When Johann Heinrich Rolle was born, Bach was 31 years old; when he died, Mozart, then in Vienna, was nearing his 30th birthday. In retrospect, it is tempting to count him among the countless "transitional" musicians who distanced themselves from the Baroque, embraced the fashionable galanteries of the time, and thus helped pave the way for the Classical era–as if they had foreseen what was to come.

William Smethergell's oeuvre presents an intriguing challenge. Since little more is known of his life than his birth date and the fact that he worked as an organist at two London churches and as a violist at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, we must form our impression of him solely through his music. That impression is certainly favorable–at least if we go by the two sets of six overtures published as Op. 2 (1778) and Op. 5 (1780): "Brilliantly scored, richly orchestrated works–ingenious, lively, and full of variety, bearing witness to Smethergell's great melodic inventiveness," was the verdict of klassik-heute on Op. 5 (CD 555 540-2), which Douglas Bostock and the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim introduced to us in 2023. The same ensemble now completes the dozen with the equally attractive Op. 2, a collection widely admired in late 18th-century London and beyond, and is now winning new friends.

There are many reasons to love Sloan Treacy’s music. As you make your way through her second EP, was any of it real?

An album that was issued in the US, but which actually features excellent work that Abdullah Ibrahim/Dollar Brand recorded for the Gallo label in South Africa – the kind of edgier work that we often prefer next to some of his solo and trio material!

The Bondsman: Hell And Back is a collection of songs written fromthe point of view of Kevin Bacon’s and Jennifer Nettles’ characters.

Conversations is a collaborative studio album by German reggae musician Gentleman and Jamaican reggae/hip-hop artist Ky-Mani Marley.

Simon Oslender must have thought of this dictum when he said goodbye to Steve Gadd after three unforgettable days in the studio with the legendary drummer as well as Eddie Gomez, Ronnie Cuber and the WDR Big Band in early 2022, recording the Grammy-nominated album CENTER STAGE (Leopard D 77107).

I guess comparing Ame Son to Gong is no surprise as they backed Daevid Allen's Bananamoon (not the lineup that recorded the Bananamoon album from 1971, that one was more or less an all-star recording, but the original Bananamoon, the band he was in after being denied reentry into England).

This concert recording from Munich’s Schwere Reiter performance space features improvisation with an expanded palette of possibilities. “To work with these colours is a great challenge and joy!” says bassist Barry Guy of the glowing and ever-changing tints, timbres and tones radiating from Jordina Millà’s freely associative piano. Like Guy, Millà is both a player of prodigious technical capacity and a fearless improvisational explorer, and her highly creative use of the piano interior opens up new sonic territory, to fascinating result.

On "Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog," Ghost Train Orchestra teams up with the trailblazing Kronos Quartet to celebrate and reimagine the music of Louis Hardin, aka Moondog, the ground-breaking composer and poet who lived on the streets of New York City in the 50s and 60s, and influenced the minimalists Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. A blind composer who moved from Kansas to New York City and built his own instruments and mythology, Moondog's story and music continue to be an inspiration to many.

Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band is releasing their first studio recording since the 2017’s Body And Shadow. KINGS HIGHWAY, the bands seventh record, unites drummer Brian Blade with pianist Jon Cowherd, bassist Christopher Thomas, saxophonists Myron Walden and Melvin Butler and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel. Kings Highway features two cuts that have been the centerpiece of many of the bands live performances (the title track Kings Highway and Migration). The Fellowship create a sound of its own genre, encompassing jazz, gospel and folk music that continues to uplift and inspire listeners worldwide.

The Best Of The MPS Years presents you all the classics and highlights of George Duke’s time at the Black Forest label on one album.

The album title – Words Unspoken – alludes to the instant musical understanding found by the members of this nimble quartet assembled by great British reedman John Surman. „My idea was to put together some musical ideas that would offer a collective sense of purpose but still be open enough to allow each of us to suggest other ways of developing the material together. Everything fell into place immediately. But I soon realized it wasn‘t so much the musical ideas that made it work, it was the musicians.”

The elemental power of ancient folk music is the lifeforce that drives the compositions of Veljo Tormis (1930-2017). As the great Estonian composer famously said, “I do not use folk song. It is folk song that uses me.” This sentiment is echoed in definitive performances by the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Tõnu Kaljuste, for decades one of Tormis’s closest musical associates.

The third album from Levon Eskenian’s remarkable ensemble is its most adventurous to date. As well as reclaiming the music of esoteric teacher G. I. Gurdjieff for folk instrumentation, Zartir situates Gurdjieff in a tradition of Armenian bards and troubadours including Ashugh Jivani, Baghdasar Tbir and the legendary Sayat-Nova. In parallel, an emphasis on pieces for sacred dance reaches its apex in The Great Prayer, an entrancing collaboration between the Gurdjieff Ensemble and the National Chamber Choir of Armenia, which draws upon ritual music of multiple faiths.