Veteran tenor Flip Phillips is heard leading a jam session during what was dubbed the 1986 Floating Jazz Festival since the music took place on the S.S. Norway somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. Phillips and his fellow tenors Buddy Tate, Al Cohn and Scott Hamilton (along with pianst John Bunch, guitarist Chris Flory, bassist Major Holley and drummer Chuck Riggs) clearly had a good time stretching out on the five pieces (which all sport fairly basic chord changes); fluegelhornist Clark Terry dropped by and joins in on three of the pieces. Unfortunately the liner notes do not tell who solos when but veteran collectors should be able to tell the tenors apart. The only minus to this CD is a surprisingly boring monologue by Phillips (one of Chiaroscuro's few unsuccessful "Jazzspeaks") at the conclusion of this disc. However his nine minutes of talking is preceded by 64 minutes of hot jamming, making this CD easily recommended to fans of Jazz at the Philharmonic and straightahead jazz.

Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the most distinct composers of the present time, says of herself that she is “a daughter of two worlds, whose soul lives in the music of both the West and East”. From her father’s side, her life was entered by the world of Islamic culture, while her mother introduced her to Christianity, in which she found her identity in the Orthodox faith. Her quest for a singular style was strongly influenced by the legacies of J. S. Bach and Anton Webern, as well as Dmitri Shostakovich, who encouraged her to remain herself and “continue down the mistaken path” for which she was criticised by the guardians of aesthetic correctness in the Soviet Union. Gubaidulina’s personal story is one of a struggle to live in truth, conducted with calm, patience, perseverance and inner conviction. The five string quartets represent a singular journey towards a vision of freedom beyond the borders of any system: she extracts the material from beyond major-minor tonality, using micro-intervals, serial techniques, aleatory elements, unusual playing methods, thus revealing previously unthought-of acoustic possibilities of instruments, including the space itself, the movement of musicians, etc. The Stamic Quartet, an ensemble representing the famous Czech quartet school, is an attentive interpreter of the first complete recording.

Four-time Grammy-winning band The Doobie Brothers (with Michael McDonald) have teamed up with some of country music’s biggest stars for ‘Southbound’, an album of all-new recordings of the band’s classic hits. The studio lineup harkens back to the Doobie Brothers’ earliest days. Fellow singer-songwriter-guitarist-lead-vocalists Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston continue to front the group, while multi-instrumentalist John McFee’s history with the Brothers dates back to 1978, after his stint with Southern Pacific. Michael McDonald returns to The Doobie Brothers for this project, which invites fans to once again “Listen to the Music” in a whole new way. Country stars Blake Shelton, Casey James, Charlie Worsham, Johnnyswim’s Amanda Sudano Ramirez, and Tyler Farr were among the first roster of artists choosing their favorite Doobie songs to record with the band, with selected tracks featuring special instrumental contributions from Hunter Hayes and Vince Gill. Other collaborators include Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band, Sara Evans, Chris Young, Jerrod Niemann, and Love and Theft. In choosing the album title, The Doobie Brothers’ Tom Johnston remarked, “Southbound seemed like the perfect name of this collaboration project with all these dynamic country artists. The band has a lot of roots, both musically and lyrically, from the South such as blues, country, R&B, and folk. To us it was a natural fit that it be called Southbound.”

A Collection Of Jazz Classics. 13 Tracks. Billy Holiday, Jimmy Smith, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz, Gene Ammons, Mose Allison, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Oscar Peterson Trio, Coleman Hawkins & Ben Webster.

Lawrence Power makes the second of his appearances in this month’s release lists, this time with his regular pianist partner Simon Crawford-Phillips in the chamber music of Shostakovich. The centrepiece is the Viola Sonata, Shostakovich’s last completed work, premiered posthumously, on what would have been the composer’s sixty-ninth birthday. Its ravishing slow finale reworks the opening of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata—a tribute to a composer he revered. Shostakovich the film composer also takes a bow, in the form of The Gadfly, with its famous ‘Romance’ beloved of violinists everywhere. That this works just as compellingly on the viola is triumphantly displayed in the arrangement made by Vadim Borisovsky (founding violist of the Beethoven Quartet), one of the Five Pieces he recast from Shostakovich’s original. Shostakovich’s 24 Piano Preludes have also proved irresistible to transcribers and here we have the seven brilliantly reworked by a pupil of Borisovsky, Yevgeny Strakhov.

Born in February 26, 1939 in Rio de Janeiro, Simonal discovered his artist vocation while he was doing obligatory military service. Like others big Brazilian artists, he started his career playing at bars and night clubs in Rio, singing rock, mostly in English. He composed and produced for Carlos Imperial, who found him, and took him to his TV show, helping to record his first album, in 1963, very Bossa Nova influenced. Right after that Simonal became one of the main artists of that time, with the hits "Meu Limão, Meu Limoeiro", "Mamãe Passou Açúcar em Mim" e "Sá Marina". At some point, Simonal was accused of collaborating with the Brazilian military regime (1964-85), which, some claim, took him away from the public during the 80s and 90s. And he came back with the album "A Bossa de Wilson Simonal". He died on July, 2000. The year of 2009 may well be remembered as an important milestone in Simonal's artistic redemption - albeit again resurfacing his and his family's tragic personal lives. The documentary "Simonal - Ninguem Sabe O Duro Que Dei" and its soundtrack, together with Ricardo Alexandre's biography "A Vida E O Veneno De Wilson Simonal" were released during the year.

