Andrew George

We don't get enough of George Cables these days. You know how it is; record for those little independent labels and somehow you just get lost in the major league shuffle. Look a little deeper and you'll find that Cables has made some great trio music in recent days, with two dates coming to my mind in particular, Night and Day on the Japanese DIW label and Cables' Fables from the pianist's SteepleChase oeuvre. Apparently the alliance with the latter concern has proven productive because there's been a great stream of trio discs to come as the product of that relationship, with Bluesology the most recent to get a Stateside release.

Canadian jazz musicians are frequently overlooked by American jazz fans unless they record for a US-based label, but ignore Andrew Rathbun at your own risk. There is a lot to like about Shadow Forms, as there are plenty of surprising twists within these intimate performances…

Following several acclaimed albums of Handel’s operatic and choral masterpieces (including a triumphant Giulio Cesare with Natalie Dessay as Cleopatra and the oratorio La Resurrezione with British soprano Kate Royal), French harpsichordist and conductor Emmanuelle Haïm at last brings her fresh, expressive approach to Messiah.

The Gluepot Connection celebrates the coming together of a generation of established and emerging composers who defined British music in the middle of the last century (and beyond) in a cornerstone of British life the local pub. 'That bloody Gluepot' was the nickname given to The George public house in central London by Sir Henry Wood, exasperated that its proximity to the legendary Queen's Hall proved irresistible to his musicians. It also served as the watering hole for a coterie of composers whose wide-ranging influence rivalled that of their literary counterparts, the fabled Bloomsbury Set. Andrew Griffiths skilfully joins the dots of the Gluepot's tangled relationships and musical achievements with the Londinium chamber choir to present a vivid portrait of a moment unique in British music.

George Washington Gayle is not a name known to history. But it soon will be.