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The dark, smoky voice of Patricia Barber is quite haunting. On Modern Cool, she mostly sings downbeat songs at slow tempos. All but three songs are her own originals, and they deal with such subject matter as an "homage to beauty" that seems to connect painting one's face with prostitution, loneliness, mindless conformity, the "Postmodern Blues," and other such topics…

Guitarist Jim Hall is the sort of musician who displays such technical expertise, imaginative conception, and elegance of line and phrase that almost any recording of his is worth hearing. Still, Concierto ranks among the best albums of his superb catalog. For starters, the personnel here is a jazz lover's dream come true…

Drive is an album by American banjoist Béla Fleck. The album was produced toward the end of Fleck's New Grass Revival career and before the Flecktones were formed and included an all-star list of bluegrass performers…

Kind of Blue isn't merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it's an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album. To be reductive, it's the Citizen Kane of jazz – an accepted work of greatness that's innovative and entertaining…

Carole King brought the fledgling singer/songwriter phenomenon to the masses with Tapestry, one of the most successful albums in pop music history. A remarkably expressive and intimate record, it's a work of consummate craftsmanship…

In an odd bit of programming, Columbia placed the ballads from Miles Davis' February 12, 1964, concert on My Funny Valentine and the uptempo romps on this LP. Davis, probably a bit bored by some of his repertoire and energized by the teenage Tony Williams' drumming, performed many of his standards at an increasingly faster pace as time went on…

Earth, Wind & Fire has delivered more than its share of excellent albums, but if a person could own only one EWF release, the logical choice would be That's the Way of the World, which was the band's best album as well as its best-selling…

The Planets, composed between 1914 and 1916, is a suite of seven movements. Holst's starting point for the music was the astrological character of each planet, though his interest in astrology went no deeper than its musical suggestiveness…

Hall & Oates were in the middle of recording Private Eyes when Voices suddenly, unexpectedly broke big, with "Kiss on My List" reaching number one not just on the Billboard charts, but in Cashbox and Record World…

At the close of the '70s, Hall & Oates began inching toward a sleek, modern sound, partially inspired by the thriving punk and new wave scene and partially inspired by Daryl Hall's solo debut, Sacred Songs, a surprising and successful collaboration with art rock legend Robert Fripp. While 1979's X-Static found the duo sketching out this pop/soul/new wave fusion, it didn't come into fruition until 1980's Voices, which was their creative and commercial breakthrough…