Continuing their Adagios series, the folks at Decca have combed the archives once again and assembled another soothing collection of beautiful melodies, Violin Adagios. This time the soulful sound of the violin takes center stage in a program of the most memorable slow-paced music written for the instrument. Opening with Kennedy's rendition of Massenet's mournful "Meditation" from Thaïs, the double-disc set continues with performances by legends like Arthur Grumiaux and Henryk Szeryng, along with newly minted stars such as Joshua Bell, Kyung-Wha Chung, and Leila Josefowicz. And all the essential composers – from Bach to Beethoven to Brahms – are represented, too, on this album in celebration of the violin, that most lyrical of instruments.Barnes & Noble
But I have for a very long time liked what Eric Clapton liked, the Delta Blues, and in particular Robert Johnson, the Delta bluesman who would be more myth than fact if it were not for the incomparable legacy of recordings we were lucky enough to be left to posterity. So it was therefore with some trepidation (and the faint hope that I might actually like it) that I came to hear 2004's Me and Mr. Johnson (Reprise, 2004). Call me prejudiced, but I was right. Immaculately recorded, perfectly played, I hated it.
Beginning life as a psychedelic, multi-media group, IT is a band with a colossal sound that shakes the bones and, with a barrage of images, feeds the mind. Based both in London England and Sault Ste. Marie Canada, IT is part of a new movement in Progressive Rock that includes such bands as Porcupine Tree and Nine Inch Nails, among others. IT’s sound fuses the classic melodies of prog rock’s past with a passion and intensity usually only found in punk or metal bands. Politics, religion, war and sexuality all come under the Band’s lens for critical examination. Lyrics are intelligent, challenging and occasionally darkly humorous. The bottom line is that the IT experience will inform your thinking, feelings and memory long after the last notes have ended.
Enjoying great success in music, film, television, and the stage, Dean Martin was less an entertainer than an icon, the eternal essence of cool. A member of the legendary Rat Pack, he lived and died the high life of booze, broads and bright lights, always projecting a sense of utter detachment and serenity; along with Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and the other chosen few who breathed the same rarefied air, Martin – highball and cigarette always firmly in hand – embodied the glorious excess of a world long gone, a world without rules or consequences. Throughout it all, he remained just outside the radar of understanding, the most distant star in the firmament.