Nonetheless

Édith Piaf is almost universally regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Still revered as an icon decades after her death, "The Sparrow" served as a touchstone for virtually every chansonnier, male or female, who followed her. Her greatest strength wasn't so much her technique, or the purity of her voice, but the raw, passionate power of her singing. (Given her extraordinarily petite size, audiences marveled all the more at the force of her vocals.) Her style epitomized that of the classic French chanson: highly emotional, even melodramatic, with a wide, rapid vibrato that wrung every last drop of sentiment from a lyric. She preferred melancholy, mournful material, singing about heartache, tragedy, poverty, and the harsh reality of life on the streets; much of it was based to some degree on her real-life experiences, written specifically for her by an ever-shifting cast of songwriters.

After both John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley left Miles Davis' quintet, he was caught in the web of seeking suitable replacements. It was a period of trial and error for him that nonetheless yielded some legendary recordings (Sketches of Spain, for one). One of those is Someday My Prince Will Come. The lineup is Davis, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and alternating drummers Jimmy Cobb and Philly Jo Jones. The saxophonist was Hank Mobley on all but two tracks. John Coltrane returns for the title track and "Teo." The set opens with the title, a lilting waltz that nonetheless gets an original treatment here, despite having been recorded by Dave Brubeck. Kelly is in keen form, playing a bit sprightlier than the tempo would allow, and slips flourishes in the high register inside the melody for an "elfin" feel. Davis waxes light and lyrical with his Harmon mute, playing glissando throughout. Mobley plays a strictly journeyman solo, and then Coltrane blows the pack away with a solo so deep inside the harmony it sounds like it's coming from somewhere else.

This ambitious and beautifully produced two-CD set includes nearly all of Iannis Xenakis' chamber music for strings, piano, and strings and piano combined. Chamber music constituted a small part of the composer's output, since large ensembles and large forms were vehicles more commensurate with the aesthetic of his monumental, granitic music. There are no small pieces here, though; in each of these works, ranging from solos to a quintet for piano and strings, Xenakis was able to express his uncompromising vision no less ferociously than in his orchestral works. While all of the pieces have an elemental character, many with a visceral punch, the actual sound of the music is surprisingly varied, and the individual works have distinctive and individual characters. In spite of the weightiness and rigor of the music, the tone is not necessarily heavy, and some pieces, like Evryali for piano and Dikhthas for violin and piano, have moments of what could almost be described as whimsicality.

Born in Chicago in 1949, Gil Scott-Heron became one of the inspirators of Rap Music. With very much of a political viewpoint, Gil became a mouthpiece for the Black Person in America during the Seventies and Eighties. Gil was the son of a Jamaican professional soccer player and a college graduate mother who worked as a librarian. His father played for the Scottish football side, Celtic. Both parents divorced whilst Gil was still a child and he was despatched off to his grandmother in Lincoln, Tennessee. His grandmother helped Gil musically, however, early racial tensions at school, in Jackson, led him to relocate again to the Bronx during his adolescent years to live with his mother and he later moved again to the Spanish neighbourhood of Chelsea.

At the age of 13, Gil had already written a book of poetry. Gil attended college in Pennsylvania and then left to concentrate on writing his first novel entitled 'The Vulture' in 1968. It was at college he met Brian Jackson, who was later to be a long time musical collaborator.
He released his debut album, 'New Black Poet: Small Talk at 125th and Lennox', in 1970, the title of which was influenced by a piece of poetry written by his mentor, Bob Thiele. The album contained the powerful 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', a damning political attack on the media and the treatment of Black People in the U.S.

A group whose distinctly ethereal and gossamer sound virtually defined the enigmatic image of the record label 4AD, Cocteau Twins were founded in Grangemouth, Scotland, in 1979. Taking their name from an obscure song from fellow Scots Simple Minds, the Cocteaus were originally formed by guitarist Robin Guthrie and bassist Will Heggie and later rounded out by Guthrie's girlfriend Elizabeth Fraser, an utterly unique performer whose swooping, operatic vocals relied less on any recognizable language than on the subjective sounds and textures of verbalized emotions.

Mars Hollow is one of the very few bands that have successfully managed to show a more accessible side of classically inspired symphonic prog… nonetheless, don't expect to listen to them on regular radio…