Valentin Rathgeber was a very successful composer in Germany in the first half on the 18th century. He was born in Fulda and studied theology in Würzburg where he also became a schoolmaster and an organist. In 1707 he entered the monastery at Banz as a chamber musician, and there he was ordained in 1711. In the same year he was appointed choirmaster, a post he held until his death. As a composer he concentrated on writing sacred music for churches which couldn't afford professional singers and players. His music is melodious and technically not very demanding. This was the main reason it became very popular throughout Germany.

Probably the first thing you should know about this album is that the Chicago Blues Festival of 1974 did not actually take place in Chicago; it was, instead, the name of European tour of American bluesmen. This live concert comes from the Blues Reference series of the good folks at Black and Blue. We have an interesting collection of Chicago musicians that includes 7 more tracks from 'Big Voice' Odum as well as 13 from pianist Sunnyland Slim. Fine guitar work from Jimmy Dawkins provides fireworks throughout the show.

Roots and groove mark this teaming of John Hiatt and the North Mississippi Allstars. On Master of Disaster, legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson and his sons Luther and Cody (the Allstars' guitarist and drummer, respectively) team with veteran bassist David Hood to give Hiatt's music a slow simmer rather than the high voltage fans might have expected from the collaboration. Yet the airy, organic interplay of the band provides the perfect complement for Hiatt's songs of folkish simplicity and lyrical grace. With the title track, he addresses the artist's midlife crisis and finds creative renewal in the process, a theme revisited in the country balladry of "Old School." There's a ragtime spirit to "Wintertime Blues" and "Back on the Corner," the insistence of a tom-tom's thump on "Love's Not Where We Thought We Left It" and "Find You At Last," a slide guitar that slices and dices through "Ain't Ever Goin' Back." With "When My Love Crosses Over," Hiatt returns to the soulful, soaring romantic balladry that remains a signature specialty, while "Cold River" tells a story that probes the coldest resources of the human heart. The result is his richest and most consistently satisfying release since the late 1980s.

Introspectives (1995). When grandmasters take over control, everything will be okay. In Aural Float, the masterminds behind Elektrolux, at this time, show it all. In cooperation with Pascal F.E.O.S, Alex Azary and Gabriel Le Mar have created a piece of vinylized ambience which documents their extended excursions to extraterrestrial sound-spaces. As "Introspectives", the title of the album already indicates, the heads behind Elektrolux demonstrate into which musical territories they will take their listeners in the future. And those territories promise to be far out…

John Cage: Early Piano Music comes from Herbert Henck, an experienced hand with the work of Cage, having previously recorded Music for Piano, Music of Changes, and Sonatas and Interludes in addition to a mighty swath of first-tier twentieth-century literature for piano for various labels, most notably Wergo and ECM New Series. These are early works for standard, not prepared, piano, and some of these pieces will be as familiar to dyed-in-the-wool Cageans as "Happy Birthday." This puts the pressure on Henck to excel, and he does so spectacularly well here. The disc includes the two sets entitled Two Pieces for Piano, the piano version of The Seasons, Metamorphosis, In a Landscape, Ophelia, and the fragmentary Quest. The pieces date from 1935 to 1948, the same range covered by pianist Jeanne Kirstein in her pioneering 1967 survey of Cage's piano music for CBS Masterworks.

Minimum-Maximum is the first official live album release by Kraftwerk, released in June 2005, almost 35 years after the group gave their first live performance.

"I Got Your Love" is a song by Donna Summer, released as a single on December 20, 2005. Earlier, the single was first premiered during an episode of Sex and the City in 2003 and later released both as a download single and on CD by the Mercury Records label. "I Got Your Love" became another dancefloor hit for Summer, reaching #4 on the US Club Play chart in early 2006…

The brief opening piece for chorus on this new release, "Da Pacem Domine," is based on a 9th century Gregorian work and has the usual, familiar–and very beautiful–Pärt-ian characteristics: a soft, endless stream of easy tritones and harmonies that make this plea for peace immensely moving. The major work, Lamentate, is scored for large orchestra and solo piano–a very unusual combination for Pärt. Even his fans will be surprised. In ten brief sections, it begins with a quiet drum roll, immediately followed by horn calls. There are forte explosions for full orchestra and piano, with heavy percussion. At times the only thing we hear is a hushed piano part with strings supporting very quietly. The effect is dark yet alluring. It ends peacefully. This is another stunning CD of Pärt's music for his fans–old and new.

Big Boss Man formed in 1999 when three long time friends Nass, Trev and Scott, got together for some Hammond heavy action. They released their album debut "Humanize" in 2001 which precipitated a wave of interest in the band, and was a clear definition of the BBM sound: a hip Hammond hybrid of 60’s and 70’s drenched R&B, Funk, Latin, Jazz, Soul and Pop…

Pianist/vocalist Patricia Barber is the Alanis Morissette of the jazz world. Her serpentine, poetic songs teeter between deftly witty and awkwardly Latinate. Each album is more ambitious than the last, taking her deeper into avant-garde territory both lyrically and instrumentally. Verse is no exception…

Georg Deuter is a German New Age instrumentalist and recording artist known for his meditative style that blends Eastern and Western musical styles. This CD has been composed with the idea to reflect the moods of the night, its silence, its soft songs, when the human mind has gone to sleep to dream. East of the Full Moon evokes images of the night sky, the moon appearing behind clouds, the world losing its stark colors, and trees becoming just shadows against the moon. The stars expand our awareness to a vast infinity and an immense silence, which is the only music there is. All music is an effort to bring this silence into existence, where the music becomes a reflection of something bigger.