Diana's Duets

Guitarists Stanley Jordan and Kevin Eubanks team up for the 2015 Mack Avenue release Duets. An intimate, relaxed album, Duets features the esteemed journeyman artists playing both acoustic and electric instruments on a handful of classic standards, originals, and newer pop tunes. Rather than a cutting session, Duets works more as a laid-back conversation in which both musicians revel in the warmth of each other's sound. While they share a similar style, favoring a clean, unaffected approach to the guitar, there are enough differences in each player's sounds to easily distinguish them on a given track.

George Lewis records so infrequently as a leader that any new release featuring him on trombone is itself an event. Here, he is featured on trombone in a series of duets with kotoist Miya Masaoka. (Masaoka's koto is a sort of modified Japanese zither.) The results, as expected, are superb, as Lewis and Masaoka negotiate twelve improvised pieces, swerving, interacting, bouncing, and complementing each other in spectacular ways…

These records offer seven of the duets Handel wrote about 1710 for Italian aristocratic parties (they are said to be influenced by Steffani), three much later duets of the 1740s presumably composed in England (why, one wonders?), and one cantata for each singer of which the date is not known. None of these items is available in the current catalogue, and most of them fell on my ears with delightful freshness. This really is lovely music. The duets are mostly in three short sections, the voices treated fugally in the quicker movements but with a lot of coloratura thrown in, and a quiet lyrical middle section in between.

As part of Columbia/Legacy's ongoing celebration of Johnny Cash's 80th Birthday in 2012, the label assembled a series of compilations under the rubric "The Greatest." The concept of this 14-track compilation is clear: it is a collection of duets Cash cut for Columbia between 1967 and 1985. Some of these cuts appeared on albums by other artists ("Girl from the North Country" is pulled from Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline), some were not released at the time (his George Jones duet "I Got Stripes" was a bonus track on the 2002 reissue of Silver), some are pulled from Cash's TV show (the opening "I've Been Everywhere" with Lynn Anderson), a few are duets with his wife June Carter Cash, and a couple are with his Highwaymen companions Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, while most derive from albums Cash released himself over the years.

2023 release. Entertainment icon Olivia Newton-John's legendary career immortalized in 11 classic duets with her dear friends. Vol. 2 includes new, never-before-released duets "I'm Counting On You" with Johnny O'Keefe, and "I Will Be Right Here" with David Campbell. Other duets include Burt Bacharach penned "Wishin' And Hopin'" with Dionne Warwick, "Falling" with Marty Raybon, Dave Aude produced bonus Track "You Have To Believe (We Are Magic)" with Olivia's daughter, Chloe Lattanzi, and more.

A companion album of sorts to 2019's My Songs, Duets collects 17 duets Sting has recorded over the years. Some of these tracks appeared on soundtracks, some were included on albums by his duet partners, others – including "September," a song recorded with Zucchero that makes its debut here – trickled out on compilations. Collectively, these duets showcase Sting The Polymath, a cultured and worldly individual with an ability to synthesize his diverse interests into smooth, jazzy, mature pop. What's striking about the compilation is how a roster as diverse as Eric Clapton, Shaggy, Mary J. Blige, Annie Lennox, Herbie Hancock, Sam Moore, and Julio Iglesias doesn't sound especially eclectic; when the common denominator is Sting, all the guests adapt to his particular ways.

In the '60s, Motown paired the Supremes and Temptations; in the '70s, the Supremes and Four Tops united for three albums of pop-soul splendor. Here are all three (two on CD for the first time) PLUS 11 more songs they did together! The Magnificent 7, Return of the Magnificent Seven and Dynamite take you back to 1970 and '71 for their hits River Deep-Mountain High and You Gotta Have Love in Your Heart ; their versions of For Your Love; Stoned Soul Picnic; Everyday People; Gimme Some Lovin'; It's Your Thing 46 tracks including unreleased ones and new mixes.