Tafsir Al Qurthubi 1

Al Di Meola is back with a vengeance on this 1994 studio release featuring his best world-music fusion since 1990’s ‘World Sinfonia’. Guest musicians include the multi- talented Greek George Dalaras, Peter Erskine, bassist Pino Palladino, and Israelis Achinoam Nin (Noa) with her luscious vocals and string player Simon Shaheen among others. And a first with Hernan Romero sporting a double-neck charango.

Al di Meola's first so-called Christmas album is a relaxed, flowing, intensely musical affair that jazzers, world music buffs, and new agers will feel equally comfortable with. Mostly, he steers away from the often-cracked chestnuts, composing several nice tunes of his own ("Zima," the leadoff cut, is especially inviting), playing acoustic guitar and a battery of percussion instruments and keyboards in a graceful one-man band, thanks to multi-track tape. Other tracks feature duets between di Meola (with overdubbed additional instruments) and Roman Hrynkiv, who plays a Ukrainian zither-like instrument called the bandura.

Al Ayre Español is a vocal and instrumental ensemble formed in 1988 by the conductor Eduardo López Banzo. The ensemble plays period instruments and has brought back to life Spanish Baroque Music music, renewing the interest of contemporary audiences. The name of the band ('ayre' is an ancient word for 'aire') makes reference to playing music 'the Spanish way' ('con aire español').

Championship Wrestling started life as an attempt at another "super session"-type production, with more of a focus on R&B than blues, to have featured Al Kooper and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter as equal partners with dual credit. Midway through what took a third of a year to get down on tape, Baxter withdrew from collaboration, and Championship Wrestling turned into a Kooper album featuring Baxter. It wasn't what Columbia Records expected, and it was dumped on the market – based on the paucity of reviews, it's doubtful that promo copies or even a press release went out to A- or B-list critics – and forgotten. Despite the fact that it's sort of "off-brand" (or "off-game") Kooper, Championship Wrestling has more than a few good, even exciting and bracing moments.

Naked Songs represents the other end of Al Kooper's early career from I Stand Alone. Where that first album was recorded very gradually at the outset of his solo career, soon after exiting Blood, Sweat & Tears, Naked Songs was a much more cohesive work (cut in New York and Georgia) from the end of his stay at Columbia Records. Ironically, it was a contractually obligated album, but never one to throw away an opportunity, Kooper embraced soul, gospel, blues, pop, and even country music in the course of filling its two sides. Playing his usual array of instruments, including loud, note-bending blues guitar and gospel-tinged organ on "As the Years Go Passing By," he effortlessly switches gears to the smoother pop-soul sound of "Jolie," then straight country with a blues tinge on "Blind Baby." John Prine's grim and uncompromising "Sam Stone" gets an extraordinary performance, but the real surprise is the presence of Sam Cooke's Soul Stirrers-era gospel classic "Touch the Hem of His Garment".

Al Green's second record for Blue Note reunites the same cast of characters who made his comeback disc, 2003's I Can't Stop, such a success. Willie Mitchell is behind the boards, the cream of old-school Hi musicians is here, and Green hasn't lost a step vocally. In fact, it sounds like he has gained a step somehow; his crazed screams, hollered interjections, and whoops of joy seem more assured and his falsetto is clear and strong. The songs are here, too, with a good mix of uptempo movers (the rollicking "Build Me Up," the high-energy title track, and "Nobody But You") and sweet, string-laden ballads ("Perfect to Me," "Real Love," and "All the Time"). Green sounds on fire most of the time, really letting loose on "Everything's OK," testifying on "Be My Baby," and ripping it up like a kid everywhere else…

The first album linking the soul-singing greatness of Al Green with the production brilliance and expertise of Willie Mitchell. The results were mutually beneficial; Green got the great production, arrangements, and backing from the Hi Rhythm section that often turned good songs into classics, and he sang with the conviction and talent that provided the final component in an artistically and commercially satisfying union.