Entourage Music

Born in Rome in 1678 to a family of German extraction, Nicola Francesco Haym was employed (from 1694 to 1700) as a violone and cello player by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni in the orchestra led by Arcangelo Corelli. In the final years of this period the 2nd Duke of Bedford (Wriothesley Russell, 1680-1711) visited Rome and invited the violinist Nicola Cosimi to follow his entourage back to London. Cosimi in turn invited Haym to come with him as continuo cellist. Haym therefore moved to London in 1701 and would serve as the Duke of Bedford’s ‘master of chamber music’ until the patron’s death in 1711. A significant number of Haym’s compositions were produced during this first period in his life, among them diverse instrumental music for concerts at the ducal residences.

Sampled by Four Tet, their name whispered in reverence through the decades, Entourage forged bold musical ideas on their two rare '70s Folkways LPs. Now, collected for the first time, 30 previously unreleased tracks from their archives.

Howlin' Wolf - Live In Europe (1964) {Music Avenue Expanded Re-issue 250192 rel 2007}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 354 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 175 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 90 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1964, 2007 Music Avenue (Europe) | 250192
Blues / Electric Chicago Blues / Regional Blues

Of the myriad circulating live Wolf albums of dubious fidelity and legality, this is the best of the bunch, both from an audio standpoint and the pronouncement in the booklet that royalties were indeed being paid to Wolf's widow. This is Wolf's portion of the show as part of the traveling American Folk Blues entourage, the first festival type presentation of the whole blues spectrum to invade Europe. This 1964 tour is the one that brought the real thing to locales where he had previously been only a name on a phonograph record, and the romantic notions projected into the sound that record gave off.

Those who still think of Wagner’s Tristan as quintessentially erotic music should definitely reconsider: in the list drawn by The Most Erotic Classical Music of All Time, an album with a provocative cover featuring a woman’s derriere and suspenders, in good company with an obvious Bolero and a punctual isottesque finale and a less-obvious Moonlight Sonata or a Good Friday Spell (all by the German from Leipzig), one finds the Centone di Sonate for violin and guitar by Niccolò Paganini (Genoa 1782 – Nice 1840) and precisely with the opening movement of the Sonata in A minor placed in the opening of the present collection.

In Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s catalogue, the music for solo keyboard and the chamber music occupy central positions. In his youth, Carl Philipp Emanuel, who was left-handed, did not play string instruments such as the violin or viola, but rather the harpsichord and organ (not to overlook the flute). It was as a harpsichordist that, in 1738, he joined the entourage of the future King of Prussia, Frederick II, before following him to Berlin upon his accession two years later and then formally entering his service. In 1767, he was offered the succession of his godfather, Telemann, as director of music in Hamburg. He arrived in the Hanseatic city in March 1768, and for the last twenty years of his life, it was church music that occupied much of his time and effort.

In July-August 1987, after 100 shows around the world on The Bridge Tour, Billy Joel accepted the Kremlin's invitation to the U.S.S.R. for six fully-staged rock shows in Moscow and Leningrad, fulfilling a long-time desire to perform in Russia. During their stay, Billy and his family, along with musicians, staff, and a huge press entourage spent their days interacting with the Russian people, forging true bonds of friendship wherever they went.

Like many education-hungry sons of the European nobility, the 18-year-old Prince Frederick August II embarked on his Grand Tour, which took him from Saxony to Venice in 1716, where he spent almost a year. The large entourage that accompanied the young prince on this trip included such great musicians as the violinist Johann Georg Pisendel, the oboist Johann Christian Richter and the composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. In Venice, an intense exchange with local stars such as Vivaldi developed, in an atmosphere of friendship and competition. On his return to Dresden, August took with him, in addition to Lotti and Veracini, Heinichen, whom he had met in Venice and who became his Kapellmeister. After acclaimed recordings of orchestral works by Handel and Bach, Zefiro now discovers this fascinating repertoire of music by Italians who composed in the French style and Germans who wrote Venetian concertos to impress the prince.