During its classic period, jazz saw the emergence of numerous regular small formations which successfully encouraged improvisation, enabling their best soloists a freedom of expression without any of the constraints of a big band. Jacques Morgantini allows us to discover this decisive period in the evolution of Jazz with this 36 tracks CD set featuring a 32 pages booklet.

Born in New Orleans in 1910, this blues artist started off as a boxer. After a defeat sometime in the late '30s, he went on to pursue a career in music. After signing to Columbia Records in 1940, he went on to have a fruitful career spanning many years and many record labels. These sessions, recorded for Blue Horizon during the late '60s have been lovingly restored and re-mastered, and include previously unreleased tracks, including six live recordings. Includes liner notes by Mike Vernon and never before seen photos.

While Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the 1968 album that made Cash a household word, spent only two weeks at No. 1, this 1969 follow-up topped the charts for 20 weeks. As with Folsom, the San Quentin LP had to be edited due to space limitations. Now, 31 years after the fact, the show can at last be heard in true perspective. All the original performances hold up, including the album's hit single: Shel Silverstein's "A Boy Named Sue," presented unbleeped for the first time. Equally impressive are the eight restored tracks and unexpurgated between-song patter. Cash's opening renditions of "Big River" and "I Still Miss Someone" are bracing. So are four closing songs teaming Cash with his complete performing troupe (the Carter Family, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers). Their gospel performances ("He Turned the Water into Wine," "The Old Account," and an early version of "Daddy Sang Bass") are electrifying, as is a concluding medley featuring everyone. Cash is presented here at his roaring, primal best.

Hootie & the Blowfish never were cut out to be superstars. They were meant to be the best band at the local bar. They were ordinary guys, and they played ordinary music, the kind that could be heard in any college town on the East Coast or Midwest during the early '90s when the local bar wasn't having grunge night. It was the ordinariness of the music on their 1994 debut, Cracked Rear View, that connected with millions of American listeners – they sounded like everybody's favorite local band. Once they were superstars, their bubble burst fairly quickly as the 1996 follow-up sold considerably fewer than the debut, and by the end of the decade, they had settled into a reliable routine of turning out modest records and touring steadily, without many people outside of their core fans noticing. Their popularity might have declined, but as the 2004 Atlantic/Rhino compilation The Best of Hootie & the Blowfish (1993 Thru 2003) illustrates, their music changed very little over the course of the decade, nor did the quality of their music decline.

Duke Jordan Trio and Quintet is an album by American pianist Duke Jordan recorded in 1955 and first released on released on Don Schlitten's Signal label before being acquired by the Savoy label.

Frankie Gavin and Alec Fin provide a vintage 1977 duet of Irish fiddle and bouzouki (large octave mandolin) that has withstood the test of time. Frankie and Alec are founding members of the group De Danann, a group that only recently retired after over 30 years of great music. Frankie is a legendary fiddle player known for his fast and fluid style. Alec is playing counterpoint and double lead bouzouki in complete synch. This could be called the typical old pub style back when it was rare to find more than two or three musicians playing together. The happiness of the music is overpowering and immediately stimulates toe tapping if not Irish style dancing.

Woman is the first solo album by British musician Mike McGear (spelled Michael on the cover), brother of former-Beatle Paul McCartney, who also co-wrote a song, but is credited as a "friend". Roger McGough produced and co-wrote some songs with McGear. The cover is a black-and-white photo of McGear/McCartney's mother.

When Melanie De Biasio released No Deal in 2014, it was embraced by jazz critics, DJs, and club audiences simultaneously. Gilles Peterson was so taken with its monochromatic ambient textures, stark arrangements, and clever improvisational intimations that he commissioned an album of remixes. Blackened Cities is not a conventional follow-up, but an adventurous endeavor rife with risk. The release consists of a single 24-minute track that unfolds like a suite. The conservatory-trained Belgian vocalist and flutist and her longtime musical associates – Pascal Mohy on piano, Pascal Paulus on analog synths and clavinet, and Dré Pallemaerts on drums (with guest double bassist/cellist Sam Gerstmans) – deliver a full-scale sonic drama that crosses a wide musical expanse and evokes an encyclopedia of stylistic references, yet comes across as a totally original whole. Its title comes from impressions of postindustrial cities De Biasio visited on her international tour: Detroit, Manchester, her native Charleroi; each has a storied past and a devastated façade, yet reflects its own unique beauty and tenacity.

The “Earth Requiem” is a gigantic work performed and recorded in Beijing in May 2011 in remembrance of the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008. This is the first Chinese Requiem ever composed. This massive work by renowned Chinese composer Guan Xia is scored for 100 instrumentalists, a choir of 150 singers, an organ and 4 vocal soloists. The well-established China National Symphony Orchestra invited the legendary French conductor Michel Plasson, who has long had a close association with EMI Classics, to work on the project. This partnership between West and East gives the recording a universal breadth as well as an overarching theme: the Earth. The emotional strength of the work is empowered by its gargantuan scale. A concert and press conference will be held in May 2013 in Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts to mark the 5th anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake.