For the first time in a very long time super drummer STEVE GADD joins up with his friends from Gadd Gang times, EDDIE GOMEZ and RONNIE CUBER for a production with the WDR Big Band. Under the direction of Michael Abene, a heavenly groovy album emerges, with Steve Gadd and his friends taking center stage. Recorded in january & february of 2022! The cooperation between Steve's Gadd Gang and the WDR Big Band was hanging in the air for quite some time. Already back in 2011 there was talk about a potential collaboration with the Big Band under the leadership of Michael Abene (the chief conductor of that orchestra from 2004 to 2014). I love Michael and highly esteem his work, says Gadd, his arrangements as well as his piano playing. It is just a matter of trying to get the schedule together, but I am sure at some point we will be able to get it together.
This new recording by Gävle Symphony Orchestra with conductor Jaime Martín is a tribute to the work of Johannes Brahms (18331897). The art of Brahms has inspired countless of artists and composers since the 19th century up to our times. Arnold Schoenberg was one of the composers who greatly admired Brahms work. Schoenberg was particularly fond of Brahms 1st Piano Quartet (Op. 25) and when Otto Klemperer suggested him to orchestrate it in 1937, Schoenberg took the task without hesitation. Schoenberg regarded his reworking of the Piano Quartet often dubbed as Brahms Fifth as an act of homage to Brahms, and he believed he had finally succeeded in addressing the composers concerns about the original score. No wonder that Schoenbergs masterful arrangement has remained in the concert programs of symphony orchestras.
On her first Spanish-language EP, 2021's Revelación, Selena Gomez conjures a romantic atmosphere that balances chic studio-cool with warm vulnerability. It's a mature sound and one that builds nicely upon her genre-blending 2020 studio album Rare, which found Gomez pushing the stylistic boundaries of her mainstream aesthetic, experimenting with French disco, R&B, and some Latin-influenced rhythms. It was also one of her most intimate-sounding albums, revealing diary-like lyrics about personal feelings and desires. On Revelación, she remains just as artistically fearless, embracing her Latin roots and further pushing her sound in a sophisticated pop direction.