A sweeping double album that shift between large orchestral passages and small ensemble pieces. Featured Mehldau on piano and pump organ, Joshua Redman on tenor, Larry Grenadier on bass, and both Jeff Ballard and Matt Chamberlain on drums. CD

To fans of the group Rush, the title of this record has a very different meaning than the common one – and, no surprise, pianist Brad Mehldau is actually referencing that song by the group here – which he performs on the record, along with some of their other work – and adds in his own music too – all in pursuit of this amazing blend of spirituality informed by progressive rock! The concept is one that's a bit hard to describe in words, and it's also kind of a mindblowing surprise from Mehldau – music we never would have expected from any of his previous records! There's still a current of jazz on the album, but there's all sorts of other things going on too – a guitar solo on one number, heavy drums on another, and even a vocal contribution from Cecile McLorin Salvant, who also sounds nothing like usual. In addition to remakes of "Tom Sawyer" and "Jacob's Ladder", the set also features the titles "Maybe As His Skies Are Wide", "Herr Und Knect", "Cogs IN Cogs", "Voy Correndo Te Encontrar/Racecar", and "Heaven". CD

Pat Metheny on guitar with Steve Rodby on bass, Antonio Sanchez on drums, Richard Bona on guitar and percussion, Gregoire Maret on harmonica, David Samuels on percussion, Lyle Mays on piano and xylophone, and Cuong Vu on whistle and trumpet. CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

A further stunning chapter in the career of guitarist Jeff Parker – a musician who's just grown in leaps and bounds on a succession of records for the International Anthem label! Here, Jeff plays solo guitar throughout – in modes that occasionally hearken back to his earlier material for other labels, but which really shows that amazing understanding of sound and tone that he's developed more recently – this incredible ear for all the possibilities of the electric guitar, at a level that moves beyond just jazz too – with moments on the record that almost have a John Fahey-like understanding of his instrument, as Parker creates all these fantastic passages in sound that are completely sublime. Titles include "Suffolk", "Flour Of Fur", "Four Folks", "La Jetee", "Ugly Beauty", and "Excess Success". CD

A further stunning chapter in the career of guitarist Jeff Parker – a musician who's just grown in leaps and bounds on a succession of records for the International Anthem label! Here, Jeff plays solo guitar throughout – in modes that occasionally hearken back to his earlier material for other labels, but which really shows that amazing understanding of sound and tone that he's developed more recently – this incredible ear for all the possibilities of the electric guitar, at a level that moves beyond just jazz too – with moments on the record that almost have a John Fahey-like understanding of his instrument, as Parker creates all these fantastic passages in sound that are completely sublime. Titles include "Suffolk", "Flour Of Fur", "Four Folks", "La Jetee", "Ugly Beauty", and "Excess Success". LP, Vinyl record album

A further stunning chapter in the career of guitarist Jeff Parker – a musician who's just grown in leaps and bounds on a succession of records for the International Anthem label! Here, Jeff plays solo guitar throughout – in modes that occasionally hearken back to his earlier material for other labels, but which really shows that amazing understanding of sound and tone that he's developed more recently – this incredible ear for all the possibilities of the electric guitar, at a level that moves beyond just jazz too – with moments on the record that almost have a John Fahey-like understanding of his instrument, as Parker creates all these fantastic passages in sound that are completely sublime. Titles include "Suffolk", "Flour Of Fur", "Four Folks", "La Jetee", "Ugly Beauty", and "Excess Success". LP, Vinyl record album

Mindblowing music from Jeff Parker – sounds that we always knew were part of his core, but which have maybe taken most of his career to emerge! This album follows beautifully from Jeff's previous album for International Anthem – and like that one, it's an explosion of new and old ideas at once – jazz elements with soul currents, all put together with a complexity that lives up to Parker's long legacy in music, but which also has an organic appeal that makes the whole thing come together with effortless ease! There's plenty of sophistication in the sound, but it also sneaks in with lots of grooves that Jeff never had before – including some funky currents that come from Parker's work on keyboards, drums, and samples in addition to his usual guitar – and added drums from Jamire Williams and Makaya McCraven. Titles include "Lydian Etc", "Build A Nest", "Del Rio", "3 For L", "Fusion Swirl", "After The Rain", and "Max Brown". CD

