As Spring takes wing here in the Northeast, with everything from yellow rumped warblers to moles claiming their territory, the music of Lucy Kaplansky sweetly presents itself to the eager listener in this new season......

From the first, slow building acoustic guitar chords pristinely strummed by Ben Andrews, followed by the blistering boogie of Mark Wenner’s harmonica and Jeff Sarli’s slap happy Bass......

Every once in awhile, a miraculous musical event occurs, a perfect congruence of music and musician......

Journey with me to the city of San Carlos, a distance from the hustle and bustle of Havana, and enter the world of Los Fakires, five musicians who are elder statesmen of the classic Cuban melodies known as the Son.....

I recently received an e-mail from one of this magazine’s readers, telling me how much he enjoyed my article on Sinatra (here). He correctly pointed out that it was subtitled A Selective Sinatra Retrospective: Part 1. Not unreasonably.....

Put some salt on the rim of that margarita and get ready to rock to John Fogerty’s latest disc, Revival. Revival really gets going after the first couple of numbers.....

The world of jazz offers countless ways in which pairings of different voices and instruments intertwine to produce the newest of textures, the freshest of ideas....

I spotlight these two recordings (with warm beams of August sun) because they illustrate how talented musicians and recording engineers can collectively produce recordings on independent labels that offer a treasure trove of musical delights for the adventurous explorer, along with superb, natural sound......

The art of connection and the equal sharing of improvisation and conversation lies at the heart of trumpeter Jon Faddis and his quartet’s newest gem of a recording, “Teranga.” It is fitting that “Teranga” is a word from Senegalese that means “hospitality, brotherhood and sharing.” I was first turned on to this new.....

Come closer and let me whisper in your ear about one of the most exciting young pianists currently working on the jazz scene today. His name is Marcin Wasilewski and he can be heard most frequently on the wonderful recordings of the Polish trumpeter, Thomasz Stanko.....

Pianist Dana Cunningham has created an intriguing, fresh and meditative voyage on The Color of Light [available at www.danacunningham.com]. There is always something new to explore on this disc, from the beautiful opening anticipation of “Leap of Faith” to the gorgeous colors and free flowing motion of “Flying Over Water.”....

The amazing thing about this 2006 recording gem from trombonist extraordinaire Delfeayo Marsalis is that it not only breaths with the rhythms and traditions of jazz in all of its variegated glory, but stands as a beautiful testament to the late Master Elvin Jones....

As the holiday season approaches, my thoughts turn to spreading some simple joy to people everywhere: lining the streets of Belfast, picking chiles in Mexico, or rice in China, symphony goers in mid-Manhattan or children listening to the stories of griots in West Africa..........

So it is with the artistry of Jeffrey Foucault: you know something important is being imparted at every turn of delicate phrase and in every indelible poetic moment, and it is impossible to take your ears (or heart) away.........

Here in the Northeast, as summer waxes and wanes towards fall, Mother Nature presents a paradoxical face: one that is long, pensive and languid in summer’s final days and yet also, frenetic, with brilliant change as the momentum towards fall proceeds........

Are you in need of a rollicking good time musical adventure to start up your next “kitchen party” or mummering? Take heed then of Great Big Sea, and this gem of a recording.......

Spring has arrived here in the Northeast, and today, I am fortunate to discover tide pools on my walk here at Halibut Point in Gloucester, MA. These ephemeral pools teem with life shortly before the cold spring tide collapses back in upon their tiny worlds.....

Living as I do in the shadows of the famed Berklee College of Music here in Boston, I wish to report on one of the many new talents emerging from Berklee’s hotbed of musical invention, where unheralded young artists are forging new directions and producing first rate recordings on their own labels......

I think the terms monumental and architectonic must be more frequently applied to the music of Bach than any other composer. In listening to his music I have always felt a unique sense of structural awe, quite distinct from the fecundity and beauty of harmony and melody.....

I’ve always found Mozart’s piano sonatas an oddity among his other works for concert hall, stage and church. Sensibilities as acute and encompassing as those of Sviatoslav Richter have been unable to fathom them. More recently, some pianists have dismissed them as fundamentally inferior to the sonatas of Haydn. I suppose that’s one way to deal with an aesthetic problem....

