... LP, Vinyl record album

Eugene Ormandy conducts pieces by Ravel, Prokofiev, Holst, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Strauss, Kodaly, Mahler, Ives, Sibelius, Barber, and Gershwin. CD

A set that's dedicated to the famous Beatles producer George Martin, and which seeks to bring together a whole host of sounds and styles that not only influenced his work in the studio – but which also represent maybe the odder aspects of the British scene, in a way that really helps create a greater understanding of the more offbeat sounds of The Fab Four themselves! CD1 is titled In All Directions – and brings together jazz, skiffle, vocal tracks, and plenty more – in a nicely varied lineup that includes work from Basil Kirchin, John Dankworth, Bert Weedon, The Vipers, Christopher Logue, Temperance Seven, Ray Cathode, Ron Goodwin, and Cleo Laine. CD2 is titled Experiments With Pop – and has a bit of comedic moments mixed with more musical selections – in a lineup that includes Peter Sellers, John Dankworth, Flanders & Swann, Matt Monro, The Goods, Bernard Cribbins, and Ron Goodwin. CD3 is titled Comedy Surrealist, and continues that spirit – with more Goon Show material, Beyond The Fringe, The Alberts, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, and other important pre-Monty Python acts from the UK – who often brought a lot of creativity to the production of their work in the studio. CD4 features straighter classical influences, but in a range of modes – tracks that begin with Bach, and move through Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, Holst, and even Gershwin. As always with these unusual sets on El Records, there's a lot of thought that goes into the choice of material – drawing lines between sounds that we really didn't expect! CD

A heady dip into the musical frontiers of the postwar years – a set that digs deep into avant classical, jazz, and other styles – all to come up with sounds that later provided inspiration for The Beatles, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and other landmark groups at the end of the 60s! Yet the styles here aren't rock at all – and instead showcase all these changes that had taken place long before the years of psych and prog, but in different forms of music – and even a bit of spoken word, as well – as some of these selections show just how much the recorded art form could work for unusual styles of vocal presentation. The four CDs feature a wonderful range of styles that all work together somehow – with work by Pierre Schaeffer, John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, Cathy Berberian, John Coltrane, Gustav Holst, Arnold Schoenberg, Jack Kerouac, Ali Akbar Khan, The Goons, Dave Brubeck, Percy Grainger, Hilaire Belloc, Sabicas, Delia Derbyshire, and many others! CD

Early 70s Chicago folk scene featuring Jim Post, Steve Goodman, Ed Holstein, Ginni Clemmens, Fred Holstein, and Aliotta Haynes & Jeremiah. LP, Vinyl record album

Features John Prine, Arlo Guthrie, the Lincoln Park Pirates, Bonnie Raitt, Michael Smith, Ed Holstein, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. CD

With Mike Holstein on bass and Austin McMahon on drums. CD

A beautiful package of work from this legendary pianist – 18CDs that comprise a series of very special recordings for RCA and Columbia, each presented with the original artwork, in small LP-styled sleeves! Richter's a legend who's left behind a huge legacy on other labels from the 20th century – but his recordings for Columbia and RCA are nicely focused around seminal live performances – including Carnegie Hall recitals in 1960, a 1977 Aldeburgh and 1988 Schleswig-Holstein Festival performances – and a never-issued 1960 performance from Newark at the Mosque Theater! The set also features a very famous reading of Brahm's Concedrto No 2 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and some additional RCA studio recordings with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Charles Much, plus some sonatas as well. The package also comes with a thick booklet of notes – and offers up a great snapshot of this powerful pianist in his prime! CD

A soundtrack for a very silly movie – and one of the oddest albums ever recorded by the great Paul Williams – who both sings and stars in the movie as the phantom in the title! The tunes have a surprisingly heartfelt quality that really comes out when you hear them away from the movie – not nearly as future-shocky, and instead quite personal, with this sense of loneliness and pathos that we love in Paul's other work of the time. The backings are great – mixing Williams' usual smooth LA A&M sound with some slight glam touches – and titles include "Phantom's Theme", "Upholstery", "Goodbye Eddie Goodbye", "Somebody Super Like You", "Old Souls", and "Faust". LP, Vinyl record album

Features John Prine, Arlo Guthrie, the Lincoln Park Pirates, Bonnie Raitt, Michael Smith, Ed Holstein, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. CD