Charles T.jones

This opera was a personal triumph for Dame Janet. As Caesar, she arms the voice with an impregnable firmness, outgoing and adventurous. Valerie Masterson shares the honours with Dame Janet, a Cleopatra whose bright voice gains humanity through ordeal. The tinkle of surface- wear clears delightfully in her later arias, sung with a pure tone and high accomplishment. As a total production, Julius Caesar was an outstanding achievement in ENO's history. Strongly cast, it had a noble Cornelia in Sarah Walker, a high-spirited Sesto in Della Jones, and in James Bowman a Ptolemy whose only fault was that his voice lacked meanness of timbre appropriate to the odious character. John Tomlinson's massive bass also commands attention. Mackerras's conducting is impeccable and the opera is given in clear, creditable English.

Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form, but Charles did even more to devise a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals, adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz, blues, and (in the '60s) country. Then there was his singing; his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th century performer, up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player, arranger, and bandleader. The brilliance of his 1950s and '60s work, however, can't obscure the fact that he made few classic tracks after the mid-'60s, though he recorded often and performed until the year before his death.

Two scores with a tone of righteous fury woven throughout. While there are differences in the approach to the two scores, Quincy Jones did manage to provide a unifying style – no mean feat, considering that the intent behind In the Heat of the Night was to get a Southern, blues-inflected atmosphere to support the angry, anti-racist approach of the picture, while They Call Me Misters Tibbs! had a more open, urban attitude from its San Francisco setting. The music throughout has an edge (the lighter music in the second score is generally source music), with some interesting musical experiments going on (Jones, as one example, used cimbalom to reflect Tibbs' feelings in They Call Me Mister Tibbs!.) The Ryko CD release includes an Enhanced CD portion with film material. The sound throughout the disc is excellent, although the cues from In the Heat of the Night show their age, and the dialogue excerpts sound very rough.

All vibraphonists owe a debt of gratitude to Lionel Hampton for paving the way in traditional and modern jazz, pioneering the instrument as more than in an accompanist role or being heard only in lounges. In his heyday, Teddy Charles was a prime example of taking Hampton's approach to a different level, eventually in hard and post-bop, but here he takes swing era tunes of Hamp's, changing up or editing their melodic structures with a quartet featuring pianist Hank Jones, and a larger ensemble with horn complement. This album as reissued on CD is known as Salute to Hamp and subtitled "The Vibraphone Players of Bethlehem, Vol. 1" as issued originally on the Bethlehem label, reissued by Avenue Jazz. It showcases Charles, not so much in an evolutionary fashion, but as a complete performer and bandleader. He is a singularly unique jazzman who anyone can appreciate, and is quite able to hold interest of listeners beyond conventional wisdom of what well-worn standards can sound like with just a little inspiration and soul.