The James Taylor Quartet Bbc

Craig Charles has been a soul & funk fan since his teenage years in Liverpool, going to see local heroes The Real Thing live, and wearing out his shoe leather dancing in the city's many underground clubs. Craig has been sharing that passion for the music via his 6Music and BBC Radio 2 shows and DJ nights for nearly 20 years. His 'Trunk of Funk' compilation series, blends up-tempo club classics, with fresh music from the cream of the crop from the contemporary soul and funk scene.

"Who’d Have Guest?" is the clever, intriguingly titled new album from respected UK drummer ELLIOTT HENSHAW. Henshaw has worked with all kinds of people across all kinds of genres – most interesting to us David Benoit, the Drifters, Gwen Dickie, Georgie Fame and Beverly Knight. His standing in the UK music community is such that he can call on plenty of “names” to help him craft his own albums and that explains the title of this one, his latest.

The film adaptation of On Chesil Beach pays tribute to the 2007 novella (and Booker Prize shortlist entry) by British writer Ian McEwan. Creating sweeping and poignant soundscapes to accompany the film is Dan Jones - a multi award-winning composer and sound designer whose recent credits include Louis Theroux’s documentary feature, My Scientology Movie, the primetime BBC drama series SS-GB and The Replacement, the second series of BBC’s hugely successful The Hollow Crown, Menno Meyjes’ feature, De Reünie, Carnival’s The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies and Ecosse Films’ The Great Fire.

George Antheil's avant-garde signature piece, the Ballet Méchanique, created riots in Paris at the Theatre Champs Elysees in June of 1926, and the following April in New York's Carnegie Hall. Even though it was the focus of one of the most written about events in 20th century American music history, it was not to be heard again for 62 years, until American conductor and musicologist Maurice Peress searched out the original score and restaged the 1927 concert in the very same Carnegie Hall on July 12, 1989. This world premiere recording now makes it possible to hear the original which contained Antheil's most advanced ideas; a futurist, machine-age, ragtime inspired music, of a complexity beyond human playing capabilities and a conception beyond most music composed in 1925.

Michael Gibbs And The NDR Bigband s Back In The Days is a never before released audiophile recording of this great jazz composer and arranger in a program of original modern Jazz plus three specially arranged classics recorded in separate sessions in 1995, 2002 and 2003. The legendary 'Brit-jazz' composer and arranger Michael Gibbs was born in 1937 in Zimbabwe and was originally a trombonist as well. Gibbs began to concentrate on writing and arranging because performing solos terrified him! Starting in the late 60s, he recorded a series of highly acclaimed and influential albums featuring many of the most prominent British-based Jazz players who, like Michael, were beginning to flirt with Jazz/Rock. Since the 80s, he has mostly done arrangements and orchestrations for major names such as Joni Mitchell, Pat Metheny, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Whitney Houston, Peter Gabriel, and Sister Sledge among many others, while too infrequently recording his own music.