MUSIC

High Quality, Coloured Vinyl
Like the two ‘Lonesome & Blue’ compilation albums containing the ‘Rhythm ‘n Blues’ & ‘Rock ‘n Roll’ music that inspired Keith and Mick, fellow Londoners Led Zeppelin were also fans of the rich Afro-American jazz and blues culture. They were Inspired by Muddy Waters’ Mississippi blues, Robert Johnson’s Delta blues and the upcoming Rock ‘n Roll from the likes as Little Richard and Eddie Cochran. When the Afro-American Jazz and Blues scene gave birth to the Rock ‘n Roll in America, on this side of the Atlantic during the early to mid-1960s, the ‘Mods’ pre-paired a British Invasion with The Stones, The Who, The Cream and Led Zeppelin inventing and introducing the ‘British (white) Blues’.

‘Petrushka’ is a story of a Russian traditional puppet made of straw and with a bag of sawdust as his body, but who comes to life and develops emotions. Here we have Stravinsky conducting his own music. The most superior recording of ‘Petrushka’ is recorded in 1960 by Stravinsky himself with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. The second part of this album is ‘Octet For Wind Instruments’, a chamber-music composition by Igor Stravinsky, completed in 1923. The octet is scored for an unusual combination of woodwind and brass instruments: flute, clarinet in B and A, two bassoons, trumpet in C, trumpet in A, tenor trombone, and bass trombone. It was recorded in 1962, New York City.

High Quality
Russ Garcia’s ‘Sounds In the Night’ has often been hailed by critics as one of the greatest choral albums ever made. The album transforms traditional jazz/pop standards into wonderfully haunting pieces for a mixed male and female chorus of nine voices. There aren’t many details about ‘Sounds In The Night’. Garcia later remarked that he used session singer Marni Nixon on the album, which might imply that the other voices came from Randy Van Horne’s ensemble, since Nixon and Van Horne were working together at the time. The choral arrangements by Garcia create a melancholy mood, almost a heavenly, transcendental music, that cannot be compared to anything you have ever heard!

High Quality
Bernard Haitink treats each symphony with equality. They all have the same sense of discovery that Leonard Bernstein created in his recordings. The first is like gazing at the Dutch countryside, with its windmills and tulips. The “Sturmisch Bewegt” movement in particular is well played, and the horns at the end cover themselves in glory. The parodistic slow movement opens with a nice surprise: the solo double bass actually sounds humorous as it lumbers through “Frere Jacque,” just as Mahler intended. Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances Nos 1, 3, 7, 8 by Haitink and the Concertgebouw Orchestra are absolutely glorious renditions of these pieces and superb interpretations are sumptuous, beautiful.

High Quality
Eddie Harris was an American Jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. His first album for Vee Jay, ’Exodus to Jazz’, included his own Jazz arrangement of Ernest Gold’s theme from the movie ’Exodus’. This release presents three original Eddie Harris albums along with the single versions of ’Exodus’ and ’Alicia’. All tracks recorded in Chicago, in 1961.