Prayer

Recorded in 1987, A Prayer Before Dawn is one of Pharoah Sanders' gentle, reflective dates. Some jazz fans may cringe at his versions of "Christmas Song" and Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All," but the music displays a heartfelt spirituality as opposed to financial slickness. It is the opposite of Sanders' characteristic fire-breathing tenor of his Impulse days, but there is nobility in taking this tranquil direction; Sanders refuses to repeat himself. He demands you listen with open ears, dropping preconceived notions. For instance, unlike the adult contemporary direction taken by one-time free jazz tenor titan Gato Barbieri, this date doesn't sound like a polished commercial venture as much as a quiet, meditative one. The use of tabla, sarod, and chandrasarang adds to the session's spiritual nature.

Lisa Lynne is a Celtic harpist, a composer and new-age recording artist. She is a self-proclaimed multi-instrumentalist who has "spent the last eighteen years pursuing her passion for the Celtic harp."
Lynne released her first solo albums, starting in 1992, as Lisa Franco on the German label Innovative Communication. Also in the early 1990s, she became part of the group Celestial Winds, with David Young, releasing a number of albums. Since 1998, Lynne has released albums of Celtic harp music on New Earth Records, Windham Hill Records and her own label, Lavender Sky Music. Her 2003 release, Hopes & Dreames (New Earth) reached #6 on Billboard Magazine's Top New Age Albums chart.

On A Wing & A Prayer is the seventh studio album by Gerry Rafferty. This album came at a bad time in Gerry's life. Recently divorced, a sadness is evident in several of the songs (Don't Speak of My Heart, Don't Give Up on Me).
As one-half of the Humblebums, Scottish singer/songwriter Gerry Rafferty came up through the U.K. folk-rock scene of the late 1960s and early '70s before finding mainstream international success with his 1978 solo album, City to City. During the years in between, he founded the bluesy rock band Stealers Wheel, whose enduring 1973 hit, "Stuck in the Middle with You," has achieved a certain amount of classic rock luster over the years thanks in part to its continued use in film and television…

The new recording from Magdalena Kožená features deeply-felt interpretations of sacred songs from the Baroque to the 20th Century. In a rare recording collaboration, she is joined by virtuoso Christian Schmitt, in music for voice and organ from the sacred traditions of Germany, Austria, France and England, as well as her native Czechoslovakia. Of course, the album includes music by J.S. Bach – a composer with whom Magdalena Kožená has long been associated - with sacred aspects of German song represented by Hugo Wolf and Schubert.