Emmanuel Saenz

With Airlines, supreme instrumentalist, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, takes the music of an Oscar-winning film composer, Alexandre Desplat, into new realms. The album is entirely devoted to world premiere recordings – of original concert works and of reimagined versions of Desplat’s film scores, including Oscar-winners The Shape of Water (2018) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Pahud is accompanied by the Orchestre National de France, conducted by Alexandre Desplat himself.

As an Australian, guitar virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel doesn't seem to be much bothered about musical categories. Is his music jazz, folk, bluegrass, new age? Depending on the track, it can be any one. Like his mentor, Chet Atkins, Emmanuel is simply a guitar player, and on Little by Little, a two-CD set, he sticks mostly to acoustic guitar, playing mostly originals, tunes that he has used in concert but not recorded before. He is also mostly solo, although the double-disc length allows him room to share space with guests including singers Pam Rose (on her co-composition "Haba Na Hava") and Anthony Snape (on the folk-rock "Willie's Shades"). Among the covers are two versions of "Moon River," one with a bass countermelody, the other with an Emmanuel vocal, Carole King's "Tapestry," Atkins' "Mountains of Illinois," and "The Tennessee Waltz." Emmanuel plays fast runs, slows down for delicate passages, and adds harmonics on tunes that evoke players including Will Ackerman and John Fahey. He also likes folk-pop; "Papa George" needs only a James Taylor vocal to fit into that category. But Little by Little is a tour de force by a musician who usually leaves categories behind.

The common thread—as so often in The Romantic Piano Concerto series—is Liszt, in whose Weimar circle both composer-pianists featured here moved. Both concertos are pleasingly substantial, and the typically demanding piano writing is powerfully dispatched by Emmanuel Despax.

Though he has shown a mastery and affinity for both electric and acoustic axes, Tommy Emmanuel's Higher Octave debut, Midnight Drive, finds him focusing almost exclusively on warm yet frequently aggressive acoustic melodies, complemented here and there by the raw, plugged-in energy of Robben Ford and Larry Carlton. The overall mix is the kind that smooth jazz lovers find easy to swallow, but offers more bite and adventure than most like-minded releases in the genre. Smooth jazz radio may find an easy mark with a laid-back take of Sting's "Fields of Gold," but Emmanuel's other tracks dig deeper, showing off a stylistic chameleon drawing from the many phases of his career. His soft pop side comes out on power ballads "No More Goodbyes" and "Stay Close to Me," the latter reminding us why guest saxman Warren Hill's biggest hit to date was called "The Passion Theme." Emmanuel's more aggressive blues-rock side (honed no doubt by a few years in the progressive mid-'80s ensemble Dragon) emerges with Carlton's help on "Can't Get Enough." The striking contrast between the pastoral, folksy roads of "Drivetime" and the disc's best track, "Villa de Martin" best reflects the gamut of Emmanuel's approaches.

In music as in love, one + one can add up to not two but a new and greater one. On Heart Songs two of the world's greatest guitarists, Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles, make this clear. Both are masters of their instrument, honored by the iconic Chet Atkins with the rare designation of CGP (Certified Guitar Players). Emmanuel has twice been voted "Best Acoustic Guitarist" by readers of Guitar Player Magazine and honored as both a "Member of the Order of Australia" and an official "Kentucky Colonel". Knowles is a Grammy winner, a member of the National Thumb Picker's Hall of Fame, and editor of the respected FingerStyle Quarterly.