Internationally acclaimed tenor Rolando Villazón presents an all-new recording of Italian arias by Handel. Though Villazón is not generally associated with this repertoire, his muscular and virile performances are a thrilling and new way to hear Handel. Paul McCreesh (a noted Handel expert) and the exciting Gabrieli Players join Villazón giving the listener both an authentic period performance as well as a new twist on familiar Handel. To suit his voice, Villazón performs not only tenor arias, but also transposed mezzo arias a practice familiar to Handel. This is a unique and wonderfully thrilling album completely unlike Villazón s previous recordings.

Daft Punk quickly rose to acclaim in 1993 by adapting a love for first-wave acid house and techno to their younger roots in pop, indie rock, and hip-hop. The combined talents of DJs Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter as Daft Punk have been responsible for the most memorable and genre-defying house hits of the last decade. Musique Vol 1 1993-2005 offers for the first time their collected singles and several rare remixes.

Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King's albums are dependable affairs that stick close to good old barroom Texas blues. The lyrics won't win any Pulitzer Prizes, and while Kubek is an amazing guitar player with a huge tone, he isn't exactly reinventing the instrument, and likewise King, although he is a distinctive and pleasant vocalist, isn't going to be mistaken for Marvin Gaye anytime soon. Not much has changed on their second release on the Blind Pig label, and Show Me the Money delivers another dose of straight-ahead roadhouse blues. If there are any concessions here, it is that all the songs pull in at a radio-friendly length, and at least one, the infectious "My Heart's in Texas," would fit effortlessly on "new country" play lists. The first two tracks, "I Saw It Coming" and "Burnin' to the Ground," pretty much lead the charge here, and King's easy, subtle singing pairs nicely with Kubek's gutbucket guitar tone, but there are no real surprises waiting in the grass, and certainly nothing that will shake the roots of the music industry – just solid blues-rock. Somebody's gotta do it, and Kubek and King do it so well.

These superstar guest "friends" affairs can get awfully tiresome, but this one is better than most. It was recorded over a two and a half year period when the irrepressible Chicago blues and boogie pianist was 92-94 years old, yet he seems decades younger. The songs are generally Chicago blues standards such as "Got My Mojo Working," "Hoochie Coochie Man," "Look on Yonders Wall" and, Lord help us, "Sweet Home Chicago." Still, if anyone has earned the right to give these chestnuts another go-round it's Perkins. Even though he's played nearly all of them thousands of times, he's as enthusiastic and invigorated as if he'd just written these well-worn classics. The piano man is spry on the 88s, tinkling the ivories like he's half his age, especially on the jaunty "Take it Easy Baby," the lively opener…

Frank Lowe - Black Beings (1973) {ESP 3013 rel 2008}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 470 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 145 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 7 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1973, 2008 ESP-Disk' Ltd | ESP 3013
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Soul Jazz / Saxophone

One of the later ESP blowouts, this CD reissue features the powerful tenor of Frank Lowe interacting with Joseph Jarman (heard here on alto and soprano), violinist Leroy Jenkins (operating under the pseudonym of "The Wizard" but quite recognizable), bassist William Parker and drummer Rashid Sinan. Two of the three originals (which include the 25-minute "In Trane's Name") are lengthy and wander a bit, but the intense music is well worth hearing by free-jazz collectors.

A fast, fluid, fun, and out-of-the-box jazz/fusion exploration, Time Crunch features the immense talents of bassist Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, Talas, David Lee Roth), keyboardist John Novello (Chick Corea, Andy Summers), and drummer Dennis Chambers (George Clinton, Stanley Clarke). Their pedigrees are as impressive as the intricate instrumental odyssey they travel though as Niacin. The triumvirate's fifth outing is full of rich, jazzy, classic-rock-influenced explorations that also have sensual and sonorous sides. Fans of progressive rock will enjoy the covers of King Crimson's moody, ominous "Red" and Jan Hammer's elaborate and memorable "Blue Wind." With the exception of the gentle and reflective "Glow" (which is dedicated to Novello's late wife), the disc's 11 intense and impressive tracks possess a sense of fun and lightness that won't scare off jazz newbies.

Although the Misunderstood were among the best obscure psychedelic bands – indeed, among the best obscure '60s rock bands of any kind – they barely got to record anything before tragic circumstances broke them up. The discovery of this bunch of previously unknown mid-'60s acetates, then, was big news to psychedelic rock aficionados, though most of this actually comes from their garage R&B days rather than the psychedelic peak they attained with their late-1966 lineup. The first nine of these 14 tracks come from sessions spanning mid-1965 to early 1966, and show them as a ferocious, above-average moody raw R&B-based group, somewhat in the mold of a more guitar-oriented Animals.

For his first live album in about 20 years, Sammy Hagar, according to his liner notes for Hallelujah, originally wanted to capture a full concert, but since that ran nearly three hours, he scrapped that and culled highlights from a St. Louis gig in 2001 and selected shows from his co-headlining tour with David Lee Roth in 2002, when Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony was part of the band…

The change of direction on Lontano, the third release by Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and his three young collaborators - Marcin Wasilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (bass), and Michal Miskiewicz (drums) - is startling. Whereas Soul of Things (2002) and Suspended Night (2004) focused on Stanko's increasing sense of balladry and structurally harmonic, assonant atmospheres, Lontano showcases a band confident enough after playing for five years to find real space for free improvisation. Recorded in the south of France instead of Oslo, producer Manfred Eicher works his name magic and allows stillness and silence to play as much a role as the performers engaging one another musically…

The first pleasant surprise here is the brightness and clarity of the radio broadcast sound; indeed, it is a bit too bright and harsh but better that than muddiness. There is evidently an audience who applaud at the end but otherwise there is no extraneous noise throughout. Secondly, there is the spring and bounce of the English Chamber Orchestra, alertly directed by Baroque specialist Sir Anthony Lewis. Thirdly we hear a first rate cast of splendid voices headed by Janet Baker, an array of voices unequalled in any of the other nine extant recordings. True, the performance is over forty years old but several of the subsequent recordings are in versions other than Handel's final thoughts before the 1724 premiere and are very much more expensive than this Ponto issue - furthermore, it offers as a bonus a live, 1972 recording of Berlioz's "Les nuits d'été" sung by Janet Baker and played by the BSO conducted by Colin Davis.

A terrific idea that almost but not quite comes off, this disc called Chaconne takes as its basis Bach's Chaconne from his D minor Partita for solo violin and adds transcriptions of the work for piano by Johannes Brahms, Ferruccio Busoni, and Rudolf Lutz, the last named the teacher of pianist Edna Stern. It nearly succeeds. Stern's playing in the transcriptions is far more than professional, but not quite up to the level of the music.