When jazz, cabaret, and traditional pop artists speak of the Great American Songbook, they are usually referring to Tin Pan Alley treasures of the 1910s, '20s, '30s, and '40s. But worthwhile American popular music didn't end with Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Harry Warren, or the Gershwin siblings. Rock and R&B gave us subsequent generations of American musical poets, and British cabaret singer Barb Jungr obviously had that fact in mind when she called this album The Men I Love: The New American Songbook. Jungr's 2010 release is not a celebration of the Tin Pan Alley era, but rather, a tribute to songwriters (most of them American) who made their mark in the '60s, '70s, or '80s.
Three Steps To The Ocean is an instrumental project born in 2006 in Milan, Italy. The band combines massive riffs, sonic progressive textures and desolate soundscapes in a unique context.
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond (also known as One Step Beyond) is an American anthology series created by Merwin Gerard. The original series ran for three seasons on ABC from January 1959 to July 1961.
Career spanning 17 disc (11 CD + six DVD) box set from the British Rock icons. Timeless Flight is a definitive career-spanning Moody Blues box set. The Moody Blues have released 24 albums in a career spanning nearly five decades. They have sold over 50 million albums, earning them eighteen platinum discs and all manner of awards. This set contains 11 remastered CDs featuring key album tracks, previously unreleased mixes, out-takes and complete live concerts, three DVDs of rare television performances from around the world, promotional videos and the previously unreleased live concert from Olympia, Paris in 1970, three DVD audio discs containing the long-deleted 5:1 surround sound mixes…
Few bands in the history of rock & roll were riddled with as many contradictions as the Who. All four members had wildly different personalities, as their notoriously intense live performances demonstrated. The group was a whirlwind of activity, as the wild Keith Moon fell over his drum kit and Pete Townshend leaped into the air with his guitar, spinning his right hand in exaggerated windmills. Vocalist Roger Daltrey strutted across the stage with a thuggish menace, as bassist John Entwistle stood silent, functioning as the eye of the hurricane.
To simplify my life considerably, I'm going to combine the "reviews" of all six Stage releases into a single entry, even though they were released individually. Also, to save a lot of time and effort, I'm not going to give complete track listings of the twelve discs, or do song-by-song reviews (hey, we're talking over 800 minutes of music here, give me a break). If you need to know the track listings, they're probably available through an on-line music sales site like CDNow, or an information site like the All Music Guide. There's probably a few other Zappa sites that list them as well. Maybe one day when I have the time, I'll come back and expand this section to really cover all twelve discs in detail. Until then, I'll just give some general facts and opinions, focusing on highlights and material unique to the Stage series.