Founded in 2018, Stick&Bow is a Montreal-based duo composed of Krystina Marcoux on marimba and Argentine-born Juan Sebastian Delgado on cello. Although they are classically trained, their repertoire is eclectic, ranging from baroque music to tango. For this album, entitled Veni, vola, veni and dedicated to Astor Piazzola, they joined forces with the famous Argentinean pianist Gustavo Beytelmann, who also wrote the arrangements.

This year, legendary cellist Antonio Meneses celebrates his 60th birthday and the 40th anniversary of winning first prize and the gold medal at the 1982 Tchaikovsky Competition. Shortly after that triumph Antonio made a renowned recording of Brahms' Double Concerto with conductor Herbert von Karajan. He revisits the composer's music on his 11th recording for AVIE and his first of Brahms' two cello sonatas, generously paired with a selection of lieder arrangements.

Ronan Hardiman established himself as a composer through his score for Michael Flatley's dance extravaganza Lord of the Dance. The soundtrack to the production was a rousing success, giving Hardiman the opportunity to record his first solo album, Solas. Like Lord of the Dance, Solas has its foundation in Celtic music, but it sounds more like worldbeat-influenced new age artists like Enya and Enigma. In other words, it relies on sounds more than songs, but sometimes sounds are enough for a good album. That's not necessarily the case here, since the music meanders a bit, but the best moments on the album are as enchanting as those on Lord of the Dance.

The third album on The Cleveland Orchestra’s label follows the ‘old-new’ pairing of their previous release, showcasing recordings of Prokofiev and Schnittke that cover both pre- and post-pandemic music making.

The plan was for the Vanilla Fudge rhythm section of bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to join with guitar god Jeff Beck and his singer Rod Stewart in a supergroup of sorts. The plan was derailed when Beck had a motorcycle accident that incapacitated him for 18 months. Stewart then joined pal Ron Wood in the revamped Faces (and pursued a somewhat lucrative solo career), leaving Bogert and Appice to find alternates for their dream band. They recruited guitarist Jim McCarty from Mitch Ryder's disassembling Detroit Wheels, and singer Rusty Day from Ted Nugent's Amboy Dukes. One can only wonder what might have been…

The music of C P E Bach makes complex stylistic demands of the performer like little else of its time, the extraordinary drama and intensity tempered by Enlightenment elegance and the influence of the Baroque. Marc-André Hamelin’s performances set new standards in this endlessly absorbing repertoire.

Upon the release of this album, the Ohio Players were at the pinnacle of their long music careers, which date back to the late '50s. This album produced the number one Billboard R&B single "Who'd She Coo." The rhythm arrangement and jazzy horn arrangement are complemented by a titillating guitar, colorful vocals, and a suggestive lyric. While the title is "Who'd She Coo," the chant is actually "oochie coo", but was modified due to its racy content. The ballad "My Life," with its rolling rhythm and frigid background vocals, shines with Leroy Bonner's agile baritone. Still on a somber note, "Bi-Centennial" sends a social message to the masses, and the title track is a direct reflection of life…

During the 1950s, Tal Farlow recorded a wonderful series of albums that established him as one of the premiere bop/cool guitarists. He recorded less frequently in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, preferring to stay out of the limelight. Autumn Leaves consists of two discs Farlow recorded for Concord: Tal Farlow '78 and The Legendary Tal Farlow (1985). When a great player like Farlow revives his career 20 years later, it seems customary, though a bit impolite, to ask: can he play as well as he once could? The easy answer is yes, he plays with the same finesse and speed (though it's hard to tell: his fingers move extremely fast), but this should be qualified by noting that his overall approach has mellowed during the interval. On the first disc Farlow is joined by bassist Gary Mazzaroppi and drummer Tom Sayek for a straight-ahead trio set…

This disc is an integral part of a series Telarc is doing – taking albums that were big sellers by prominent artists and having an innovative group of solid blues players do their interpretations of a variety of the songs from the original album. They have done this with the Beatles' White Album (calling it The Blues White Album) and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde with good success, which will probably continue with this new interpretation of the Stones' 1972 vintage album. Telarc put together a dynamite "house" band, including Brian Stoltz (ex-Neville Brothers) on guitar and former Double Trouble rhythm section members Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, and then pulled in many more celebrated artists to handle the leads. the Stones, who started out as a blues and R&B band, always maintained those roots; thus, many of the songs keep their original shape. This is a solid retooling of this classic Stones LP. Telarc has taken the original double disc and picked the songs the artists felt remained truest to their respective traditions and packaged it as a ten-song disc, complete with a cover notes that make it look the same.

This band is connected to their compatriots Runaway Totem not only by their name, but also by the fact that drummer Uto Giorgio Golin and bassist Dauno Giuseppe Buttiglione, here joined by vocalist Ana Torres Fraile, keyboardist Marco Zanfei and a large group of guest musicians, used to be the rhythm section for Runaway Totem. Like Runaway Totem, Universal Totem Orchestra have their roots in a rather guitar-heavy version of zeuhl, but UTO mix this with a gamut influences ranging from symphonic rock to world music and beyond.
However one wants to classify this album, or whatever sub-genre one wants to put it in, it can all be said in one little word, "beautiful". Whether it is the soaring classical vocals, the perfect piano accompaniment, the amazing bass, or the move between jazz, fusion, funk, classical, Arabian and progressive styles, it really is the only word that matters…

Built on a sturdy pop foundation and powered by Alan Frew's accented voice, Canada's Glass Tiger found instant fame with their debut album, Thin Red Line, in 1986. From it, three singles cracked Billboard's Top 40, with the stylishness of the trumpet helping "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" reach the number two spot while utilizing Bryan Adams' gravely voice in the chorus to balance out the sharpness of Frew's…