American musician with Cuban and Italian roots. As a teenager Albert Castiglia started playing guitar and realized that writing his own music was the best way to express his thoughts. His first breakthrough was when Junior Wells hired him for his touring band, so they played several world tours together. In 1997 the New Times magazine in Miami named him the “Best Blues Guitarist” and finally, in 2002, Castiglia released his debut “Burn”. In 2014 Albert Castiglia comleted Ruf's Blues Caravan beside Laurence Jones and Christina Skjolberg and released his first album on Ruf "Solid Ground". Released in 2016 on Ruf Records, Big Dog confirms that Albert is a different breed to the lightweights and arrivistes who dominate the modern music scene…
Never mind the Symphonie espagnole and Le roi d’Ys, Edouard Lalo is the last of the great unknowns in 19th-century French music. His mature instrumental works combine the wisdom drawn from his professional playing experience with the familiar flair for rhythm and colour. They are likely to transform any opinion you may hold: it isn’t often that the inspiration of Beethoven was so well digested in France. The first two trios don’t really count as mature, and although they contain fine things, especially in the scherzos, their characteristic soul, sweep and dash are often clumsily handled. With No. 3, form and feeling are as one, the first movement’s surges integral to its progress to a hushed end, while the slow movement builds a powerful span from a sustained melody. Between them comes the irresistible piece better known in Lalo’s later arrangement as a Scherzo for orchestra. These performances have the necessary robustness without stinting on delicacy.