Sonny Rollins – Plus Four (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1956/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Sonny Rollins – Plus Four (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1956/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 32:27 minutes | 341 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: March 22, 1956 in Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2006, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Plus Four was originally released in 1956 on Prestige Records. On this album, Rollins plays with the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, of which he was a member at the time. The album was the last full recording including pianist Richie Powell and trumpeter Clifford Brown, as both died in a car accident three months later. Although Rollins is clearly the group leader on this date, the style and playing are logical extensions of the fine work being done by the Brown-Roach group on Emarcy Records at the time.

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Wilco – Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014 (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Wilco – Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014 (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 04:40:36 minutes | 3,04 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: HDTracks | © Nonesuch Records

Nonesuch Records released two new Wilco collections on November 17 in conjunction with the influential Chicago band’s 20th anniversary: Alpha Mike Foxtrot, a four-disc box-set of rare studio and live recordings collected from the band’s extensive audio archives, and What’s Your 20?, is a two-CD compilation of essential tracks culled from the band’s previously released studio recordings.

Both collections are produced by Grammy-nominated producer Cheryl Pawelski, co-founder of Omnivore Recordings, whose credits include Big Star’s Keep an Eye on the Sky, The Band’s A Musical History, and Townes Van Zandt’s Sunshine Boy: The Unheard Studio Sessions and Demos 1971–1972. These are the first compilations of Wilco music of any kind. 

“Like a lot of fans, I had collected these straggling tracks over the past two decades of following Wilco’s every move,” Pawelski said. “Alpha Mike Foxtrot includes almost every unique, essential performance that appeared on soundtracks, tribute albums and B-sides—and there are probably a few surprises for even the sharpest collector. This set presents an alternate history of the band, kind of a sideways view, and ultimately, it’s a super-fun listening experience.”

Alpha Mike Foxtrot features 64 pages of liner notes that include track-by-track recollections from Tweedy, notes by band members Nels Cline and John Stirratt, and reflections from members of Wilco’s extended professional family. The booklet also showcases dozens of archival and never-before-seen photos from a wide array of photographers chronicling all phases of the band’s career.

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Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons – Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner (2000/2006) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons – Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner (2000/2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:58 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | © Decca
Recorded: (#1-12) September 1969, (#13-21) July 1975, St. John’s Smith Square, London, UK

One of the finest Four Seasons ever put on disc, which in stylish freshness (Alan Loveday in superb form) puts many of the period-instrument versions in the shade. ‘I have never enjoyed Vivaldi so much,’ said the original Gramophone review, and I can go along with that. This reappeared not long ago as one of the ‘Penguin Classics’, but is now made the more enticing by the inclusion of three more hand-picked Vivaldi concertos which are hardly less winning or more appealingly played.

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Vivaldi, Piazzolla, Shor – The 12 Seasons – David Aaron Carpenter, Salome Chamber Orchestra (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Vivaldi, Piazzolla, Shor – The 12 Seasons – David Aaron Carpenter, Salome Chamber Orchestra (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:18 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Digital Booklet | © Warner Classics
Recorded: 15–16 January 2015, Cary Hall, DiMenna Center, New York

There is no shortage of recordings of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but this one really is different. First of all, it is played on the viola, not on the violin – by David Aaron Carpenter. He has been described by the German newspaper Die Welt as “a new star at the forefront of violists”, by the Helsinki Times as playing “like a young god” and by Gramophone as a player of “superlative assurance and magnetic conviction”. When he made his debut at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in in 2007, the New York Times praised his “seductively rich sound … forceful interpretive personality and remarkable control of his instrument,” and his mentors have included such distinguished musical figures as Pinchas Zukerman, Yuri Bashmet and Christoph Eschenbach. Secondly, Vivaldi’s Baroque concertos are placed in a new light, since they are programmed alongside far more recent works inspired by the cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter: Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (Four Seasons of Buenos Aires), written between 1965 and 1970 by Argentina’s King of Tango, Astor Piazzolla, and A Manhattan Four Seasons by the Ukrainian-American composer Alexey Shor, premiered in 2013. This CD represents the first time that the works by Vivaldi and Piazzolla have been recorded in a version for viola. Alexey Shor wrote his work – moody, mellow and immediately appealing – in his capacity as composer-in-residence with the Manhattan-based Salomé Chamber Orchestra, which David Aaron Carpenter founded with his violin-playing sister and brother, Lauren and Sean. The orchestra generally plays without a conductor and is therefore headless … hence its striking name, inspired by the biblical princess who demanded the decapitation of John the Baptist. It was founded by the Carpenter siblings in 2009 with the declared aim of achieving “a dynamic balance of novelty, tradition and hard work”. As Lauren Carpenter told the New York Times, “It’s great to try and change the face of what classical music concerts can be.” @WarnerClassics

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Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, Concertos RV 249 & 284 – Sergej Krylov, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, Concertos RV 249 & 284 – Sergej Krylov, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:28 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon

Sergej Krylov has established himself as one of the most talented violinists of his generation regularly invited to perform in major concert halls. He appears with some of the most prestigious orchestras in the world, including Staatskapelle Dresden, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, DSO Berlin, Russian National Symphony, London Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, English Chamber Orchestra, Hessischer Rundfunk Frankfurt, Budapest Festival Orchestra, NHK Symphony Tokyo, Atlanta Symphony, and Copenhagen Philharmonic.