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue, Concerto in F, Prelude No. 2; Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, conducted by Ernest Martinez Izquierdo; Michel Camilo, piano

Telarc hybrid CDs are consistently noteworthy for superb sound, but only rarely do they make me wish I had an SACD player so I could squeeze the ultimate nuances of dynamics and ambience from the recording. Even so, Telarc clearly are really on to something with their hybrid layer protocol, recording exclusively in DSD format then converting to PCM...

Vlatko Stefanovski & Miroslav Tadic, “Krushevo”
If you are not familiar with the audiophile gems of MA Recordings (www.marecordings.com) I hope to introduce a snippet of this great recording catalogue to you in this review of one of my favorites, the evocative and expressive guitar duo of Vlatko and Miroslav in “Krushevo.”..

Three SACD Hybrid Releases from Mercury
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concertos 2 & 3, Byron Janis, Dorati, 470 639-2
Stravinsky: Firebird, Fireworks, etc. Dorati, 470 643-2
Respighi: Ancient Dances & Airs, Dorati, 470 637-2

Patricia Barber, “Live –A Fortnight In France” [Blue Note Records 57821322].

I once had the great fortune of touring the region of France known as the Dordogne, making my way from idyllic small towns carved centuries ago from the bends of the Dordogne River and dotted with cliffs that once housed prehistoric cave dwellers....

Edward Rosser: Piano Music of Chopin, Schubert, Debussy and Schumann.

 This CD has been challenging and surprising, at first one of the most seemingly naïve and idiosyncratic performances I can recall and then, after repeated auditions, one of the most beautiful. There are, of course, performances that are superb from the outset and only increase in profundity over time. Edward Rosser’s playing, however, hardly had this effect on me. .......

Doug Macleod, “Whose Truth, Whose Lies” [Audioquest Music AQ-CD1054].

Let’s talk about obsession for a moment. When you hear this sizzling gem of a recording, you too will be struck with the driving, compulsive feeling to hear these churning blues and folk tunes over and over again.......

A Spring Sampling: Jazz and Blues Gem Recordings From Local Boston Artists:
Laszlo Gardony – “Ever Before Ever After”
Shelley Neill “Entrée Blue” (with Laslo Gardony, Yoron Israel and Ron Mahdi).

It is a marvel of nature that here in the Northeast, buds on trees actually form during the previous summer season, even before the brilliant show of Fall. Some trees, like the mountain ash and poplar, have sticky resinous coverings that protect their buds from hungry animals during the winter while apple and cherry trees protect their incipient leaves and flowers encased together under protective scales.......

Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas, Complete Piano Concertos, Gerard Willems, Stuart & Sons Piano
In a recent issue of Stereophile John Marks wrote at some length about a new and remarkable piano from Australia that had been used in an award-winning recording of Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas, played by Gerard Willems......

Blue Mitchell – Blue’s Moods
Following in the footsteps of fellow trumpeters, Fats Navarro, and Clifford Brown, Richard Allen Mitchell, most commonly known as “Blue,” made his mark as one of the young up-and-coming trumpet players as part of the Horace Silver Quintet, and particularly after it disbanded.....

'Nuff Said - Recording live session 1968 Apr. 7, Westbury NY, Westbury Music Fair
My heart did some serious skipping last week while watching a PBS documentary featuring the life and times of Martin Luther King. First off, the documentary wasn’t your usual Black History Month spin-off or repeat I had seen in previous years....

Tab Benoit – “The Sea Saint Sessions“ [Telarc Blues CD-83573]
Take me down to the small town of Houma, Louisiana, to the juke joints and Cajun swamp pop clubs in which great legends of the blues, Guitar Slim, Raymond George and Thunderbird Davis stoked the crowds with their riffs....

Beethoven: Sonatas Op. 57, Appassionata, Op. 26, Funeral March; Sviatoslav Richter, Piano
[JVC JM-XR24017]
The Richter one meets in Bruno Monsaingeon’s ponderous and intense film, Richter, the Enigma, is a man facing—as all who live long enough must—old age and dissolution...

Saint-Saëns, Symphony No. 3 “Organ”, Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra [Telarc hybrid SACD-60634]
Once again one of Telarc’s superb hybrid SACDs, but this one is rather special. It is special because it was a labor of love when it was recorded in 1980 employing the Soundstream Digital recording system...