The Artist 2019

The centerpiece of this collection is an absorbing five-part suite inspired by Rodin’s sculptures. It finds New York trumpeter Jeremy Pelt in a sonically expansive mood, supplementing a core sextet with the adroit guitar of Alex Wintz and the prismatic Rhodes and effects of Frank LoCrasto. The four non-suite tracks, more steeped in acoustic jazz, bristle with the same energy and harmonic seeking. The new presence here is vibraphonist Chien Chien Lu, who makes an outsize contribution both as a captivating improviser and as a colorful and attentive ensemble player (on marimba as well, particularly effective in doubling the basslines of Vicente Archer). She lends Pelt’s music a certain Bobby Hutcherson-like flavor, shimmering and thoroughly modern.

Between the Earth and the Stars is the seventeenth studio album by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, released on 15 March 2019 by earMUSIC. The album was produced by David Mackay. Following the release of Rocks and Honey in 2013, Tyler remarked to Kiss FM that she expected it to be her last. In 2017, she announced that she had been inspired to record another album after hearing "fantastic new songs" written for her by Kevin Dunne, who played bass guitar in her first band in the early 1970s. In December 2016, she visited the Cash Cabin Studios in Nashville to commence recording with John Carter Cash. In 2018, Tyler announced that she would instead be working with David Mackay, who co-produced her first two albums, The World Starts Tonight (1977) and Natural Force (1978). Tyler and Mackay also collaborated on Frankie Miller's album Double Take (2016).

Stray from the Flock is the eleventh solo album by former White Lion and Freak of Nature lead singer, Mike Tramp, released on March 1, 2019 through Mighty Music/Target Records. The album was released on CD, double gatefold LP on black 140G vinyl, LTD double gatefold LP on orange colour LP 180G (500 copies only) digital, and cassette. Stray from the Flock was recorded at Ark Studio in Denmark and mixed in Sweden by Peter Masson and essentially takes the 2013 release Cobblestone Street template one step further. The album follows on from the No. 1 Maybe Tomorrow from 2017 and according to Tramp the new album wrote itself. On January 25th, Tramp released the song/video, "Dead End Ride", as the first single from the album. The song went to No. 1 on iTunes in Peru the next day. A second single "Homesick" was released on March 29th, 2019. Tramp is set to tour in 2019 to support the album with over 100 shows planned, starting off in the US with 22 shows.

Between Die Entführung aus dem Serail and the advent of the famous ‘Da Ponte trilogy’, Mozart threw himself frantically into the search for the right libretto, capable of taking the spectator to lands still unexplored where the drama and the psychology of the characters would be sublimated by the music. Hence, in the years between 1782 and 1786, he set up a veritable laboratory for dramatic music: a musical corpus of concert arias, sketches, and stylistic exercises like the canon – here brilliantly organised as an imaginary dramma giocoso in three scenes, each heralding in its own way one of the summits to come: Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così.

Kenny Wayne Shepherd arrived on the scene as a blues guitar hero at 18 to an overload of media hoopla and pressure. At 40, he has evolved from the blues-guitar-slinger ghetto and become a mature musician whose wide-angle vision embraces American roots music – blues, rock, country, and soul/R&B – as an inseparable whole. While it's true that most of his albums have charted, his last two, Goin’ Home and Lay It on Down, have done better than all the others, placing well inside the Top 40. The Traveler is a direct aesthetic follow-up to Lay It on Down. Co-produced once more with Marshall Altman, it utilizes the same band (including uber-drummer Chris Layton and singer Noah Hunt). Recorded in Los Angeles over ten days, it offers eight new originals and two excellent covers.

Here they are, one of the mighty pillars of Motown: the original Four Tops—Levi Stubbs, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Peyton—live in concert. They sound sublime on "Baby I Need Your Loving," "I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)," "It’s the Same Old Song," "Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over)," "Reach Out I’ll Be There," "Standing in the Shadows of Love," "Bernadette," "Walk Away Renee"…16 hits spanning the ’60s to ’80s! Sunset Blvd.

The band comprises three members originally from South Africa and two from Switzerland. All critically-acclaimed in their own right, Skyjack’s sum is as great as its parts. Shane Cooper (double bass), Kyle Shepherd (piano) and Kesivan Naidoo (drums) have each received the coveted Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz award. Swiss musicians, Marc Stucki (saxophone) and Andreas Tschopp (trombone) are two of Switzerland’s most in-demand horn players who have attained dizzying creative and professional heights over the years. The sound of Skyjack is an absolute powerhouse, with all members bringing compositions written for the group. From deep African grooves, to heavy-hitting jazz rides and beautiful soundscapes, it’s all part of the incredible journey that is Skyjack.