Brahm Xrcd

This 1962 Moodsville quartet date finds Coleman Hawkins in excellent form performing tunes from Broadway shows. It's an unusually lively date for this label that specialized mainly in slow ballad treatments in a jazz setting, and it's a terrific date because of that. Hawk stays down in the lower register of his tenor throughout most of the selections, and his breathy, smoky tone is most attractive. ~ Amazon Customer's Review

Coleman Hawkins is frequently identified as the "father" of jazz tenor saxophone playing. With a perfect rhythm section featuring his working band - Tommy Flanagan on piano, Manor Holley, Jr. on bass, and Eddie Locke on drums, Hawkins showcases his illuminating artistry on this collection of love songs from Broadway shows. This "classic" Hawkins album has never before been available on CD.

With its first own recording of a cappella repertoire, the Zurcher Sing- Akademie reveals its musical and emotional identity and opens the door to the unique Swiss musical landscape. HERZBLUT provides an insight into the multifaceted work of Swiss composers, from the Romantic period to the present day.

Jazz pianist Bill Evans began a quiet revolution in the early 1960s. Before Evans, jazz piano trios spotlighted the pianist while the others essentially accompanied him or her. Evans envisioned a trio where all three musicians were on an equal footing, where they'd truly interact. "Sunday at the Village Vanguard", recorded live in 1961, captures the original Bill Evans Trio at its peak. Drummer Paul Motian plays with grace, subtlety, and restraint that are equal to Evans's, and bassist Scott LaFaro (who also played with Ornette Coleman) has a rapport with the others that seems telepathic. Evans absorbed the bebop approach to the keys but also took inspiration from the suave pianism of Nat "King" Cole and 20th-century classical Impressionism. "Sunday" is piano trio jazz that's executed so beautifully one might not notice how complex it really is.

Fritz Reiner was one of the foremost conductors of his time. Crowning his long career in Europe and America was the decade from 1954 to 1963 as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra an illustrious partnership that ranks along such other historical tenures as Karajan's in Berlin, Szell's in Cleveland and Bernstein's in New York.
Luckily for posterity, Reiner's legendary interpretations at the helm of the Chicago Symphony which no less than Igor Stravinsky called "the most precise and flexible orchestra in the world" were captured on record by RCA Victor. Now for the first time ever, they are being issued together in a single Sony Classical box set of 63 re-mastered CDs.