Viva 2007

The sixth edition of the fantastic anthology series from the Blue Note Records label, featuring some of the greatest players that ever walked the face of the Earth, like Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Chet Baker, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Miles Davis, Grant Green, Billie Holiday, Cassandra Wilson, Horace Silver, Ike Quebec, Blue Mitchell and many more.

Given that box sets are too often thrown together in a last cavalier attempt to get mileage from back catalog, it's a pleasure to find one that has rhyme and reason, assembling a program that would be hard for the buyer to find on his or her own and offering a real tribute to a beloved figure.

Italo disco is a music genre which originated in Italy and was mainly produced from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. The origin of the genre's name is strongly tied to marketing efforts of the ZYX record label, which began licensing and marketing the music outside Italy in 1982.

This live 3 CD set dramatically brings this rare opera to life, set in the 5th Century A.D, shortly before the fall of the West Roman Empire and certainly contains plenty of intrigue and drama. Although not as successful as Orfeo it contains many fine moments and this recording, in which Andreas Stoehr conducts a first rate cast, should introduce more opera listeners to this fine work.