It's an amusing little slice of the pop culture times that veteran bassist Sekou Bunch is better known to the American public as the first eliminated contestant from Survivor: Cook Islands (2006, the thirteenth season of the show) than for his incredible all-star resume featuring everyone from Quincy Jones and Luther Vandross to Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, the Winans, and Stevie Wonder. His experience on the show probably made him impervious to the odds of a new name (this was his first solo effort since the early '90s) breaking through the smooth jazz format when this was released. The success of Wayman Tisdale aside, another obstacle was the fact that he's an ace bassist, not the most radio-friendly instrument in the genre. All that said, The Next Level is a solid, coolly funky, and supermelodic date, on par with and even surpassing the catchy and grooving joy that Tisdale was famous for.

This is an essential package! Whoever put this together obviously knew what they were doing, and all is placed in chronological order. Discs 1-3 are a terrific compilation of material from the MGM years, consisting of commercial recordings of soundtrack materal. If no recording was commercially released, the original soundtrack is used-great for such numbers as "Hoe Down" with Mickey Rooney! But the last disc makes this package essential-here is a pristine soundboard recording of Judy's final performance at the Palace Theater, MYC-2/24/52! She was concluding a 19-week engagement, and the atmosphere is electric. Fantastic stuff!

Admirers of Luciano Berio's Sequenzas have long wished for an affordable, high-quality collection of these masterpieces for solo instruments, considered by some to be the core works in the composer's oeuvre. Deutsche Grammophon released Ensemble InterContemporain's fabulous set in 1994, but its relatively high price and incompleteness make it a second choice when compared with the 2006 set on Naxos, which is both reasonably priced and complete, now that Sequenza XIV for cello appears on CD for the first time. Of course, bargaining over cost and completeness is one thing, but artistic quality is another important consideration: how does the Naxos edition fare in its performances and sound quality? While Ensemble InterContemporain's terrific compilation practically guarantees accuracy and authenticity – many of Berio's original musicians were involved in the project – the performances on this triple-disc set are quite comparable and wholly convincing in virtuosic skills, lustrous timbres, and splendid recording quality; only an adept student of these pieces could note any discrepancies, and those would be minor.

Three CD collection from the legendary crooner. Though his commercial peak was in the '60s and '70s, Williams has continued to stay busy over the decades by touring, recording and headlining his own Moon River Theater in Branson, MO. He also remains popular in the UK and Europe, where he has frequently toured over the years. This triple disc set features 60 classics including 'Moon River', 'Can't Get Used To Losing You' and many more tracks including a dozen Christmas favorites.

This beautifully programmed CD presents three settings for viola and orchestra and a more eloquent statement about the beauty of the viola as an instrument would be hard to imagine (except for perhaps including Vaughan Williams' 'Flos Campi'). The viola finds that middle voice between violin and cello, a rich tone with a built in quality of mournfulness. That quality has inspired the works on this recording and the result is some of the more wistful music ever written. Dennis Russell Davies conducts the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with the superb violist Kim Kashkashian.

Hits back to the '50s from Colombia's Disco Fuentes label, with history sweeping consistency aside–any gringo can tell Conjunto Tipico Vallenato's accordion side-closers are country and Rodolfo's coffee commercial isn't. But even if the accordion stuff belongs on a vallenata comp, it passes muster on a collection where at least half the songs bristle with the exigente hooks that sell classic pop the world over. And the unmistakable beat runs down a consummate South American groove, halfway between Euro clomp and Afro hipshake.

Scandal is a rock band from the 1980s fronted by Patty Smyth. The band scored a hit in the United States with the song "The Warrior", which peaked at No. 7 in 1984. Scandal was formed in New York City in 1981 by guitarist Zack Smith, who also wrote most of the band's hits. The other initial members included: bassist Ivan Elias (1950–1995), guitarist Keith Mack, keyboardist Benjy King, (1953-2012) drummer Frankie LaRocka (later replaced by Thommy Price), and vocalist Patty Smyth. Bon Jovi frontman Jon Bon Jovi also briefly played guitar for the band in 1983.

The best of Jet Harris and Tony Meehan after they left The Shadows. Jet Harris scored a couple of hits before teaming up with Tony, but it was the duo reuniting that led to massive hits like Diamonds (#1), Scarlett O'Hara (#2) and Applejack (#4). All the hits are included on this essential collection for fans of early 1960s instrumentals.

