Jazz clarinetist Don Byron likes to focus on specific musical styles. He's released albums filled with Latin jazz (Six Musicians), the klezmer music of Mickey Katz (Don Byron Plays the Music of Mickey Katz), and the repertory works of Duke Ellington, John Kirby, and Raymond Scott (Bug Music). Now for his sixth solo release, Nu Blaxploitation, Byron offers up a musical evocation of '70s funk, including a nod to hip-hop by way of a Biz Markie guest spot.
Subtitled “Tales of Remarkable Women Throughout the Centuries “ this tribute to the fairer sex features an Irish lady pirate, a Portuguese queen, a Montenegrin mother, a French countess, a Jewish-American socialist, the Virgin Mary, and St. Ursula together with 11,000 other virgins are all featured on Faces of a Woman by Tapestry, the fourth release by these three talented women from New England. The ensemble covers broad musical territory ranging from Hildegard von Bingen’s mystical and contemplative songs to Rachmaninoff ’s pleasing "Tebye poyem" and to swinging rhythms, from medieval operatic drama to Balkan folklore and to modern music, from the artistry of the ars novato sailors’ songs and to the first American blues
Veteran Italian rock band Pooh formed in Bologna in 1966. During the late '60s, the band featured Roby Facchinetti, Valerio Negrini, Dodi Battaglia, and Riccardo Fogli, but after Negrini left in 1971, the band recruited guitarist, bassist, and vocalist Red Canzian plus drummer and percussionist Stefano D'Orazio, and began a long run as one of the best and most popular Italian rockers of their times. The band recorded for many labels, including CBS, Vedette, CGD (Compagnia Generale del Disco), and Warner Music Italy, selling over 100 million records in the process. Pooh continued to tour and record continually up into the 2010s, but in late 2016 they decided to call it quits by the end of the year, in order to complete their 50-year anniversary as a band.