Page Keeley, Rand Harrington

The Mozartists continue their MOZART 250 project of staging operas by Mozart and his contemporaries with their recording of the UK premiére of Niccolò Jommelli’s Il Vologeso, first performed over 250 years ago on 11 February 1766 for the Stuttgart court in Ludwigsburg. For this eagerly awaited performance The Mozartists assembled a superb young cast, headed by the Irish mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly, a graduate of the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme, tenor Stuart Jackson, a former Mozartists Associate Artist, and soprano Gemma Lois Summerfield, winner of the 2015 Kathleen Ferrier Award.

Everything about Coverdale/Page, right down to the goofy copping of the Presence artwork, is an attempt to recapture the pompous majesty of Led Zeppelin. It doesn't succeed, of course, but it does leave all of the Zep clones in the dust. Although Jimmy Page plays better here than he has since 1979's In Through the Out Door, there is a conspicuous lack of solos. If you've never liked David Coverdale, his performance will not change your opinion. Both fare better on the rockers; the power ballads tend be slightly tedious. Essentially, Coverdale/Page boils down to a guilty pleasure at its best moments ("Shake My Tree," "Pride and Joy," "Absolution Blues"), but never quite rivals the bold experimentation of Led Zeppelin.

Selection of rare cuts from Jimmy Page (& Friends) recorded during the 1980s.

BLACK PAGE were formed in the mid 1980s as a Japanese rock quartet by Bunmei OGAWA (keyboards), Itsufumi OGAWA (guitars), Kozo SUGANUMA (drums), and Tsuneo KOMINE (bass) - already all of them had been musically professional. Regardless of their sense of humour cultivated in Osaka, they had played lots of gigs with their astonishing technique - featuring Itsufumi's complex guitar play much influenced by Alan Holdsworth, Bunmei's Emerson-ish thrilling keyboard explosion, aggressive drumming by Kozo called 'Tekazu-Oh' (in English, The King Of Full Speed … sorry no appropriate expression here), and Tsuneo's strictly precise bass-quake. In 1986 BLACK PAGE released their one and only album 'Open The Next Page', in that their terrific technical approaches could be remarkably approved by progressive freaks all around the world, but sad to say, they were disbanded soon after that.