Nonesuch Records releases Brad Mehldau's 10 Years Solo Live eight-LP vinyl box set October 16, 2015, and this four-CD and digital version of the same on November 13. The set is culled from 19 live recordings made over a decade of the pianist's European solo concerts and is divided into four thematic subsets: Dark/Light, The Concert, Intermezzo/Rückblick, and E Minor/E Major. 10 Years Solo Live will be released digitally and on CD the following month.

Branford Marsalis' second album as a leader followed his first by three years, and he had grown a lot in the interim. He had switched permanently to tenor (doubling on soprano), left his brother Wynton's group, toured with Sting, and begun heading his own group. Although using quartets on each of the seven selections, Marsalis varies the personnel quite a bit, utilizing pianists Ellis Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, Larry Willis, and Herbie Hancock; bassists Ron Carter, Charnett Moffett, and Ira Coleman; and drummers Ralph Peterson, Al Foster, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, and Jeff Watts.

Orkestra is the brainchild of singer/bassist Kelly Groucutt and violinist Mik Kaminski, former members of the Electric Light Orchestra who formed the band in 1987, just after Electric Light Orchestra packed it in. Their purpose, of course, is to act as an ELO clone band, performing the group's repertoire in concert in order to satiate the hunger of ELO fans no longer being addressed by founder/leader Jeff Lynne, who headed off to California. All well and good, but after half a dozen years on the road, the band had worked up their own material in the style of ELO, and here is an album's worth of it.

Out Of The Blue - Live At Mt. Fuji (1987) {Blue Note CDP 7467842}
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© 1987 Blue Note / Manhattan Records / Capitol | CDP 7 46784 2
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Hard Bop / Cool Jazz

During its four albums, Out of the Blue was the perfect representative of the Young Lions, featuring Art Blakey-type hard bop by up-and-coming players. Not an innovative group by any means, O.T.B. did give the musicians an opportunity to be showcased in the early stages of their career. For this live concert, two Bud Powell songs ("Parisian Thoroughfare" and "Blue Pearl") are performed by pianist Harry Pickens (in fine form), bassist Kenny Davis (a recent replacement for Bob Hurst) and drummer Ralph Peterson (who would soon be heading his own band). The second half of the program has three group originals, all previously recorded but here stretched out a bit, performed by the same rhythm section plus trumpeter Michael Mossman, altoist Kenny Garrett and Ralph Bowen on tenor. Fine straight-ahead music.

These recordings by I Musici, with soloists Salavatore Accardo (violin) and Heinz Holliger (oboe) display both attributes in spades. The recordings were made in 1975. While maybe not displaying the same cutting-edge tempi as the most recent competition (Federico Guglielmo and Il Arte Dell'Arco in the new Brilliant Classics Vivaldi edition) they are still very very good. If you see this set for sale I wouldn't hesitate to grab it.

A finely crafted selection of easygoing mid-tempo funk numbers and soul ballads, Philadelphia vocalist Brandi Wells' debut album is one of the strongest in the WMOT catalog. The Top 40 R&B hit "Watch Out" is good, but there's a lot better in the moody swayer "I Hate to See You Go"; the bright, Motown-influenced track "Falling in Love"; and the album's second single, "What Goes Around Comes Around." Wells' gliding style combines influences of Deniece Williams' soprano tenderness with Phyllis Hyman's alto tenacity, but the phrasing and tone are distinctly her own. She conveys power without needing dramatic belting, with sensitivity barring excessive delicacy. Unfortunately, the masters were not preserved well, as CD reissues by both Unidisc and Hot Productions lack a certain crispness.

Ted Curson - Quicksand (1974) {2013 Japan Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series WPCR-27314}
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© 1974, 2013 Atlantic / Rhino / WEA / Warner Japan | WPCR-27314 | Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series
Jazz / Post Bop / Early Fusion / Trumpet

Features 24 bit remastering and comes with a mini-description. A really rare album from trumpeter Ted Curson – a unique 70s session recorded for Atlantic Records, but only ever issued overseas at the time! The date has Ted's trumpet coming into play with some of the electric touches of the 70s – not a full-on fusion record, but a really great session that updates some of his modern ideas with some of the fresher, younger elements of the underground – particularly keyboards, which are played here by Kenny Barron strongly – as he shifts effortlessly between electric and acoustic piano on the set.

Various Artists - Spiritual Jazz, Vol 3: Modal, Esoteric and Ethereal Jazz from The European Underground (1963-1972) (2012) {Jazzman ‎JMANCD 050}
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© 1963-72, 2012 Jazzman Records | ‎JMANCD 050
Jazz / Spiritual Jazz / Modal Jazz / Continental Jazz

At the end of the ‘50s, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue heralded the revelatory arrival of modal jazz. As the vibrations of these giant steps resonated across the world, European jazz musicians reassessed their bearings and began to steer a new course. Across the continent they sent roots down into the rich soil of the European folk and Christian liturgical traditions, extended their music along ancient routes of communication and trade to the Middle East, and reached across the crumbling ramparts of the European empires to the music of Asia Africa and Latin America.

An apocryphal notion of the composer as iconoclastic revolutionary infuses this new cycle from the Turner Quartet, authenticists who consistently outflank rival period accounts from the Smithson Quartet, also on Harmonia Mundi. These are curtly doctrinal readings; the emphatic urgency propelling the opening Allegro con brio of No. 6 and heroic muscularity of the finale of No. 2 underscore another familiar dictum, as ‘Napoleon [or rather his musical alter ego, Beethoven] bursts into the Classical drawing-room’ with these works. The Turner Quartet heralds his triumphant arrival, yet asserts that he’s in no hurry to leave.

Assisted by John Abercrombie (guitars), Danny Gottlieb (drums), Mark Egan (electric bass), and Marc Johnson (bass), pianist Andy LaVerne pays tribute to keyboardist/composer Chick Corea. A beautifully executed album, one track features Laverne and Corea playing piano together.