The two albums enclosed in At Town Hall/The Amazing Nina Simone bookend the remarkable summer of 1959 in the career of Nina Simone, when she recorded a studio session, The Amazing Nina Simone, in May, and in September appeared At Town Hall in a superlative performance that was recorded and soon issued. Just 26, Simone displayed great assurance, especially on the live date, casting off the cloak of the vocal jazz/standards singer and performing with her own trio featuring her lively piano. The studio date features an orchestra, but it too finds her early on in her recording career stamping her voice on standards "Willow Weep for Me" and "Blue Prelude".

Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series reaches its 70th album with this program of three concertos by women. The ongoing success of the series suggests that audiences are ready and waiting for wider repertoire, and pianist Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Rebecca Miller deliver a real find here. The Piano Concerto in C sharp minor, Op. 45, of American composer Amy Beach has been performed and recorded, but it's been in search of a recording that captures the autobiographical quality of the work, well sketched out in the booklet notes by Nigel Simeone. Essentially, Beach faced creative repression from her religious mother and to a lesser extent from her husband, who allowed her to compose, but only rarely to perform. These experiences, it may be said, poured out in this towering Brahmsian, four-movement piano concerto, which sets up an unusual quality of struggle between soloists and orchestra. It's this dynamic that's so well captured by Driver and Miller (who happen to be married to each other). Sample the opening movement, which has lacked this quality in earlier performances.

Bristol outfit that popularized trip-hop with liberal doses of cool jazz and spy soundtracks, featuring the angelic vocals of Beth Gibbons. Collection includes all studio albums: 'Portishead' (Japan & US release), 'Dummy' (Japan & US release), 'Third' (US release), singles compilation 'Glory Times', live album 'Roseland NYC' and Beth Gibbons solo album 'Out Of Season' (US bonus track release).

Corazón is Carlos Santana's first album for a major label since 2002's Shaman. It marks his reunion with executive producer Clive Davis, who masterminded 1999's multi-platinum Supernatural. Billed by RCA as his "first Latin album," Corazón is the studio counterpart to the guitarist's HBO Latino concert special that featured his band performing with a host of Latin music superstars in his native Mexico. The singing was (as it is here) mostly in Spanish. For the most part, Santana actually sounds hungry again. His studio band is filled with killers, including drummer Dennis Chambers, timbalero Karl Perazza, and conguero Raul Rekow. Opener "Saideira" features his trademark tone in a passionate, stinging, gritty exchange with vocalist Samuel Rosa, from the Brazilian rock and reggae band Skank. Jittering, insistent horns and layers of percussion push both men to escalate the battle. Juanes lends his soulful croon to first single "La Flaca." It's got an anthemic hook with layers of backing vocals framing Santana's tight and tasty solos.

Neil Campbell teams up with Carlo Bowry (Muffin Men/Wizards of Twiddly) and composer/producer Gordon Ross for a release featuring Philip Glass's composition Metamorphosis (beautifully re-arranged as a classical and electric guitar duet), and Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint performed with multiple classical guitars and basses.

Maurice Jarre wrote the central musical motif of his score for Doctor Zhivago, "Lara's Theme," in a few minutes in a hotel, amid a frantic five-week rush to score the 197-minute movie. That theme made the Doctor Zhivago soundtrack album one of the biggest selling soundtrack of the 1960s, a considerable feat when one reckons in the competition from A Hard Day's Night, Never on Sunday, A Man and a Woman, Exodus, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The rest of Jarre's score is more in the realm of lushly textured Russian-themed mood music, filled with dark male choruses, folk and folk-like themes, and dense orchestrations, sort of faux-Tchaikovsky. The stereo separation is used to good effect, and the music as a whole forms a kind of romantic/exotic travelogue as much as a dramatic sketch of the movie's action.

Although the rhythm section was more "modern" than he usually used (keyboardist Benny Aronov, bassist Malcolm Cecil, and Airto Moreira on drums and percussion), guitarist Jim Hall (who always had a harmonically advanced style anyway) has little difficulty adapting to the fresh setting. Highlights of the well-rounded CD reissue include Hall's "Simple Samba," "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," an unaccompanied "I Should Care," and Milton Nascimento's "Vera Cruz".