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Dmitri Shostakovich – Trios Nos. 1 & 2, Viola Sonata – Vladimir Ashkenazy, Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay, Mats Lidstrom, Ada Meinich (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Dmitri Shostakovich – Trios Nos. 1 & 2, Viola Sonata – Vladimir Ashkenazy, Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay, Mats Lidstrom, Ada Meinich (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:41 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Digital Booklet | © Decca
Recorded: Potton Hall, Suffolk, 17–20 September 2015

As a young man in Moscow in the early 1960s Vladimir Ashkenazy was invited by Shostakovich to play a private performance of the Piano Trio No 2 in the composer’s apartment.

Ashkenazy’s friendship with the composer and his lifelong advocacy of his music as a pianist and conductor lends the performances on this album a unique, definitive authority and he is joined by long-standing chamber music partners. Astonishingly, these are Ashkenazy’s first recordings of this music and add to a remarkable Shostakovich discography on Decca.

The three works on this album span Shostakovich’s entire creative life: from the early, rarely heard Trio No 1 – an almost uncharacteristically romantic piece written when he was 16 – to his very last composition, the Viola Sonata of 1975. In between comes the masterpiece which was born of national and personal tragedy in Leningrad in 1944: the Piano Trio No 2.

In the Trios Ashkenazy is reunited with the team he recorded Rachmaninov with: “Ashkenazy, Visontay and Lidström tap the vein of grief coursing through this music…They also unleash passion” (Daily Telegraph). And for the viola sonata, Ashkenazy is joined by the distinguished Norwegian violist Ada Meinich, until recently a member of the Faust Quartet.

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Ksenija Sidorova – Carmen (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Ksenija Sidorova – Carmen (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:28 minutes | 956 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Digital Booklet | © Deutsche Grammophon
Recorded: Blackbird Music Studio, Berlin ( Band ) 8 / 2015; Zorlu Performing Arts Center, Istanbul (Orchestra) 8 / 2015; Floating Earth Studios, London 11 / 2015

Countless artists, authors and other sharp creative minds – from Manet and Peter Brook to Nabokov and Nietzsche – have drawn deep inspiration from Carmen. Ksenija Sidorova is the latest to reimagine the tragic heroine of Bizet’s opera. The Latvian accordionist, a massive musical talent with the blazing energy of a comet, marks her Deutsche Grammophon debut with an album driven by her identification with Bizet’s famously free-spirited femme fatale. Ksenija’s Carmen gives new life to some of the most popular of all classical melodies, presented here in seductively fresh arrangements. She describes the character of Carmen as, above all, “a projection of the heart’s most intimate desires”. In response, her album, influenced by Latin, Asian, European and North American musical styles, offers an intoxicating mix of tone colours and pulsating rhythms.

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Paul Reddick – Ride The One (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Paul Reddick – Ride The One (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:07 minutes | 938 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Front Cover | © Stony Plain Records

“Ride the one” is a musical reference to the hypnotic grooves explored on Paul Reddick’s new release. Deep rhythm, intense singing and harp playing combine with his distinctive blues poetry. As Reddick puts it, “Blues is a beautiful landscape.” For over 25 years he has been melding poetry, mystery, darkness and light along with an extensive knowledge of the history and traditions of blues. An unofficial poet laureate of Canadian blues, Mojo Magazine described his “wayward brilliance.” Reddick’s song “I’m A Criminal” was used by Coca-Cola in a TV commercial that aired during the Superbowl.

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Red Garland – Soul Junction (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1960/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Red Garland – Soul Junction (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1960/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 42:36 minutes | 452 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: November 15, 1957 at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2007, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

With a veritable All-Star lineup in tow, pianist Red Garland turns in a relaxed session that highlights his deft, tasteful touch. Soul Junction features tenor saxophonist John Coltrane in fine form joined by trumpeter Donald Byrd, bassist George Joyner and drummer Art Taylor. Highlights include Garland’s 15-minute blues workout on the title cut and Coltrane’s masterful “sheets of sound” soloing on the bouncy, breezy “Woody’n You.”

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Red Garland – Red Garland’s Piano (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1957/2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Red Garland – Red Garland’s Piano (Rudy Van Gelder Remaster) (1957/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 44:38 minutes | 282 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Digital Booklet | © Prestige Records
Recorded: December 14, 1956 and March 22, 1957 at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, NJ
Remastered: 2005, Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

From the mid-1950s to the early ’60s, Red Garland’s piano was one of jazz’s most prevalent, and recognizable, sounds. When Garland (1923-1984) recorded this, his second album for Prestige, he was riding high as a member of Miles Davis’s first “great quintet.” But Red’s own LPs also generated a strong following. Loyal and casual fans alike were attracted to his bell-like block chords, left-hand punctuations suggesting a boxer peppering a speed bag, and urbane-bluesy feeling on ballads. Garland also had a “head for tunes,” and this set, comprised entirely of standards, plus an extended reading of Percy Mayfield’s r&b classic “Please Send Me Someone to Love,” repeatedly displays just how much he loved playing them. As he often was on his Prestige sessions, Garland is accompanied by top-flight bassist (and Miles Davis bandmate) Paul Chambers and drummer Arthur Taylor, whose brushstrokes are sheer artistry.