Mindblowing music from Jeff Parker – sounds that we always knew were part of his core, but which have maybe taken most of his career to emerge! This album follows beautifully from Jeff's previous album for International Anthem – and like that one, it's an explosion of new and old ideas at once – jazz elements with soul currents, all put together with a complexity that lives up to Parker's long legacy in music, but which also has an organic appeal that makes the whole thing come together with effortless ease! There's plenty of sophistication in the sound, but it also sneaks in with lots of grooves that Jeff never had before – including some funky currents that come from Parker's work on keyboards, drums, and samples in addition to his usual guitar – and added drums from Jamire Williams and Makaya McCraven. Titles include "Lydian Etc", "Build A Nest", "Del Rio", "3 For L", "Fusion Swirl", "After The Rain", and "Max Brown". LP, Vinyl record album

A stunning collection of work from one of the greatest periods in the career of this global music legend – material that gave Astor Piazzolla a chance to really stretch out and push some of the more modern ideas in his creations! First up is the incredible Zero Hour album – a fantastic late life album by the Argentine musical genius Astor Piazzolla – and a set that shows just how far he'd transformed the format of the tango along his musical path of the previous decades! The sound here is completely unique – with some elements of modern string quartet modes, avant jazz, and other styles – blended together with guitar, violin, piano, and bass next to Astor's completely sublime lines on bandoneon! The whole thing's a treasure, and if there's one record to hear by Piazzolla, this is it! Titles include "Tanguedia III", "Milonga Del Angel", "Concierto Para Quinteto", "Milonga Loca", and "Contrabajissimo". La Camorra is a record that features a slightly expanded concept on the ideas that Astor Piazzolla had unleashed with his Zero Hour album – all those incredible twists and turns he'd been using to transform Argentine modern music – roots in the tango, but expressions that are up there with some of the most creative 20th Century performances from other parts of the globe! As before, Piazzolla's bandoneon is at the center – but the inflections on piano and violin are also key too – on titles that include "Fugata", "Soledad", "Sur Los Suenos", and the longer "La Camorra" suite. Rough Dancer & The Cyclical Night is the last album in a completely sublime run of records that Astor Piazzolla cut for the American Clave label – and a set that brings together all the new ideas he'd been forging over previous decades, with a clarity and focus that's still completely transformative all these many years later! The core instrumentation is in the quintet mode that Astor was preferring at the time – with tremendous lines on violin, guitar, and piano that burst out alongside his own work on bandoneon, augmented by some guest reed lines by Paquito D'Rivera as well. The album works fantastically as a unified suite of tracks – with expressivity between the numbers that heightens the power of the album from even Piazzolla's previous gems on the label – on titles that include "Street Tango", "Knife Fight", "Leonora's Song", "Butcher's Death", "Milonga For Three", "Bailongo", and "Leonoras' Love Theme". CD

The legendary Omara Portuondo is one of those Cuban music greats from years back – and one of a handful who were finally given some larger exposure to the American market during the Buena Vista Social Club project of the late 90s! It's not as if Omara had stopped performing – but because of the embargo on Cuban goods in the US for decades, which also led to an embargo on culture as well, Portuondo hadn't seen a standard release on our shores for many years – something that's nicely corrected by this set, which has Omara stepping away from the larger Buena Vista ensemble, and working in a nicely intimate mode, with work from Ruben Gonzalez on piano, Guajiro Mirabal on trumpet, and Cachaito on bass. Titles include "No Me Vayas A Enganar", "Ella Y Yo", "Canta Lo Sentimental", "Donde Estabas Tu", "La Sitiera", "He Perdido Contigo", and "El Hombre Que Y Ame". CD

