Horn Play

Two of pianist/vocalist Shirley Horn's rarest (and earliest) recordings are reissued in full on this single CD. Actually, Horn does not play piano at all, sticking exclusively to vocals, and she had less control over the interpretations (being persuaded to sing some songs at faster-than-usual tempos) than she would later on. The arrangements for the big bands that back Horn were written by Jimmy Jones and Quincy Jones and, although the overall music is enjoyable, Horn would have much preferred to be the pianist behind her own vocals. ~ AllMusic

It's an unwritten rule in smooth jazz that within every great sideman there is a solo artist itching to emerge, and saxman Paul Taylor – who's added soulful spark and texture to Keiko Matsui's live band for several years – makes the most of his first big moment alone on the horn…

Widely regarded as one of today's most important composers of orchestral music, Kalevi Aho has written fifteen symphonies to date, but also twenty concertos. Indeed, he himself describes his on-going series of concertos for each of the main instruments in the Romantic symphony orchestra as 'one of the most important and most ambitious of my composition projects'. One of the latest additions to this series is the Horn Concerto, composed for the Finnish horn-player Annu Salminen who also performs it on the present recording.