Saul is one of Handel's most action-filled, fast-moving oratorios; an opera in everything but name only. It has been lucky on disc–both Paul McCreesh (Archiv) and John Eliot Gardiner (Philips) have led superb readings, and Joachim Carlos Martini leads a good performance on Naxos, which is a bargain. Now René Jacobs and his remarkable Concerto Köln come along and offer a truly majestic reading, filled with real drama and beautiful, precise singing and playing. Tenor Jeremy Ovenden sings Jonathan with nobility and faces down Saul in Act II with style and power. David is sung by countertenor Lawrence Zazzo, and he's as good as the best-recorded competition (Andreas Scholl, Derek Lee Ragin). Emma Bell is ravishing as Merab; Rosemary Joshua makes a fine Joshua. In the title role, Gidon Saks has the spite and big tone to draw a realistic portrait of Saul. This is another feather in René Jacobs' recorded cap.

–Robert Levine

Troubles, Troubles was originally recorded for Sonet, but is probably better known through its re-release as Lost in the Blues by Alligator. Lost in the Blues was justifiably criticized because of the decision to have Lucky Peterson overdub a bunch of keyboards in order to give it a more "contemporary" (read: more "Alligator") sound. This release is of the original album (with a couple bonus alternate takes) without all the overdubbing, and is a vast improvement over the Alligator version. But how does it stand as an Otis Rush album? It's a very good set – perhaps "comfortable" says it best – recorded with Rush's longstanding band of Bob Levis on rhythm guitar, Bob Stroger on bass, and Jesse Lewis Green on drums (despite what the package says).

With the release of each new album, violinist Arabella Steinbacher proves again and again that she not only performs an impressively wide and diverse repertoire, but that she commands different facets of it with incredible precision. This installment features works for violin and piano by French composers Fauré, Poulenc, and Ravel, whose output traverses three generations of wonderfully contrasting music.

In the jazz world, there are artists who are consistent but predictable and artists who are unpredictable but inconsistent. John Scofield, meanwhile, is an impressive example of a jazzman who is both unpredictable and consistent. You never know what the risk-taking guitarist will do from one album to the next, but he rarely provides an album that is flat-out disappointing. Überjam is a major departure from 2000's Works for Me, the Verve date that preceded it. While Works for Me is essentially a straight-ahead post-bop outing and employs acoustic-oriented players, like pianist Brad Mehldau and bassist Christian McBride, Überjam is pure, unadulterated fusion…

Not content with DJing his way around the world, writing for symphony orchestras or composing film soundtracks, the workaholic Sawhney returns with another wildly varied selection of global pop songs. In the past he has sometimes sounded too clever for his own good, as with the barrage of archive fragments on his last album, Human, but this is his most assured, relaxed and successful work yet. The starting point may be cool, contemporary pop ballads like Spark, but he soon veers off into a musical travelogue, mixing strings, flute or sitar in with his keyboards and programmed beats. There's a bit of everything in here, from songs like Dead Man, with its seamless switching between an all-American blues-like riff and an Asian theme, through to a dash of gospel and funk, a poem in Hindi read by his mother, or the more urgent, passionate flamenco-influenced songs featuring Ojos de Brujo, with Nitin joining in on guitar as well.

Jimmy Ponder - Ain't Misbehavin' (2000) {HighNote HCD7041 rec 1998}
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© 1998, 2000 HighNote Records | HCD 7041
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Blues / Guitar

Ponder’s guitar work on this album is warm and tinged with references to Wes Montgomery. On the opening “On Broadway,” pianist John Hicks, bassist Dwayne Dolphin and drummer Cecil Brooks III step in behind the guitarist with a clipped, Wynton Kelly-Paul Chambers-Jimmy Cobb strut. “Sunny” is bluesy and slow, and Ponder’s phrasing and tremolo recall B.B. King. “My One and Only Love” swings easy, with the guitar chords and low-register lines very reminiscent of Montgomery. Elsewhere, Ponder employs call-and-response phrases and octave-voiced lines that also recall the late guitarist.

To listen to the doublebass sound of one of the most historical jazz-players in the world is always moving: after playing for several years in Bill Evans' trio, and also being in the Charles Mingus' last band when the bass master’s illness made himself to rely just even on a bassplayer too, Eddie Gomez is a walking piece of the jazz history indeed. His intense double bass ever echoes the perfection reached in his own previous experience, which here comes to flow into the present recording, titled Palermo: an homage to the beautiful Italian city where the releasing label, Jazz Eyes, resides. The fluent music, its intensity and his romantic touch color this album with a particular atmosphere, thanks to the presence of both the precise pianist Stefan Karlsson, who shares with Gomez a long time artistic companionship, and the drummer Nasheet Waits.

Warm, lyrical, and aristocratic in his interpretations, Artur Rubinstein performed impressively into extremely old age, and he was a keyboard prodigy almost from the time he could climb onto a piano bench. He came from a mercantile rather than a musical family, but fixated on the piano as soon as he heard it. At age three he impressed Joseph Joachim, and by the age of seven he was playing Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn at a charity concert in his hometown. In Warsaw, he had piano lessons with Alexander Róóycki; then in 1897 he was sent to Berlin to study piano with Heinrich Barth and theory with Robert Kahn and Max Bruch, all under Joachim's general supervision. In 1899 came his first notable concerto appearance in Potsdam. Soon thereafter, just barely a teenager, he began touring Germany and Poland.

Arabella Steinbacher is yet another obviously talented young violinist, but this enterprising release really throws down the gauntlet to the competition, showing how to be both brilliant and musically interesting. These three Milhaud concertos are all but unknown, but they give Steinbacher plenty of opportunity to display her glittering technique as well as emotional maturity. This may sound surprising given the composer, a member of Les Six and one often noted for his cool polytonal style, eclecticism, and emotional detachment.

Whoever it was that said that nobody but Oistrakh should ever be allowed to record Shostakovich's violin concertos should be made to listen to this disc by young Japanese-German violinist Arabella Steinbacher. After decades of performances that were more smoke than fire and more shadow than substance, Steinbacher comes out with performances of amazing virtuosity, astonishing energy, and astounding intensity. She never knew the crawling terror of the post-Great Patriotic War USSR, but you can't tell it from her maniacal performance of the First.

Arabella Steinbacher has previously released a number of recordings on the Orfeo label, with both Shostakovich concertos, and those by Berg, Beethoven, Khatchaturian and Milhaud already under her belt. She now appears on the SACD specialist Pentatone label, perhaps taking over the baton from Julia Fischer after her move to Decca.