With Joshua Redman on tenor and soprano saxophone, and Brad Mehldau on piano. CD

A fantastic new chapter in music from Cecile McLorin Salvant – a singer who's only been with us for a little more than a decade, has already gotten a Grammy and a MacArthur Genius Grant – yet hasn't let that stop her from being even more creative than ever! Cecile's still very much a jazz singer at the core, but there's also an expressive range here that we might never have guessed on her earlier records – and that's saying a lot, as those albums really blew us away! The singer's really breaking out of just the world of jazz vocals here – rising with star power, ala Gregory Porter or Esperanza Spaulding – but also maybe going deeper at the same time too. Titles include a surprising remake of "Wuthering Heights", plus "Thunderclouds", "Unquiet Grae", "Moon Song", "Trail Mix", "The World Is Mean", "Obligation", "Optimistic Voices/No Love Dying", "I Lost My Mind", and "Dead Popular". CD

A fantastic new chapter in music from Cecile McLorin Salvant – a singer who's only been with us for a little more than a decade, has already gotten a Grammy and a MacArthur Genius Grant – yet hasn't let that stop her from being even more creative than ever! Cecile's still very much a jazz singer at the core, but there's also an expressive range here that we might never have guessed on her earlier records – and that's saying a lot, as those albums really blew us away! The singer's really breaking out of just the world of jazz vocals here – rising with star power, ala Gregory Porter or Esperanza Spaulding – but also maybe going deeper at the same time too. Titles include a surprising remake of "Wuthering Heights", plus "Thunderclouds", "Unquiet Grae", "Moon Song", "Trail Mix", "The World Is Mean", "Obligation", "Optimistic Voices/No Love Dying", "I Lost My Mind", and "Dead Popular". LP, Vinyl record album

Accompanied by Richard Woitach on piano. LP, Vinyl record album

With William Schimmel on accordion, Michael Sahl on piano, and Stan Kurtis on violin. LP, Vinyl record album

A bigger step into a piano led jazzy style from Allen Toussaint – grooving in a timeless Crescent City influenced sound – a wonderful record, one we'll go back to for years to come! Allen's been a huge part of the New Orleans musical landscape for many, many years, and it's not a stretch to imagine he's had the laidback, but evocative jazz of the territory in his blood for just as long – so it's a wonder that he hasn't made a record like this before now. There's nothing cliche or cheesy in Allen's work here, which has kind of an after hours vibe that suits it well, and he's put together an outstanding group of players. Marc Ribot is on guitar, Don Byron on clarinet, Nicholas Payton on trumpet, David Piltch on upright bass, Jay Bellarose on drums, and guests Joshua Redman on tenor sax and Brad Mehldau on piano. Titles include "Egyptian Fantasy", "Dear Old Southland", "St James Infirmary", "Singin' The Blues", "Winin' The Blues", West End Blues", "Blue Drag", "Bright Mississippi", "Day Dream", "Solitude" and more. CD

... CD

A modern country rock masterpiece. Wilco's second album, an unlikely (for its time) major label double album does an incredible job of showing stylistic breadth and sprawl behind lyrical and emotional consistency, arrangements-wise recalling the best of the band's more adventurously rootsy forbears enough to not unfairly call it "alt-country" at the time, but it's ultimately timeless. Here we are decades later and it doesn't sound like it's aged a day. Includes "Misunderstood", "Far, Far Away", "Red-Eyed And Blue", "Forget the Flowers", "Outta Mind (Outta Sight)", "Kingpin", "Whole Would You Wanna Live", "Dreamer In My Dreams" and more. CD

Titles include "Kamera", "Radio Cure", "Jesus Etc", "Heavy Metal Drummer", "Reservations", "Poor Places", "Pot Kettle Black", "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart", and "Ashes Of American Flags". CD

An all new recording of the lost Beach Boys masterpiece! Brian notoriously sabotaged the original album by refusing to complete some sessions, and literally destroying the masters for others. Needless to say, an official release of the unearthed Beach Boys/Van Dyke Parks epic Smile – the most famous "lost" album in the history of recorded media – is sadly impossible. Of course many of the original Smile tracks filtered out onto subsequent underrated Beach Boys albums, mostly in unfinished (but still mindblowingly great) versions, due to Brian's meltdown. Nonesuch Records, Brian Wilson and his great 10 piece band have taken their best shot at a completed vision – and it works quite well! The old Smile tracks have the unassailable beauty brought about by Brian's painstaking, tortured efforts, and they were unquestionably influenced by his heavy intake of psychedelic chemicals. Now they have ProTools. Still, the cleared psyches and enhanced technical capabilities cannot hamper the bruised beauty these tunes had from conception, and it's been adapted very, very well even it doesn't quite carry the doomed genius of Brian's late 60s work. Comes in a great deluxe package with a thick booklet. Tracks include "Our Prayer/Gee", "Heroes & Villains", "Good Vibrations", "Roll Plymouth Rock", "Barnyard", "Old Cabin Essence", "Wonderful", "Surf's Up" and more. UK-only exclusive to Amazon.co.uk, comprises a white box with 3D shadowbox embedded in the lid containing a standard edition CD. This shadowbox is a recreation of the artwork from the centre pages of the album booklet and contains moving cardboard figures. CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... LP, Vinyl record album

