Dsd64 Fourplay

Fourplay's first Christmas album "Snowbound" features traditional and contemporary holiday songs, all performed in the supergroup's popular smooth jazz style. "Snowbound" is strong group effort shines as the band weaves in and out of each other's lines on "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" or as the rhythm section casts mellow, funky grooves in the path of the title track, under occasional trumpet and sax fills. The quartet delivers one other original piece, James's "The Ivy Variations", plus a naturally fluid reading of Joni Mitchell's often-overlooked song "River", taken from her five-star album "Blue".

First released in 1997, "The Best Of Fourplay" showcases the smooth jazz supergroup's signature style of indelible melodies, tasteful arrangements and addictive, toe-tapping grooves. Besides choice album cuts from Fourplay's Warner Bros repertoire, the 13-track compilation includes the band's hit versions of Marvin Gaye's "After The Dance", fronted by the silky-voiced El DeBarge, and the Isley Brothers’ "Between The Sheets", featuring legendary soul singer, Chaka Khan. The new edition of the album includes the bonus track, "The Closer I Get To You", a duet between Patti Austin and Peabo Bryson. The album was remastered using hi-resolution digital transfers from the original analogue master tapes.

Long after establishing himself as one of America's most accomplished composers, arrangers, and instrumentalists, multiple-Grammy winner, and founding member of Fourplay, Bob James achieves his longtime ambition to return to the trio format he embraced as as up and coming artist.

After attending an annual boogie-woogie concert organized by Mark Braun (Mr. B.), Monty Alexander headed a recording project that paid tribute to both boogie-woogie and spirituals. Five pianists participated, performing two numbers apiece, with four of the players (all but Alexander) playing a pair of duets. Alexander, Eric Reed, and Johnny O'Neal are better known nationally than Bob Seeley and Mark Braun, but all five pianists fare well, stretching beyond boogie-woogie and spirituals to include a few swing standards and even a bluish duet on Benny Golson's "Whisper Not." Recommended to boogie-woogie fans and the curious.

Demonstrating a deep-seated flair for soul and R&B, Paul Simon recruited gospel backup singers and traveled to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios to further refine the vibrant sounds he desired for There Goes Rhymin' Simon. Clearly, his instincts proved correct. Many rightly consider the iconic singer-songwriter's third album a masterpiece – one that, per critic Robert Christgau, "suggests a new grace and flexibility for the mass-pop mode, and invests small subjects and emotions with an almost luminous wit and awareness."