The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997 is a greatest hits album by American rock band Chicago and was released in 1997. It was compiled to commemorate the group's 30th anniversary of their formation. The idea was to bridge their two eras - the James William Guercio/Columbia Records period of the 1970s and the David Foster/Warner Bros. Records period of the 1980s - on one CD. In addition, the band added two new songs, "The Only One" produced by Lenny Kravitz - a big fan of Chicago, and another, "Here In My Heart" by James Newton Howard. Both of these new tracks were successful in the adult contemporary market; "Here In My Heart" topped the AC charts, and "The Only One" was a top 20 AC hit.

The debut Jefferson Airplane album was dominated by singer Marty Balin, who wrote or co-wrote all the original material and sang most of the lead vocals in his heartbreaking tenor with Paul Kantner and Signe Anderson providing harmonies and backup. (Anderson's lead vocal on "Chauffeur Blues" indicated she was at least the equal of her successor, Grace Slick, as a belter.) The music consisted mostly of folk-rock love songs, the most memorable of which were "It's No Secret" and "Come up the Years." (There was also a striking version of Dino Valente's "Get Together" recorded years before the Youngbloods' hit version.) Jorma Kaukonen already displayed a talent for mixing country, folk, and blues riffs in a rock context, and Jack Casady already had a distinctive bass sound…

The Book of Secrets, the follow-up to 1994's The Mask and Mirror – there was a Christmas EP, A Winter Garden, released in 1995) – finds Loreena McKennitt in the same musical vein, mixing Celtic, Spanish, Italian, and new age to create her own distinct sound. The only problem is that she did not seem to progress much during the time between releases. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since she still knows how to write incredible melodies and layer instruments to produce peaceful images. "Night Ride Across the Caucasus" and "Dante's Prayer" are just two prime examples of this. And she continues her practice of setting classic poetry to music (Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman").

Gerry Mulligan's 1959 studio date with Johnny Hodges is one of the most satisfying sessions of his various meetings with different saxophonists for Verve. With a hand-picked rhythm section consisting of pianist Claude Williamson, bassist Buddy Clark, and drummer Mel Lewis, and three originals contributed by each of the two leaders, everything gels nicely, though several tracks took more than three takes (in spite of liner note writer Nat Hentoff's assertions) to reach their final form. Mulligan contributed the gorgeous ballad "What's the Rush" (where he sat back to enjoy Hodges' solo and never plays his own horn), the easygoing swinger "Bunny," and the brisk cooker "18 Carrots (For Rabbit)," the latter which its composer would revisit with his Concert Jazz Band. The veteran alto saxophonist contributed the low-key ballad "Shady Side," the sassy blues "Back Beat" and "What It's All About," another potent blues…

La Monte Young was born in Bern, Idaho in 1935. He began his music studies in Los Angeles and later Berkeley, California before relocating to New York City in 1960, where he became a primary influence on Minimalism, the Fluxus movement and performance art through his legendary compositions of extended time durations and the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems. With wife and collaborator, artist Marian Zazeela, they would formulate the composite sound environments of the Dream House, which continues to this day.

Just when you think you’ve been through an archive with a fine-tooth comb and there’s nothing left that hasn’t seen the light of day, there’s always the attic – the long-forgotten tapes and acetates owned by the creators, and their most ardent collectors – especially when we’re talking about a legendary musical act such as The Seekers, the iconic Australian harmony group who have been together on and off for almost 60 years.

Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 28-song set in Gelsenkirchen. HIGHLIGHTS “Darkness on the Edge of Town” rotates in. 2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan's “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.

When Ultra was declared the best Depeche Mode album since Violator, those who said so must have forgotten about Songs of Faith and Devotion. When Exciter was declared the best Depeche Mode album since Violator, those who said so must have also forgotten about Songs of Faith and Devotion, in addition to having found a roundabout way of saying that it was merely better than Ultra. There's no doubt this time: Playing the Angel is both the band's best album since Violator and, more significantly, an album that is near Violator in stature. The biggest clue dropped by the band prior to its release was a quote from Dave Gahan, who said that being in Depeche Mode is better than it has been in 15 years. Some quick math reveals that Gahan was hinting at the Violator era, a time when the band's creativity and popularity peaked synchronously…

A definitive 8LP library chronicling Billy Joel’s evolution as a songwriter, performer and recording artist during his rise from obscurity to international superstardom in the 1970s, The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1 brings together the artist’s first six solo studio albums (Cold Spring Harbor, Piano Man, Streetlife Serenade, Turnstiles, The Stranger, 52nd Street) with his first live album (Songs in the Attic) and an exclusive pressing of Live at The Great American Music Hall – 1975, a previously unreleased concert recording available for the first time in the boxset as a double 12″ vinyl album. All titles have been sourced from the original album tapes and prepared by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound. The boxset includes a 50+ page booklet highlighting Billy’s early career through archival photos, an essay by Anthony DeCurtis, Billy’s personal observations and insights on his songs and albums, and tributes from his fellow musicians, artists and celebrities.

