Vibraphonist Cal Tjader is in typically fine form on this live set from 1968. His quintet at the time featured Armand Perazza on congas and pianist Joe Kloess and his repertoire ranged from Afro-Cuban jazz to occasional straightahead tunes. Six of the eight selections on this date are originals by band members or Gary McFarland. Although Tjader had been playing this style of music for 15 years by this time, he still was quite creative and enthusiastic, and is heard throughout in excellent form.
The Look of Love is the sixth studio album by Canadian singer Diana Krall, released on September 18, 2001 by Verve Records. It became Krall's first album to top the Canadian Albums Chart. In 2002, the album earned Al Schmitt the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Jim Santella of All About Jazz commented "Lush strings and gliding flutes surround Diana Krall's tender vocals. Even her substantial piano interludes take on the appearance of drifting mists, through the mix of orchestral timbres. With an emphasis on her sultry vocal interpretations, the latest album reaches out to a broad, popular music audience. Nothing wrong with that. It's just that jazz fans usually want the improvised licks along with their melodies…
Hotel California is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Eagles, and is one of the best-selling albums of all time. Three singles were released from the album, each reaching high in the Billboard Hot 100: "New Kid in Town" (number 1), "Hotel California" (number 1), and "Life in the Fast Lane" (number 11). The album became the band's best-selling album after Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975). It has been certified 26× Platinum in the U.S., and has sold over 32 million copies sold worldwide. The album was ranked number 37 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Mike Oldfield's groundbreaking album Tubular Bells is arguably the finest conglomeration of off-centered instruments concerted together to form a single unique piece. A variety of instruments are combined to create an excitable multitude of rhythms, tones, pitches, and harmonies that all fuse neatly into each other, resulting in an astounding plethora of music. Oldfield plays all the instruments himself, including such oddities as the Farfisa organ, the Lowrey organ, and the flageolet. The familiar eerie opening, made famous by its use in The Exorcist, starts the album off slowly, as each instrument acoustically wriggles its way into the current noise that is heard, until there is a grand unison of eccentric sounds that wildly excites the ears.
Fire Burning in Snow, the third volume in Ex Cathedra's series of Baroque music from Latin America, is strong testimony to the vitality of the musical scene in South America in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. (…) Conductor Jeffrey Skidmore is to be commended for bringing this repertoire, much of which has never been recorded, to light, and for delivering such lively realizations and energetic and full-bodied performances. This SACD should be of strong interest to anyone who loves Renaissance and Baroque polyphony and fans of choral music with a Latin flavor.
This collection, remastered for SACD, covers the Zombies' short and tasteful career, spanning their 1964-1967 years for Decca Records, and their single album, the classic Odessey & Oracle, for Epic Records in 1968. Two versions of "She's Not There" are included here, one the so-called "stereo underdub" version that lacks the snappy drum overdub that gives the superior single version its crisp, edgy feel. There are also two mixes of "Time of the Season," the familiar version and an alternate mix that features a little more organ in the verse sections.