Johnny Smith is an exquisite jazz guitarist known mostly to fellow musicians and serious jazz fans. This beautifully packaged and expertly annotated eight-CD limited-edition boxed set from Mosaic includes his complete small-group recordings for Roost, most of which have languished out of print for decades. Smith's unique voicings on his instrument set him apart from other players, yet he maintains a lush, crystal-clear tone no matter the tempo or setting.
Born in Granada in 1934, Antonio Ruiz-Pipó learnt the guitar in his youth but trained as a pianist in Barcelona, where he was taught by Frank Marshall, doyen of the Spanish piano school made famous by Alicia de Larrocha. Further study in Paris refined Ruiz-Pipó’s compositional technique, and he taught at the École Normale from 1977 until his death in 1997.
During an era when everyone wanted to be a bluesman, Howe brought jazz, country, flamenco, ragtime and psychedelia into the mix for prog - rockers Yes. Stephen James "Steve" Howe (born 8 April 1947 in Holloway, North London, England) is an English musician, songwriter and backing vocalist, best known as the guitarist of the progressive rock group Yes. He has also been a member of The Syndicats, Bodast, Tomorrow, Asia and GTR, as well as having released 19 solo albums as of 2010.
Famed for their perennial "All Right Now," Free helped lay the foundations for the rise of hard rock, stripping the earthy sound of British blues down to its raw, minimalist core to pioneer a brand of proto-metal later popularized by 1970's superstars like Foreigner, Foghat and Bad Company. Free formed in London in 1968 when guitarist Paul Kossoff, then a member of the blues unit Black Cat Bones, was taken to see vocalist Paul Rodgers' group Brown Sugar by a friend, drummer Tom Mautner.
The Italian guitarist Angelo Marchese introduced the music of the Serbian-US composer Dušan Bogdanović to the Brilliant Classics catalogue in 2015 with an album of sonatas, bagatelles, studies and dances (95194). His second recording dedicated to Bogdanović concentrates on a single collection, the 48 Seasonal Preludes which gradually took shape over several years as a fusion of classical, jazz, and ethnic styles.