With Leavin', her 20th studio album, Natalie Cole looks to be issuing a challenge to longtime listeners: if you're in, it's because you see stardust and are gripped by a warm sensation anytime her legendary voice eases through a speaker. If you're out, it's because you're not as musically adventurous as she is. Of the dozen songs here, only roughly a quarter could be cordoned off into classic R&B territory; the rest amount to an artful but decidedly pop-leaning hodgepodge. In addition to the opening track, a cover of Fiona Apple's "Criminal" that does away with the original's raw, angry edge in favor of flipness and sass, Cole gamely tackles Neil Young's classic "Old Man" and Kate Bush's "The Man With the Child in His Eyes." If those songs seem effortful, she finds more even footing on the title track, a Shelby Lynne original ready-made for a classic soul reworking, as well as on Aretha Franklin's "Day Dreaming," which benefits from producer Dallas Austin's addition of a hip hop-lite fringe. Unsurprisingly for an artist of Cole's depth and caliber, Leavin's sole original track, "5 Minutes Away," is its best. Here is Natalie as the world knows and loves her: a belter born to dose up the stirrings of her soul with unmatched tenderness and bottomless love.

Alfred Schnittke - Piano Concerto & Piano Quintett <Full Score>
Avant-garde | Edition Sikorski | PDF | 40 , 30 Pages | 15 , 1 MB

Concerto for Piano and Strings (1979) ,
Quintet for Piano and Strings (1972-76)

Juliusz Zarębski (February 28, 1854 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine - November 15, 1885 in Zhytomyr), Ukraine was a Polish composer and pianist. While Zarębski's regular musical training was viennese, it was in Odessa that he had his debut as a concertist (1874), after spending one extra term at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. That same year he travelled to Rome, where we would become a pupil of Franz Liszt during eight months.

Two years before his death he had to put an end to his career as a virtuoso as he was diagnosed tuberculosis, throwing himself into teaching (he had been appointed professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 1880) and composing. It was in these last years that he composed his most striking music, working in such compositions as the five movements Les roses et les épines on the basis of a rather advanced harmony. Though he continued composing nearly exclusively for the piano, the summit of his output would be his 1885 cyclical Piano Quintet in G minor.

One of vibraphonist Gary Burton's most intriguing recordings, A Genuine Tong Funeral (Carla Bley's suite which musically depicts attitudes toward death) was called by its composer a "Dark Opera Without Words." Burton's classic Quartet (which also includes guitarist Larry Coryell, bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bob Moses) is augmented by six notable all-stars: soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, trumpeter Mike Mantler, Gato Barbieri on tenor, trombonist Jimmy Knepper, Howard Johnson on tuba and baritone and Bley herself on piano and organ. The music is dramatic, occasionally a little humorous, and a superb showcase for Gary Burton's vibes.

Little is known about why a character like Tim Maia, who always fomented his reputation as a rebel, started singing verses like "I no longer depend on madness/Now I know what to do/ Now I know a new truth/ I’m living with the pleasure/Of being alive". During his messianic period, which lasted for about 6 months, Maia gave up drug use and had a son , but he also realized that he wouldn’t be chatting with beings from other planets anytime soon – which was his goal as he joined the sect.

Young Black Teenagers were young, arguably teenagers, but obviously not black. It might seem odd, if not for the fact they had the support of Carlton Ridenour, the man known to the rap world as Chuck D. YBT were signed to S.O.U.L. Records, a label started by Bomb Squad producer Hank Shocklee. The group were meant to be a statement to their love of the music, but everyone saw them as a bunch of pranksters, especially when their first single was "Nobody Knows Kelli", a song about the Christina Applegate character that was on the television show "Married With Children". Those within the group's inner circle knew what they were trying to do, many others were confused as to why a bunch of caucasians (and one Puerto Rican) would call themselves black, especially at the height of Afrocentricity in rap music. It was a social and political statement, and no one quite got it, preferring groups like them to perform sounds about getting drunk and eating punani.