The richly textured sound of The Canadian Brass is especially thrilling at Christmas time, and this new release of holiday favorites has plenty of glad tidings to cheer about. An appealing list of guest performers including James Galway, Jerry Hadley, Richard Stoltzman, The Kings Singers, Angel Romero, Harolyn Blackwell, and Arturo Sandoval add ...
Christmas at the Pops includes 17 holiday favorites performed by Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops Orchestra with special guests Al Hirt, James Galway, and the Canadian Brass. Featured songs include lighthearted holiday standards like "Winter Wonderland," "White Christmas," and "The Little Drummer Boy," interspersed with classical pieces written by ...
Subtitled "New Plastic Sounds and Electronic Abstractions," Manhattan Research, Inc. is an excellent compilation of electronic pioneer Raymond Scott's works from the '50s and '60s. Nothing that has been recorded since within the field of electronic music has obscured the originality and genius of these works. Even the amusing tracks of corporate ...
Jazz music, always known for its spirit of improvisation, was hardly the medium for composers or producers during its first 50 years. Even the greatest early arrangers -- Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman -- allowed plenty of room for solos, and would've been deserted by most of their musicians if they hadn't. All of which explains ...
Sleigh Ride!: Classic Christmas Favorites features a variety of orchestras and musical artists performing holiday favorites. Featured performers include the Boston Pops Orchestra ("Christmas Festival"), the Philadelphia Orchestra ("Joy to the World"), the Robert Shaw Chorale ("God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen"), and John Sonnleitner ("Adeste Fideles" ...
This four-disc box set, comprised of each of the individual albums in the All Songs Considered series, is a nice collection and the perfect example of what makes the NPR news show from which these songs are culled, All Things Considered , so popular among its listeners. It's thought-provoking but not revolutionary or abrasive, intelligently put ...
The Frankenstein Consort is yet another creative side-project for the ever prolific Erik Lindgren: the contemporary classical composer whose group Birdsongs of the Mesozoic made a critical splash with their classical take on "space-age jungle" music. The Consort's first album, Classical A-Go-Go (technically Lindgren's third solo release) features ...
To commemorate the end of the century, Sony Music assembled the gargantuan 26-disc box set Sony Music 100 Years: Soundtrack for a Century. The title was imposing, as was the idea behind it -- to chronicle the life of the oldest record label in the music industry. To be clear, Sony Music has not existed for 100 years, but the heart of its catalog, ...
Compiled and presented by the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors, this second volume of uncommon guitar recordings is greatly enhanced by a set of informative, insightful liner notes written by guitarist, vocalist, humorist, and historian Marty Grosz. The guitar, he writes, was considered low-life and undignified back in the 1930s ...
String quartets playing anything but classical music, while not commonplace, are also not unique -- see Kronos, Turtle Island, Max Roach's Double Quartet, or Quartette Indigo for a few examples. In the case of Quartet San Francisco, their repertoire is all over the map, from cartoon jazz to standards, American popular songs, tango and disco, the ...
Movie Box, Vol. 3 collects vintage songs from the films of the '30s and '40s, including Spellbound, Bright Eyes, Captain January, and Heidi. "Subconscious," "Animal Crackers in My Soup," "The World Owes Me a Living," and "Hey, What Did the Blue Jay Say?" are some of the nostaglic songs included on this enjoyable compilation. ~ Heather Phares, All ...
A good if not especially comprehensive introduction to the sound of the swing era, this budget-priced collection doesn't exactly stick exclusively to instrumental material -- both Gene Krupa's "Drum Boogie" and Les Brown's "Sunday" feature vocalists -- but the inclusion of such classic performances as Benny Goodman's "String of Pearls" and Raymond ...
All Songs Considered, Vol. 2, moves politely between post-rock experimentalism, plaintive Americana, kooky hot jazz and swing, and lightly Latin instrumentalism, delving further into the diverse palette of sounds and flavors present in NPR's daily news program All Things Considered. The album begins with "In the Deep Shade," a quietly powerful ...
Christmas in New Orleans features a variety of artists commonly associated with the city performing holiday favorites. Featured performers include Louis Armstrong ("Christmas in New Orleans"), Big Tiny Little ("Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"), Fats Domino ("When the Saints Go Marching In"), and Duke Ellington ("Jingle Bells"), in addition to ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.