This special once-in-a-lifetime set is housed in a replica of the original Motown headquarters: the "Hitsville U.S.A." house on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard, now the home of the internationally renowned Motown Museum. It's a true collectible. Inside the house are 5 digi-paks - containing 10 CDs. The box set comes with a beautiful 100-page mini-photo book, including rare and classic images, track annotations and an introductory essay by the man who started it off, the one and only Smokey Robinson. Limited to 30,000 copies.
Esoteric Recordings announce a new release on their recently launched Cocteau Discs imprint, a limited edition reissue of BILL NELSON’s classic 4 disc ambient boxed set "TRIAL BY INTIMACY (The Book of Splendours)”. The set was originally released on Bill’s Cocteau Records label in October 1984 and comprised recordings made by Bill at his Echo Observatory home studio. Comprising some eighty pieces of music, the set was a fine example of Bill Nelson’s grasp of Ambient music and has subsequently been hailed as a ground-breaking work. Long deleted, the set is made available once more with this newly re-mastered Cocteau Discs edition. The new release fully restores the original elements of the "TRIAL BY INTIMACY” box and is an exact facsimile, reproducing a 32 page book and eight art postcards that featured in the original set.
This 6-CD set of "Villa-Lobos par lui-même" ("Villa Lobos performed by himself") presents the complete recordings made for Pathé between 1954 and 1958 and conducted by, or (in the case of the occasional Bachianas Brasileiras or Chôros scored for piano or duet) made under the supervision of the composer. As many of his contemporaries who made Paris their second home (Enescu comes to mind), Villa-Lobos shared his life between his native Brazil and Paris. Thus it has an important historical value.
As a leader, Charlie Parker recorded for Savoy and Dial during 1945-1948 and then for Verve exclusively (at least in the studios) during 1949-1954. This remarkable ten-CD box set, which adds quite a bit of material to an earlier ten-LP set, contains all of these recordings plus Bird's earlier appearances with Jazz at the Philharmonic. The JATP jams are highlighted by Parker's perfect solo on "Oh Lady Be Good," a ferocious improvisation on "The Closer," and a solo on "Embraceable You" that tops his more famous studio recording. In addition, this box has all of the "Bird and Strings" sides, his meetings with Machito's Cuban orchestra, the 1950 session with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, small-group dates (including a 1951 meeting with Miles Davis), odd encounters with voices and studio bands, the famous "Jam Blues" with fellow altoists Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter, and his final recordings, a set of Cole Porter tunes. The fact-filled 34-page booklet is also indispensable. Highly recommended.
Again we are indebted to NM Classics for another volume (the second) in their Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra series. This one covers the period 1950-1960 and contains many unusual treasures as well as a number of performances that have already been issued: the fine Daphnis and Chloe with Monteux which currently is available on both Audiophile Classics and Music & Arts, Bruno Walter's Mozart, Mahler and Strauss all of which are available on Music & Arts, and the Brahms concerto with Monteux/Milstein, available on Audiophile Classics and Arioso (as well as a discontinued Tahra set). However, there are many fascinating items here including a number of major additions to Eduard van Beinum's discography. We have Beinum conducting music of Dutch composers Hans Henkemans (1913-1995), Anthony van der Horst (1899-1965), and Matthijs Vermeulen (1888-1967).
Finally Dutch conductor Eduard van Beinum is receiving attention he so richly deserves with many of his superb performances appearing on CD. Philips has issued most of his commercial recordings for that label, available mostly in Holland. Dutton Laboratories, LYS and Japanese Decca also have issued a number of recordings (with many yet unissued—see our Features article on Van Beinum). Now we have this set of live concert performances dating from 1935 through 1958. The earliest are from 78 rpm acetates some of which were not in very good condition. Some, not all, have surface disturbances even the most precise digital processing cannot eliminate. However, for the collector this is relatively insignificant considering these remarkable performances.
5 Show, 12CD Limited Edition/1000 only. The '76 sound in all its glory, bridging the gap between the early post-hiatus shows and the tightly spun symphonies of '77. Five shows across twelve cd s remastered from the original broadcasts. Also includes booklet with essay. June 12th, Boston Music hall, Boston, MA - WBCN Broadcast June 19th, Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ - WNEW Broadcast June 24th, Tower Theatre, Upper Darby, PA - WMMR Broadcast June 29th, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL - WXRT Broadcast July 18th, Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco, CA - KSAN Broadcast.
LIMITED EDITION 180-Gram audiophile 15-LP numbered vinyl box set with exclusive extras in a Georgia-style solid wood peach crate. All nine albums have been newly remastered by Kevin Reeves [Idlewild South 45th Anniversary (2015), The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings (2014)] from the original analog stereo master tapes to 192kHz 24-bit and cut by Abbey Road Mastering Studios onto copper plates using their DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) lathe for superior audio fidelity.