Throughout a professional career lasting 50 years, Miles Davis played the trumpet in a lyrical, introspective, and melodic style, often employing a stemless Harmon mute to make his sound more personal and intimate. But if his approach to his instrument was constant, his approach to jazz was dazzlingly protean. To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-'40s to the early '90s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period, and he often led the way in those changes, both with his own performances and recordings and by choosing sidemen and collaborators who forged new directions. It can even be argued that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn't there to push it forward.

In 1991 lutenist Jakob Lindberg bought a very special instrument – one of the rare extant lutes by Sixtus Rauwolf, built c. 1590. The restoration of the lute took several years and was rather painstaking: for some repairs they even used ancient wood from the library in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Considering the great age of the instrument it was nevertheless in good shape and is now probably the only one in the world that, retaining its original soundboard, is in playable condition.

Go: The Very Best of Moby is not the career-spanning compilation implied by its title. Instead, it's based around 1999's Play, 2002's 18, and 2005's Hotel. With the exception of Everything Is Wrong's ambient epic "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters," Anders Trentemøller's fresh mix of "Go," and a rough-sounding live version of "Feeling So Real," nothing here references Moby's output prior to Play. The one new track, "New York, New York," is a fun Giorgio Moroder-inspired throwaway featuring Debbie Harry.

A French fusion super-group, formed in 1971 by two early members of Magma: François "Faton" Cahen and Jeff "Yochk'o" Seffer, and featuring many other talents of the 1970's prog and fusion fields. Zao took the Magma "Zeuhl" brand of fusion and jazzed it up a bit, adding folk elements of Seffer's cultural heritage, and lots of other unique touches. After Seffer left, the band became more jazz-rock. They have reformed at least twice since disbanding in the late 1970's.

Although not particularly well known in the United States, Adelmo "Zucchero" Fornaciari has been a fixture on the Italian rock scene since his 1985 debut. In 2005 he helped to introduce himself to the American public when he released Zucchero & Co., an album of duets with artists like Sting, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and Sheryl Crow. The next year, with the help of producer Don Was, Zucchero issued Fly, a record that, though it is sung in Italian, has enough comfortable adult pop elements that it should probably appeal to foreign listeners as well as to his compatriot base. Zucchero's always been a fan of the blues, and this continues to be shown on Fly, a third of whose songs are interpretations of 12-bar-influenced white rock.

The Talisman is the 7th ambient atmospheric space CD from Max Corbacho. Eleven compositions created between 2004 and 2006, based on new, on the edge, harmonic and textural explorations. Intense, light, dark and purely atmospheric, most of these songs were composed during various, long, deep meditative improvisation sessions.

A follow-up to trumpeter Donald Byrd's hit A New Perspective, this LP also features an eight-voice choir conducted by Coleridge Perkinson and arrangements by Duke Pearson and the leader. The vocalists have a larger role than in the earlier date and Byrd's quintet (with tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and pianist Herbie Hancock) is augmented by organist Freddie Roach, guitarist Grant Green and a dozen brass players.

Love Songs unsurprisingly overlaps a great deal with the other Regina Belle compilations that came before it, which shouldn't be a surprise – most of Belle's songs are, after all, romantic in nature. Part of Columbia/Legacy's extensive Love Songs series, which sprouts a new batch of volumes before each Valentine's Day, this disc condenses 1987's All by Myself, 1989's Stay with Me, 1993's Passion, and 1995's Reachin' Back.

Classical Cult potential. Since the days of Glenn Gould there has probably been no piano recording so highly charged with individualism, so radically performed, and so consistently conceived.

Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2 was a second installment of live material, recorded during Joan Baez' concert tours of early 1963. It peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. In Concert, Part 2 is the first Baez album to feature Bob Dylan covers: "Don't Think Twice It's Alright" and "With God on Our Side" (according to Baez, the first Dylan song she ever learned[citation needed]). Her recording of "We Shall Overcome" was made at Miles College in Birmingham, Alabama, on the same day of the mass arrest of Civil Rights demonstrators in May 1963.

This is the more recent re-issue, and much cheaper version, of an older issue of the same recording. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra directed by Harnoncourt and Friedrich Gulda brought off some finest Mozart playing in the two late concerti - No. 23 and No. 26. There are numerous No. 23 recordings. This one is among the top ones. However, the less popular No. 26 is the one that steals the show in this recording

There has been a resurgence of interest in Handel's Italian-language cantatas as recordings have begun to reflect the vast totality of his output rather than a selection of big hits ideologically bound up with British nationhood. The works on this disc date from early in Handel's career, while he was working in Italy; this Italian recording accurately uses the German spelling of the composer's name, Händel, which he would still have been employing at the time. They are youthful works in the best sense of the word: they break formal boundaries, give full voice to passions, and feel gloriously free to push performers to the edge.