Half Angel 1936

It is a meaningful sign of the times that Astor Piazzolla is arguably one of the most frequently performed composers on the contemporary musical stage, even though he probably never aimed at writing “classical” music. True, one of the fundamental encounters of his life was with composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger, who mentored many of the most important avant-garde musicians of the second half of the twentieth century. And, under her guidance, Piazzolla did attempt to express his personality through the language of Western contemporary music. The results, of course, were very good, since nobody could question Piazzolla’s talent. Yet, when Piazzolla performed one of the tangos he had already written to his professor, she exclaimed: “Astor, all your classical pieces are well written, but the true Piazzolla sound is here, never leave it behind!”. And if the language of Piazzolla’s music does not correspond to that of the coeval European avantgardes, neither does it conform to the standards of the Argentinian tango tradition. It is precisely for his utter originality that Astor Piazzolla rightfully claimed and obtained a place in the pantheon of twentieth-century classical music. But it is also this originality that may puzzle those attempting to classify him within one of the established musical categories.

100 CDs provide you with the most exciting, most beautiful and most swinging recordings from this period. All-Star Swing groups with their most famous recordings. Mit Henry Allen, Roy Eldrige, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Benny Carter, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Teddy Wilson, Buck Clayton, Django Reinhardt, Jack Teagarden, Rex Stewart, Chu Berry, Charlie Christian, Louis Armstrong u.a. 100-CD-Box with original recordings.

The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. More than a half-century after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing.