Keith Testament

In 2013, the great five-disc Stranglers box set The Old Testament: The U.A. Studio Recordings (1977-1982) from 1992 was reissued, featuring most of the group's best albums plus a bunch of drool-worthy bonuses (demos, B-sides, remixes, and other whatnot). This bulky 11-disc set was released just one year after – the excuse being that the band's 40th anniversary must be honored – but the differences are vast, with this one serving a purpose for the hardcore while Old Testament is the clear winner for the more casual listener…

The Cellar Door Sessions documents the great trumpeter-bandleader Davis at the helm of one of his most stimulating and electrifying groups. The sextet on The Cellar Door‘s bandstand – Davis, saxophonist Gary Bartz, Keith Jarret (playing electric organ and electric piano), Motown bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, and percussionist Airto Moreira – is a sheer marvel of kinetic energy. And adding more visionary pyrotechnics is the blazing guitar of John McLaughlin. Every member of this Davis band has subsequently proved to be a major figure in jazz; in his own way, each has placed a highly personal stamp on improvisation during the past 35 years.

Rising star pianist/composer Noah Haidu’s resplendently expressive Standards (June 23, 2023, Sunnyside Records) celebrates the 40th anniversary of the release that launched Keith Jarrett’s great Standards Trio and arrives on the heels of Haidu’s two recent acclaimed Sunnyside albums, most notably 2021’s SLOWLY: Song for Keith Jarrett. Featuring Haidu with bassists Buster Williams and Peter Washington, drummer Lewis Nash and guest saxophonist Steve Wilson, Standards is, in part, the soulmate to SLOWLY, which DownBeat called “a stunning and heartfelt tribute.” After Haidu, Buster Williams and Billy Hart recorded its last two songs – “But Beautiful” and “Georgia on My Mind” – Williams said, “Those two standards were beautiful, got any more?”

Digitally remastered deluxe two CD 25th Anniversary edition of the Synth band's 1985 debut including a plethora of bonus material. Propaganda were a Düsseldorf band, and with hindsight you can see them as the halfway point between the city's most famous sons Kraftwerk and the common European language of Techno-Pop that flourished in Ralf and Florian's wake. But Propaganda were pipe-banging confrontationalists before they became a waking Pop dream. Ralf Dörper, a bank employee, music writer and member of Düsseldorf Industrial-Electronic band Die Krupps, founded Propaganda with vocalist Claudia Brucken, part-time DJ Andreas Thein and jeweler/goldsmith Susanne Freytag. None was a musician in the conventional sense but they made a demo version of 'Discipline' by Throbbing Gristle which found it's way to NME writer Paul Morley, then in the process of setting up ZTT with Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair. The rest is history. 26 tracks.