Understand Brian

World-renowned acoustic and electric bassist Brian Bromberg hasn’t released an album in the U.S. since 2012, a fact that might not have been cause for concern if you know that at one point he released three albums in one year. Every man deserves a break. However, once you realize that this chameleon with over 20 projects in his catalog recently had reason to believe that he might never play music again, you understand the gravity of his latest acoustic jazz project, Full Circle - one he says may well be “the most important record of my career.” Like all of his work, Bromberg’s latest features a stellar cast that includes trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, saxophonists Bob Sheppard, Kirk Whalum and Doug Webb, pianists Randy Waldman,Mitch Forman and Otmaro Ruiz, and percussionist Alex Acuña. The project also finds ‘the man that refuses to sit still’ mixing styles from New Orleans funk and a legit jazz cover of Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop `Til You Get Enough” to Cubop - with a sizzling relentless swing throughout.

“Our countries have moved further apart. Most people are so immersed in their own life experience that they don’t even try to understand the culture of other societies … but by comparing these two works people can see the double picture – how Europeans feel about love, pleasure, and death, and how the Chinese feel about the same things.” Long Yu. Centuries-old Chinese poetry is brought vividly to life in a new recording from Long Yu and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Their second album for Deutsche Grammophon, The Song of the Earth, is set for international release on 13 August 2021. The world premiere recording of the contemporary The Song of the Earth by Ye Xiaogang is presented alongside Gustav Mahler’s classic symphony. Ye’s ambitious new work expresses the grandeur and beauty of the original Tang Dynasty poems that Mahler set in German translation, fusing a contemporary style with centuries’ worth of traditions from both east and west. Long Yu, who commissioned Ye’s work, conducts the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in this fascinating meeting of histories and cultures.

Brian Blade has delivered a singer/songwriter album that is compelling, different in nature, introspective and deeply spiritual. Blade has grown in the spirit of Joni Mitchell with whom Blade toured and recorded. Her influence looms, especially on the opening title track, where his guitar sound alludes to Mitchell's own harmonies. The subject is religious in nature and his faith is personal and far from proselytizing.Mama Rosa may come as unexpected for some, but no surprise to his core fans.

The subject of many poor quality bootlegs, this concert - one of only a handful undertaken by Fripp & Eno - is routinely described as ‘legendary’.

Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - It's Your World (1976) {Rumal-Gia TVT4370-2 rel 2000}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 474 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 177 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 49 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1976, 2000 Rumal-Gia Records / Brouhaha / TVT Records | TVT 4370-2
Jazz / Funk / Spoken Word / Soul / Fusion

This Gil Scott-Heron double album, roughly two thirds of which was recorded live in Boston on July 2-4, 1976, makes the most of its Centennial-centric time frame. Between the American flag striped cover art and Heron's spoken word spiel on an 8-and-a-half minute poem/rant "Bicentennial Blues," the album loses little of its impact, regardless of how the years have mildewed once fresh political topics like Nixon, Agnew, and Watergate.

Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat (after bands from Liverpool and nearby areas beside the River Mersey) is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll (mainly Chuck Berry guitar style and the midtempo beat of artists like Buddy Holly), doo-wop, skiffle and R&B. The genre provided many of the bands responsible for the British Invasion of the American pop charts starting in 1964, and provided the model for many important developments in pop and rock music, including the format of the rock group around lead, rhythm and bass guitars with drums. The Beat Of The Pops - excellent selection of beat tracks.

Bag of Trix – Music From The Roxette Vaults – is a four-record collection of 46 previously unreleased or long since deleted Roxette recordings, including demos, alternative mixes, Spanish versions, bonus tracks, and other fun stuff from the Swedish band's long, illustrious, and extraordinarily successful career (1986 - 2016).