Red Garland is a pianist who eschews the flowery and champions the direct approach in a simple, subtle manner. His basic, solid style, developed along personal lines out of Nat Cole and Bud Powell, encompasses all moods and tempos with equal ease. Never syrupy on the ballads in ballad tempo or merely fleet on the up tempos, Red is especially buoyant in a soul-lifting way on the middle ground. Here is a musician who even if he played every cocktail lounge in the country could never be considered a “cocktail lounge pianist.” (more…)

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Grandes oeuvres a quatre mains – Aline Zylberajch, Martin Gester (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Grandes oeuvres a quatre mains – Aline Zylberajch, Martin Gester (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:33 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: eClassical | Digital Booklet| © K617

Mozart par deux complices musicaux, Aline Zylberajch et Martin Gester. Échappant au domaine des “frivolités musicales de salon”, ces grandes oeuvres de W.A. Mozart vont jusqu’au bout des richesses sonores et polyphoniques que rendent possibles 4 mains se livrant à de subtils jeux de miroirs. Aline Zylberajch et Martin Gester, tour à tour s’affrontant et se joignant, restituent à merveille l’inspiration symphonique qui prévaut dans ces grandes pages.

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Wilson Pickett – The Exciting Wilson Pickett (1966/2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Wilson Pickett – The Exciting Wilson Pickett (1966/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 00:30:47 minutes | 636 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Front Cover | © Rhino Atlantic

For the First Time – Digitally Released As High Resolution Downloads 192kHz/24bit Classic Soul Titles from the Archives of Atlantic Records and Rhino Records.

Chart History/Awards
– Reached #3 on Billboard‘s Top R&B Albums.

Pickett’s sophomore album, The Exciting Wilson Pickett established him as a bona fide ‘60s soul superstar. The album charted at #3 on Billboard’s Top R&B albums and highlights the hits “Land of 1000 Dances,” “Ninety-Nine And One-Half (Won’t Do)” and “In The Midnight Hour.” The album also includes the R&B standards “Something You Got,” “Mercy, Mercy” and “Barefootin’.” Pickett’s gritty vocal talents made him one of Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Singers of All Time.” The Exciting Wilson Pickett is a mesmerizing album of soul music by one of the genre’s very best.

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Wilson Pickett – The Wicked Pickett (1967/2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Wilson Pickett – The Wicked Pickett (1967/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 00:30:40 minutes | 727 MB | Genre: R&B, Soul
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Front Cover | © Rhino Atlantic

For the First Time – Digitally Released As High Resolution Downloads 192kHz/24bit Classic Soul Titles from the Archives of Atlantic Records and Rhino Records.

This stunning twelve-track collection features Pickett’s gritty soul stylings. With wonderful production and arrangements, Pickett howls classic staples including “Mustang Sally,” “Knock On Wood,” “Sunny” and “Three Time Loser.” “Mustang Sally” is included on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.” The Wicked Pickett is a diverse listen, sure to please fans with its wide range of endearing ballads and up-tempo dance numbers.

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Janoska Ensemble – Janoska Style (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Janoska Ensemble – Janoska Style (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:03:58 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | © Universal Music GmbH
Recorded: August 2015, Lisztzentrum, Raiding, Austria

With their inimitable ‘Janoska style’ the four members of the Janoska Ensemble have developed a breathtakingly virtuosic and profoundly personal vision of music, which they interpret in a thoroughly modern way.

For their debut album they have chosen to present a picture of Vienna as a cultural melting pot, lacing it with irony and wit and taking it beyond the confines of the Austrian capital.

On “The Janoska Style” virtuoso classics by Franz Waxman, Niccolò Paganini and Pablo de Sarasate are heard alongside a Viennese work by Fritz Kreisler and operetta themes by Johann Strauss combined with the strains of a Csárdás, music from the Balkans, the world of the tango, rumba and of jazz improvisations.

Their inexhaustible inventive arrangements allow the Janoska Ensemble to explore a wide range of works from popular classics to compositions that they have written themselves.

Violinist Julian Rachlin says: “As an ensemble “they are a whiff of fresh air”, combining their outstanding, individual talents with their family ties. They have become successful in performing in a variety of genres in their unique ‘Janoska style’, which is creating a new hybrid genre”.

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Mahalia Jackson – Mahalia Sings (1966/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Mahalia Jackson – Mahalia Sings (1966/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 37:40 minutes | 701 MB | Genre: Jazz, Gospel
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | © Columbia – Legacy

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