Vital

Pre-dating Steve Perry's solo endeavor by a whole year, Vital Information was a peculiar solo release in an age where singers from highly successful bands were the only ones permitted to venture off into solo endeavors. Steve Smith, the drummer from one of arena rock's best bands ever –Journey – broke the taboo by assembling a small group of musicians and releasing Vital Information, an all-instrumental, seven-song session. Electric jazz in the vein of Pat Metheny and later-era Miles Davis.

Minimum Vital creates some very lush vocal textures with very interesting harmonies. The music has some very infectious rhythms. They mix art-rock influences from "Yes", an amazing virtuosity coming from fusion, many innovations and a deep mark from medieval and southern European traditional musics. From these diverse elements, France's Minimum Vital has certainly its own individuality on the desk of progressive rock.

This is the album to get immediatly if you are into Vital Information or fusion in general. Absolutly the best album from the band, totally mindblowing. Exceptional release. Perfect musicianship from all the guys in the band, Coster and Gambale above all the rest. Incredible jazz-fusion performances! Every track here is a marvel.

Again, a noticeable departure from his work as the timekeeper in Journey, Steve Smith's Vital Information project is straight-ahead, no-frills fusion from the '80s. Orion pretty much stays within the formula that made Vital Information's debut album so catchy and accessible: slick production and smooth musicianship atop a sheer layer of gloss for sonic measure.

Michel Corrette belongs to that not so rare species of 18th century composers whose diligence was at times their undoing. He was so prolific that he was dismissed by some in posterity as a superficial prolific writer, a fate he shared with Vivaldi, for example. In his time, Corrette was simply a keyboard whiz: in Paris, he held various organist posts, among others in the service of the Jesuits, composed sacred and secular vocal and instrumental music, and directed a music school. Thus we owe him a number of excellent school works for various instruments. His musical passion, however, was for the queen of instruments: With his works, he was able to elicit a playful lightness from the organ, which is otherwise associated with powerful sounds, like hardly anyone else. In their new recording, Hannfried Lucke and the orchestra le phénix present the concertante character with virtuoso brilliance.

The latest album of star oboist Albrecht Mayer is inspired by his lifelong love for the music of Mozart and featuring a world premiere recording and several new arrangements of Mozart’s most famous pieces. Mayer’s album is made in partnership with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and harpsichordist Vital Julian Frey and will be released 9 April 2021. Its tracklist features a B flat major version of the Concerto for flute and harp, K. 299 (297c) arranged for oboe and harpsichord, and a transcription of Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165 (158a) for oboe d’amore, orchestra and organ. Also included are arrangements of the concert arias Non temer, amato bene, K.505 and Ah se in ciel, benigne stelle, K.538, the Rondo in C major, K.373 and the motet Ave verum corpus, K.618.