o Horos Tis Pragmatikotitas

Both Acis and Galatea and the cantata Sarei troppo felice heard here represent decisive turning points in Handel’s career. The Italian cantata came at the beginning of the one and half decades spent by Handel in the service of various patrons. Acis and Galatea marks the highpoint of this phase and therefore, like the cantata before it, clearly renders recognizable the musical means available to him in the private ensembles of his employers. Moreover, Acis and Galatea contains the musical and textual seeds of the English oratorio, which after 1742 completely supplanted opera compositions.

The Classics volume on Anita O'Day covering 1945 through 1950 takes her through the first five years of her solo career - after her breakout with Gene Krupa (and "Let Me Off Uptown"), but before the immense success of her Verve years. The only hit present is the bright novelty "Hi Ho Trailus Boot Whip," but fortunately O'Day didn't record many castoffs then; instead, par for the course during the late '40s was her bluesy romp version of "What Is This Thing Called Love?," another Cole Porter tune recorded at the same session. Her sweetly swinging versions of "Them There Eyes" and "I Told Ya I Love You, Now Get Out" are excellent, and the backing includes high-caliber musicians Benny Carter, Dave Barbour, and pianist/arranger Ralph Burns.

20th anniversary reissue of Type O Negative's 6th album "Life Is Killing Me". A relentless work from the kings of New York Gothic Metal.
In the past, Type O Negative dared the listener to sit through aural jokes to weed out the four or five cuts of ghoulish greatness only these Brooklyn boys could devise. At this point, slab number six, everyone knows what to expect from the drab four, and they now know how to deliver it consistently. Ultimately, Life Is Killing Me breaks no new ground, but engages throughout, always touching on the Type O oeuvre. "I Don't Wanna Be Me" easily qualifies as one of the band's best singles…

Anita O'Day celebrated her 50th year as a professional singer at Carnegie Hall on Friday evening with a program that reviewed her big-band years with Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton and her work with small groups over the past 30 years.
Miss O'Day was relaxed and casually high-spirited, cutting through the formality that a performance in Carnegie Hall suggests.
And when she and Roy Eldridge remembered what they once did with ''Let Me Off Uptown'' with Gene Krupa's band, they both showed that the spirit that created that performance was still there, even though Mr. Eldridge now only sings his part and no longer blows the crackling trumpet he once did since a heart attack five years ago forced him to give it up…

Compilations abound that center on Anita O'Day's work of the '40s and early '50s, before she set about recording one of the liveliest string of LPs ever seen on the planet (from 1955's This Is Anita to 1962's That Is Anita). With 1950-1952, the seminal Classics label reissued a string of titles that haven't seen light very often, a selection of her recordings for labels including London, Clef, and Norgran (the last two were Verve-associated labels). While they stand nowhere near the twin pinnacles of her career - her big-band heyday and her solo revival yet to come - O'Day recorded much wonderful music during these two years. In 1952 alone, she recorded three excellent sessions (the final two-thirds of the program), including a swinging date with her Krupa bandmate Roy Eldridge in New York and a sublime Chicago appearance with Roy Kral.

Ndidi Onukwulu integrates jazz, rhythm and blues, world, folk, and bluegrass - to name a few genres - into a sound that is silky and soulful, whimsical and relevant"- Critics At Large