven’s Piano concerto No. 2 in B flat major Op. 19 took 15 years to write and was the earliest piano concerto that Beethoven himself deemed appropriate for presentation to the public.