Robben Ford is at that stage in his career when he needs to make a decision. It's been well established for decades that he is one of the truly great guitar players out there. He has mastered the many styles placed in front of him and bitten off and chewed more. Perhaps the best that can be said about this recording is that it is the work of a very competent bandleader and producer who happens to play one hell of a mean guitar. It also features fine performances from organist Larry Goldings and bassist Will Lee, and guest appearances from Susan Tedeschi (whose soulful voice literally saves a cover of Paul Simon's "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor") and Bernie Worrell (on "Riley B. King").

Quincy Jones had jazz fans wondering when he released his killer Gula Matari album in 1970. That set, with gorgeous reading of Paul Simon's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" with a lead vocal by none other than Valerie Simpson, pointed quite solidly into the direction Jones was traveling: unabashedly toward pop, but with his own trademark taste, and sophistication at the forefront of his journey. Its follow-up, Smackwater Jack, marked Jones, along with Phil Ramone and Ray Brown in the producer's chair, and knocked purist jazz fans on their heads with its killer meld of pop tunes, television and film themes, pop vocals, and big-band charts.

Pianist Bill Carrothers gets personal in Family Life. Entering the stream of Americana flowing straight down the middle of jazz, Carrothers produces his Kinderszenen (1838) after German composer Robert Schumann, or, at the very least, his Woodland Sketches (1896) after American composer Edward MacDowell. Family Life is is a carefully constructed set of musical miniatures capturing a national essence, that indefinable thing that made Aaron Copland Aaron Copland, George Gershwin George Gershwin, Duke Ellington Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk Thelonious Monk.

Ellister makes you forget her instrument. She doesn’t play the trumpet, she plays music. There’s no struggle in her playing; the notes come out effortlessly, as if inventing them and executing them perfectly on the horn is no big deal at all.

The sound of Paul Bley's trio brings to mind Lennie Tristano immediately as this recording begins, and for once Bley is playing with a heavy enough touch so that an appropriately dark-toned curtain shrouds the music; out of this bursts a series of blues choruses that are incredibly inspired. Thus begins one of Bley's most enjoyable albums, a recording from New York City in the early '60s that has been issued in close to ten different versions. The acquisition of these tapes by the French BYG label right away spells trouble, especially for anyone hoping to collect royalties. Jazz fans will encounter several different cover photographs for these loose Footloose! releases, even involving several different pipes being smoked by Bley.

Eliane Elias continues exploring Brazilian music on this latest release, doing both classics such as "The Girl From Ipanema" and a Milton Nasciemento medley, plus several Ivan Lins tunes. She uses alternating bassists and drummers, with Eddie Gomez, Marc Johnson, Jack DeJohnette, and Peter Erskine dividing time, plus Nana Vasconcelos on percussion, with Lins helping out on vocals.

After Dizzy Gillespie's death in 1991, his colorful Afro-Cuban United Nation Orchestra (which was formed in 1988) was headed by altoist-clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera. With the better-known sidemen on this 1993 CD including first trumpeter Byron Stripling, trombonist Conrad Herwig and tenor saxophonist Mario Rivera, additional solo space was allocated to some of the other talented players as were guest spots for trumpeter Claudio Roditi, trombonist Slide Hampton and vibraphonist Dave Samuels. A Night in Englewood is an easily recommended set. The music is very Latin-oriented and shows that the orchestra had moved away from Gillespie's usual repertoire to exclusively feature originals by bandmembers (including D'Rivera's "I Remember Diz").

The Richter Ensemble performs music from the 17th to the 20th century exclusively on gut strings and uses its experience with historical performance practice to heighten the sense for the development of musical language over the centuries. The ensemble is passionately dedicated to the music of the Second Viennese School and, based on its research, has decided that the time is ripe to steer the perception of this music in a new direction, on the path of rediscovering and recapturing not only its modernity but also its connections with the past. Hence the musicians have initiated a project to record the entire string quartet works of the Second Viennese School, to place them in a historical context and to combine them with unusual works by other composers.

This recording was taken from a live performance during the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2019/20 season at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The recording captures the thrill and electricity of the live performance.

From the elated dream to the bitter reality: to provide a proper rendering of Franz Schubert's music, with its enormous range of expressions including all the intermediate tones, the instrument of choice must be the Fortepiano, if only for its similitude to the pianos used during Schubert's lifetime. The model used in the present recording is based on the grand piano of the Viennese master Conrad Graf, an instrument that Schubert himself owned. Its six pedals allow Schubert's music to be played with multifaceted pliancy and depth. The skillful use of all these pedals, which in modern instruments have been reduced to two or three, opens up a multitude of sound facets, similar to doors that open up to a multitude of rooms, each decorated in its own particular way and with its own particular style.

This debut solo release by Allan Holdsworth has an "in the raw," coarsely presented, jam-session quality complete with warts and all, as well as real gems of jazz fusion shining through. This is the 1990 CD that was digitally remastered from the original analog tapes (AAD/ADD). Tracks 9-13 did not appear on the 1976 CTI vinyl release.

El Portal comes from Miami, and they took their name from a suburb of 2,500 inhabitants. It's a quintet formed by Nolan Lem on saxophone (all of the pieces were written by him), Rainer Davies on electric guitar, Paul Bedal on Fender Rhodes, Joe Rehmer on bass and Dion Keith Kerr IV on drums. It was in the autumn of 2006 when the five musicians found themselves hiding out in the same house for days from the violent Hurricane Katrina. They made a pact that, if all of them escaped unharmed, they would found a jazz band together.

Magnum opus-weight album from organist and electro-acoustic composer Anna von Hausswolff, debuting on Southern Lord with a masterwork of gothic classical beauty - a must check for fans of Alessandro Cortini, Kali Malone, Kara-Lis Coverdale.

Ready for take-off? Buckle up and hold on tight when the “fuzztronauts” of PARASOL CARAVAN start their spaceship and speed across the stage with the riff force of a supernova. The Linz-based band counts on calm psychedelic moments merged with heavy fuzz and driving guitar riffs, a fusion epitomizing the right amount of progressiveness and beaming the listener directly into orbit.

Yoshimi Wins! is an extended play recording of previously unreleased live performances by The Flaming Lips. It was released by Warner Bros. Records on November 15, 2005.