2013 three CD set. Now That's What I Call Disco is a comprehensive round-up of dancefloor fillers from the era of the afro. This set features all of the classic Disco artists, including Sister Sledge, Chic, the Trammps, Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Village People, Gloria Gaynor, Abba, Earth Wind & Fire, the Jacksons and many others.

Keyboardist/composer/producer Jeff Lorber, heralded as one of the founding fathers of fusion (Keyboard), returns with his GRAMMY®-nominated power trio the Jeff Lorber Fusion, featuring bassist/co-producer Jimmy Haslip and saxophonist Eric Marienthal. Since the late 1970s, this contemporary jazz collective has blended elements of jazz, funk, rock, R&B and world music into a distinctive sound that has connected with audiences from a variety of continents, cultures and generations. In more recent years, the group's studio efforts such as their 2010 release, Now Is the Time (2010) and Galaxy (2012), influenced by extensive touring throughout Europe and Asia, have been colored with vibrant shades of dance and house music.

Boz Scaggs has had a long and varied career, playing blues, singing soul music, recording hits with smooth grooves, and taking his time with his temperamental muse. The Essential Boz Scaggs features 32 songs that tell the story of his solo career. It starts, after his stint in the Steve Miller Band, with his Atlantic Records self-titled debut album. Duane Allman fires up “Loan Me a Dime” with his trademark guitar work. Scaggs moved to Columbia Records, where he released a number of fine albums, culminating with the sleek, sophisticated grooves of Silk Degrees, provided by the band that would become Toto. Six tracks appear here, including the hits “Lowdown,” “Lido Shuffle,” and “Harbor Lights.”

Original Album Series contains Curtis Mayfield's first five solo albums: Curtis (1970), Curtis Live! (1971), Roots (1971), Back to the World (1973), and Sweet Exorcist (1974). As with other Original Album Series packages, each disc is in a paper, LP replica-style sleeve with reproductions of the front and back sides. With the release of Original Album Series by Curtis Mayfield you get 5 Cds by the man himself It really is wonderful bargain.Unlike other sets these have not been re mastered and DO NOT include any extra tracks which is a shame.But then Curtis Mayfield produced each and every one of the five so I suspect that there was no need for them to be remastered as the sound was good to begin with.

For jazz fans who bought earlier, incomplete versions of these broadcasts either on Boris Rose's vinyls, the earlier ESP-Disk issue, or the many subsequent re-releases on Base, Fresh Sounds, Queen-disc, etc., this three-disc collection will come as a revelation. Taken from actual club tapes rather than radio tape checks or transcriptions, the sound here is drastically improved, as are pitch problems and personnel listings, thanks to compilation producer Michael Anderson, making it the most complete archive of Bud Powell's live recordings from 1953.

1978 classic DJ set finally gets a CD re-issue in the Greensleeves Reggae Classic series. One of the original album releases that launched the Greensleeves record label Stop Yu Loafin captures Jah Thomas flashing at the height of his powers over a set of 10 crucial Revolutionaries rhythms. “Full Up”, “Death In The Arena”, “Answer” – this is the Rockers sound that revolutionized the sound of Jamaica.

Momo Kodma’s first ECM New Series album is a marvel, a mesmerizing journey from the shimmering surfaces of Miroirs, Ravel’s piano cycle of 1904-45 to Messiaen’s La fauvette des jardins (written in 1970), a late masterpiece of piano music from the visionary composer. Kodama’s insights into Messiaen’s sound-world are remarkable as she conveys his religious feeling for nature, birdsong transformed into spiritual utterance, through the compelling, insistent piano figures.

Following on from the worldwide success of his album Blue Moon, the great Ahmad Jamal and his dream team are back with Saturday Morning - another instant classic made up of the kinds of ballads to which only Jamal holds the key. Every track is a moment of grace, shining like a star in the sky of American Classical Music. The album features a wonderful Duke Ellington cover and a tribute to Horace Silver. With his light-fingered but rhythmic style, Jamal sends US into a sensuous trance and leads US to a musical climax: A sound that is 100% pure groove.

BE is the second and final studio album by English rock band Beady Eye, released on 10 June 2013. It was recorded between November 2012 and March 2013. The album was produced by Dave Sitek who has previously produced records for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio and Jane's Addiction. BE debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart behind Black Sabbath's 13. Despite receiving mixed reviews from contemporary critics, BE is considered by many fans to be an improvement from their debut album, Different Gear, Still Speeding and is notable for showcasing a rare experimental approach which departs from the sound of previous Beady Eye and Oasis albums.

ECM New Series is better known for its documentation of contemporary works, but the music of the past sometimes receives coverage when artists bring a new perspective to it. The Diabelli Variations, Op. 120; the Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111; and the Six Bagatelles, Op. 126, are among the most original and intellectually stimulating works Ludwig van Beethoven composed for the piano, and the sophisticated interpretations of András Schiff are especially worthwhile for their insights into authentic performance practice and reception. Here, Schiff gives the listener options between a relatively modern sounding version of the Diabelli Variations and a period interpretation, without favoring one or the other. On the first CD he plays the Sonata and the Diabelli Variations on a Bechstein piano from 1921, though with minimal pedaling and a restrained execution that allows every inner voice and subtle dynamic to be appreciated. While this piano is not as hard or bright sounding as a modern Steinway, it is familiar to modern ears and most listeners will readily accept it. On the second CD, Schiff plays the Diabelli Variations, along with the Six Bagatelles, on a smaller sounding Franz Brodmann fortepiano, an original instrument from around 1820, Beethoven's time period.

This complete set of Witold Lutoslawski's symphonies is a mixture of old and new. The second, third, and fourth symphonies are reissues of recordings made in the 1980s and 1990s during Esa-Pekka Salonen's tenure with the Los Angeles Philharmonic; all were acclaimed readings, and the 1985 version of the sizzlingly orchestrated Symphony No. 3, by now Lutoslawski's most commonly programmed and recorded work, has held up well against newer recordings.

Dukas’ opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, based on Maeterlinck’s symbolist version of the classic tale, sees free spirit Ariane become the sixth wife of the infamous Barbe-bleue, who gives his new bride seven keys to seven doors, but prohibits the use of the last. Ariane discovers an array of glittering jewels behind the first six doors, but a terrifying reality awaits her as she unlocks the seventh. José van Dam is cast as the villainous Barbe-bleue, while taking on the immensely demanding role of Ariane - who does not leave the stage throughout the entire opera - is American soprano Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet.

Who better to help you celebrate that most wonderful time of the year than holiday favorites Bad Religion? Bad Religion have threatened to record an album of seasonal classics for years, and now they've gone and done it, tackling eight chestnuts in their classic punk rock style.

The first album cut by Gladys Knight & the Pips for Buddah Records was a watershed in their history. Co-produced by the group and Tony Camillo, Imagination embodied all of what Gladys Knight & the Pips had learned in their previous six years at Motown, watching the way their records were made, combined with the maturity of the sound that they'd achieved in that time, and virtually complete freedom to choose their repertory – a factor that they were mature and sophisticated to exploit to the fullest.

A grand opera that dominated the stages of Europe for most of the 19th century, Robert le diable is a masterpiece.
Director Laurent Pelly breathes new life into Giacomo Meyerbeer’s great spectacle and audaciously entertaining moral fable, in this colourful new staging for The Royal Opera. The wonderful score includes brilliant arias, dramatic ensembles, rousing choruses and a ballet of ghostly nuns, and with the wavering hero of the title sung by Bryan Hymel, acclaimed for his role as Énée in Les Troyens for The Royal Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, this is an unmissable experience.