From their sold-out concert at New York City's Avery Fisher Hall, legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Mark O'Connor and bassist Edgar Meyer, along with special guests James Taylor and Alison Krauss, perform works from the trio's acclaimed albums that span many musical genres.

Classic Yo-Yo is a greatest-hits collection for the famous Yo-Yo Ma, something he's fully entitled to after two decades of runaway success. It's "Classic Yo-Yo" in the sense that it presents well-loved and presumably durable selections from a variety of Yo-Yo Ma albums, not because it inclines toward Ma's straight-ahead classical recordings. In fact the division between classical and crossover pieces on the disc is about 50/50, and they tend to alternate. The transition from Bach to Astor Piazzolla works OK, but that from Appalachian Journey mastermind Edgar Meyer to Brahms might be a bit jarring. A greatest-hits album is a tough item for Ma because his recordings are so different from one another and involve such a variety of other musicians. As Ma himself says in an interview included in the liner material, "Collaboration is the best part of what I do, it's what I enjoy most about being a musician".

Throughout his career, mandolinist David Grisman has performed music that crosses between many boundaries, from "new acoustic" folk to bluegrass and swing-oriented jazz. This set features Grisman's string group (which also includes violinist Darol Anger, Mike Marshall on mandolin, guitar and violin, Mark O'Connor on violin and guitar, and bassist Rob Wasserman) playing six of Grisman's diverse originals, an obscure tune, and a brief rendition of John Coltrane's "Naima." The music is excellent, but Grisman's more jazz-oriented projects would be in the future.