The Queen

Hailing from a trio of Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) sessions, Django (1955) contains some of the earliest sides that Milt Jackson (vibraphone), John Lewis (piano), Percy Heath (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums) recorded for Prestige Records. Initially, the combo was part of Dizzy Gillespie's influential backing band and after a change in drummers (to Connie Kay), they continued as one of the more sophisticated aggregates of the post-bop era. The album commences with Lewis' sublime and serene title track "Django," dedicated to the memory of guitarist extraordinaire Django Reinhardt. This musical paean aptly recaptures the essence of Reinhardt's enigmatic gypsy-like nature, especially evident within Jackson's leads, which emerge from the thoughtful opening dirge with a refined, warm tone throughout…

George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel was a German, later British, Baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle-upon-Saale and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition.

Pachelbel · Canon & Gigue - The English Consort · Trevor Pinnock
Classical | 1 CD | MP3 NO BOOKS | COVER | 116 MB
Archive Produktion 415 518 AH | Release Date: 1985

Trevor Pinnock has a unique rapport with audiences the world over as director of The English Concert, as guest conductor of many of the world's leading orchestras and as a harpsichord soloist of international distinction.

One might think that with all of the attention that Handel’s music has received over the years and especially since the tercentenary of his birth in 1985, that no stone has been left unturned in the effort to accord the composer his due. Indeed, there have been revelatory and monumental cycles of his operas and oratorios—especially Messiah—as well as numerous releases of Music for the Royal Fireworks, Water Music, the Concerti grossi, ops. 3 and 6—the list goes on and on, almost ad nauseam. As with any composer, though, there are darker recesses in Handel’s œuvre that seemed to have attracted the interest of a multitude of dust bunnies, but few performers. This Hyperion recording, originally recorded in 1988 and released under the title Music for Royal Occasions, holds three such works specifically composed for English courtly festivities of various import between 1713 and 1736.

A short bio of Madame Jenkins appears in a wonderful book called "American Eccentrics" by Carl Sifakis. It explains the history (or is it hysteria?) of this most maligned and misunderstood of American coloraturas. The most telling of anecdotes regarding M. Jenkins is that she was riding in a New York taxi that crashed. She was going to sue the taxi company until she discovered that she could sing ". . .a higher F than ever before…". Need I say more? Apparently, she sent the cabbie a box of expensive cigars as a thank-you.