Big Blue Book

GRAMMY® Award-winning trumpeter and recording artist Brian Lynch presents one of his most ambitious projects to date: The Omni-American Book Club. This expansive album of music for large ensemble connects Lynch’s lifelong passion for reading and the books that have shaped his life with his original music.

Dubbed the First Lady of Jazz, multi-GRAMMY winner Ella Fitzgerald was a celebrated interpreter of the Great American Songbook. The vocalist showcases her multifaceted talents on this collection from the Rodgers and Hart’s repertoire. The pair was responsible for some of music’s greatest songs with their striking melodies and compelling lyrics. The recording, inducted into the GRAMMY® Hall of Fame, features the standards “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady Is A Tramp,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “Blue Moon,” “You Took Advantage of Me,” “Manhattan” and “Where Or When.” The album is confirmation of Fitzgerald’s undeniable genius and a testament to why she is one of music’s greatest singers, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

Long before Mike Myers’ Austin Powers character idolized him on film, Burt Bacharach was the quintessential golden boy of pop music. He studied with French composer Darius Milhaud (as had jazz legend Dave Brubeck), he backed up Marlene Dietrich (something Brubeck didn’t). He composed hit after hit after hit after hit for movies and singers; he pretty much launched Dionne Warwick single-handedly (well, double-handedly, with the help of lyricist Hal David). He was where everyone wanted to be, with everyone that everyone wanted to be with, making the scene and making the scene his. How do you fit all that musical goodness into five compact discs? Focus. Our collection is Burt being Burt, occasionally with a guest vocal where called for, but mostly the man in his own voice, conducting and playing and just generally being his luminous self.