Langsyne from Barmen played some sophisticated English-language psych-folk with a large variety of partly exotic instruments like the psaltery, koto, glockenspiel, banjo, flute, slide guitar, or the Jew's harp. Their only LP was released in 1976, as an edition of only 200 copies, and is today sold at a price of about € 1000 to € 2000 in mint condition. It is thus probably the most expensive Krautrock LP except the first edition of "Monster movie" by Can. It contains only self-written tracks. Especially remarkable is that the musical interaction of the three musicians is of somnabulistic perfection. There have been several new editions of "Langsyne", both as LP and as CD, some of them with a bonus track. The Garden of Delights CD has been drawn from the master tapes and contains fifteen bonus tracks, each of them of a perfect sound quality.

Théodore Gouvy, a composer hailing from Saarland-Lorraine, combines French grace, elegance, and clarity of structure with German depth and thoroughness. His work chiefly consists of symphonic and chamber music; he shaped the French wind school and influenced neoclassicism. With his septet, octets, and nonets, Gouvy anticipates modern ensembles that would only really come into their own at the turn of the twentieth century. As a bilingual musician, he straddled the cultures of Germany and France and acted as a true musical link between the two countries. This twofold cultural connection influenced his artistic orientation and shaped the special profile of his oeuvre. Gouvy was as well known, recognized, and respected in France as he was in Germany, but was too German for one and too French for the other, such that neither nation really claimed him for its own. Despite his brilliant career, he was unjustly forgotten in the twentieth century.

"Hot recordings from the golden era of the Italian sexy comedy film scene" Early Sounds Recordings, in collaboration with the historical Italian label "Eleven" and A. Dallera, puts together a compilation of some of the rarest and sought after disco and funk records inspired by the Italian sexy comedy era.

Pianist Lennie Tristano was an early inspiration and a major influence on the playing of altoist Lee Konitz and tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh. Their very notable and highly original Capitol recordings of 1949 – with the quiet metronomic rhythm section, advanced melodic improvising, and reharmonizations – stood apart from the typical bop of the period. By 1955, when the earliest performances on this 1997 limited-edition, six-CD set were recorded, the trio was not working together very often; in fact, Tristano was mostly functioning as a teacher, only surfacing for occasional records and club dates. Despite the title of the box, Tristano, Konitz, and Marsh never all appeared on the same Atlantic record. However, their individual projects and collaborations during the era were of consistently high quality. Included on the set are a live quartet date with Konitz and Tristano, a couple of the pianist's solo and trio sessions (including a few controversial items where he overdubbed and even sped up piano parts), several Konitz quartet sets (with such sidemen as pianists Sal Mosca and Jimmy Rowles, and guitarist Billy Bauer), a Marsh trio/quartet album, and a stimulating meeting between Konitz and Marsh (with Mosca and Bauer) in a sextet. Four of the performances were previously unreleased, and one of the Konitz albums was formerly only available in Japan. Although the inventive music often utilizes familiar chord changes, there are plenty of surprises in the cool-toned solos, and this is well worth acquiring by bop collectors.

Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul proved that Ray Charles didn’t so much ignore genres, but, by the ’60s, had become a genre unto himself. An academic might want to separate this stack of songs into neat little buckets—country, jazz, standards, blues, pop—but those are just the ingredients. Ray Charles sings whatever he likes and whatever he sings comes out as a Ray Charles song, with a flavor all its own. Two hit singles, “Busted” and “That Lucky Old Sun,” made Ingredients In A Recipe For Soul an instant Top Ten when it was released in 1963.

Celebrated accordionist Bjarke Mogensen showcases the full expressive power of the classical accordion in this compelling album of 20th and 21st-century concertos. Concertos & Movements spans diverse sound worlds, featuring music by Ihor Shamo, Anders Koppel, and Ole Schmidt-three composers united by their innovation and curiosity. The centrepiece is Shamo's Concerto for Accordion and String Orchestra (1981), a rarely heard Ukrainian work blending cathedral-like sonorities with folkloric flair.