Late Lady

Abbey Lincoln was in her late fifties at the time of this 1987 session in Paris, but she was showing little wear on her voice, aside for a slightly more pronounced vibrato. Joining her for this session is Archie Shepp on soprano and tenor saxophones, trumpeter Roy Burrowes, pianist Hilton Ruiz, bassist Jack Gregg, and drummer Freddie Waits. The sparse liner notes give no background as to how this session or choice of musicians came about, and at times there is such an informal air that one would think that this was a run-through prior to a record date or concert. The extended workout of Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady" lives up to its title, with Lincoln, Shepp (on soprano sax), Burrowes (on muted trumpet), and Ruiz shining in their respective solos…

Over his 11 CDs plus a greatest-hits package for the Justin Time label, Bryan Lee has been one of the most consistently satisfying blues artists heard anywhere. Sporting a sly but sweet voice and more than competent, pleasing guitar style, Lee has made inroads into keeping the real urban blues tradition alive, where many others have either watered it down, rocked it out far too much, or funkified it past the point of recognition…..

Johnny Mathis was billed on his very first album as “A New Sound in Popular Song.” In the decades since that 1956 debut, the vocalist has always explored new avenues in pop from Latin music to Philly soul. But the most adventurous of Mathis’ 60-plus albums may be the one that got away…until now. In late 1980, Johnny teamed up with the white-hot CHIC production team of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards, fresh off triumphant collaborations with artists including Sister Sledge and Diana Ross, for I Love My Lady. Mathis took his voice into new, uncharted territory on eight anthemic, club-ready tracks that pushed the envelope of rhythm and blues as they incorporated funk, jazz, disco, and dance rhythms.

Juan García de Salazar was a Spanish Baroque composer from the Basque country who spent most of his career working at Zamora Cathedral; he is so obscure the entry for him in the New Grove doesn't even include a list of his works. Musicologist Manuel Sagastume Arregi has pulled together a number of Salazar's extant movements related to the Vespers service with additional material to create Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady in Naxos' Spanish Classics series. It is performed by the Basque ensemble Capilla Peñaflorida and features the period wind group Ministriles de Marsias and the fine baritone of Josep Cabré. There are no stars here, though – everything on Juan García de Salazar: Complete Vespers of Our Lady is done to the service of the music, which is outstanding. Sagastume Arregi's realization of García de Salazar's Vespers service incorporates appropriate plainchant sections taken from a Basque hymnal dated 1692, organ music by García de Salazar's contemporaries José Ximenez and Martín Garcia de Olagüe, instrumental arrangements of García de Salazar's motets, and an arrangement of Tomás Luis de Victoria's Vidi speciosam probably made by García de Salazar himself.