John t. Koch

Aura is a concept album by Miles Davis, produced by Palle Mikkelborg, released in 1989. All compositions and arrangements are by Danish composer/trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg, who created the suite in tribute to Miles Davis when Davis received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in December 1984, the year Decoy was released.The album won a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance.

Ringo Starr, continuing to recognize a good thing when he sees it as he did back in 1962, is still organizing all-star (or "All-Starr") bands and touring regularly with them. This disc melds a concert performance at the Casino Rama in Ontario, Canada with a good deal of backstage documentary-style footage…

Ringo gives his revolving door All-Starr band another go in 2003. But this edition was the least interesting of the batch (now at Volume Five), predominantly because there was a substantial drop-off in the talents – and hits – of the musicians. Percussionist Sheila E. (returning from the 2001 band), bassist John Waite (the Babys), keyboardist/vocalist Paul Carrack, and ex-Men at Work guitarist Colin Hay are the best Ringo could muster up this time. Hence, with the exception of Carrack's "The Living Years" and "How Long," the non-Beatles tracks are weaker than previous All-Starr configurations.

When Handel had a difficult time as opera manager, in the 1730s, he turned to oratorios, which required neither the expensive Italian soloists nor complicated sets. Saul, based on the First Book of Samuel, written in 1738, and first performed in 1739, was relatively popular, with Handel reviving it several times through 1754. With all of the dramatic features of Handel’s oratorios, this work, featuring a bass in the starring role, opens with a festive four-movement instrumental Symphony.

Collection includes 6 solo studio albums and 1 compilation by British singer-songwriter Ian Brown, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Stone Roses.

MOZART 111 combines the best of the Austrian master's music with the best of Deutsche Grammophon's Mozart recordings, bringing together a total of 111 works, while retaining, as far as possible, the original album releases with their cover art. There's enough of everything here to stock a shop, as they say, in performances that have stood the test of time and performances that make you sit up and listen to Mozart afresh the perfect way to discover, rediscover and savor the incomparable genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

If your Latin jazz collection centers mainly around styles from Cuba and Brazil, pianist Edward Simon would like you to consider expanding your library to include musical influences from a culturally diverse land geographically situated between those two countries – namely Venezuela, where he was born and lived until the age of 12. Simon is an acclaimed post-bop and modern creative jazz pianist in his adopted country of the United States, and while Latin American elements have certainly seasoned his recorded output to date, this 2014 Sunnyside release finds him focusing more intently than ever on the nexus between creative jazz and the folk music of his home country. The album's title is derived from "Venezuelan Suite," whose four parts fill over 28 minutes of the disc's concise 38-minute duration. Simon composed the suite for his Ensemble Venezuela, and the ten-member version of the group heard here – including musicians from the U.S., Venezuela, and Colombia – is wonderfully vibrant, ably fulfilling the pianist's creative intent. Chamber Music America commissioned Simon to write this work, and he rose to the challenge with music that is suitably rich with timbral and textural variety.