One of their best ones, and a tight set of Ellington tracks that works perfectly with their multi-horn style. Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, Bamiet Bluiett, and David Murray split up the arrangements, and the tracks include "Lush Life", "Come Sunday", "Prelude To A Kiss", and 2 different versions of "Take The A Train". CD

... LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

... CD

... CD

Brad Mehldau on piano and Renee Fleming on vocals. CD

A record that has the fantastic guitar of Mary Halvorson amidst so many other sounds and shapes – delivered by a lineup that features Patricia Brennan on vibes, Jacob Garchik on trombone, and Adam O'Farrill on trumpets – all players who already shape the sound in these fantastically colorful way, then get some extra help from the Mivos string quartet! The rhythm duo at the core do a lot too – keeping things moving in these blocks of sound that often fit Mary's approach to guitar – with work from Nick Dunston on bass and Tomas Fujiwara on drums, both players who seem to find the right balance with the overall sound of the group, yet really make the contribution known. Titles include "Side Effect", "Amaryllis", "Hoodwink", "Night Shift", and "892 Teeth". CD

... CD

Fred Hersch on piano with Ralph Alessi on trumpet and flugelhorn, Reid Anderson and Drew Gress on bass, Jamey Haddad on percussion, Rich Perry on tenor saxophone, and Tom Rainey and Nasheet Waits on drums. CD

Features Bill Frisell and Elliott Sharp on guitar. CD

... CD

A stunning collection of work from one of the greatest periods in the career of this global music legend – material that gave Astor Piazzolla a chance to really stretch out and push some of the more modern ideas in his creations! First up is the incredible Zero Hour album – a fantastic late life album by the Argentine musical genius Astor Piazzolla – and a set that shows just how far he'd transformed the format of the tango along his musical path of the previous decades! The sound here is completely unique – with some elements of modern string quartet modes, avant jazz, and other styles – blended together with guitar, violin, piano, and bass next to Astor's completely sublime lines on bandoneon! The whole thing's a treasure, and if there's one record to hear by Piazzolla, this is it! Titles include "Tanguedia III", "Milonga Del Angel", "Concierto Para Quinteto", "Milonga Loca", and "Contrabajissimo". La Camorra is a record that features a slightly expanded concept on the ideas that Astor Piazzolla had unleashed with his Zero Hour album – all those incredible twists and turns he'd been using to transform Argentine modern music – roots in the tango, but expressions that are up there with some of the most creative 20th Century performances from other parts of the globe! As before, Piazzolla's bandoneon is at the center – but the inflections on piano and violin are also key too – on titles that include "Fugata", "Soledad", "Sur Los Suenos", and the longer "La Camorra" suite. Rough Dancer & The Cyclical Night is the last album in a completely sublime run of records that Astor Piazzolla cut for the American Clave label – and a set that brings together all the new ideas he'd been forging over previous decades, with a clarity and focus that's still completely transformative all these many years later! The core instrumentation is in the quintet mode that Astor was preferring at the time – with tremendous lines on violin, guitar, and piano that burst out alongside his own work on bandoneon, augmented by some guest reed lines by Paquito D'Rivera as well. The album works fantastically as a unified suite of tracks – with expressivity between the numbers that heightens the power of the album from even Piazzolla's previous gems on the label – on titles that include "Street Tango", "Knife Fight", "Leonora's Song", "Butcher's Death", "Milonga For Three", "Bailongo", and "Leonoras' Love Theme". LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

A landmark album for Caetano Veloso – a full set of tracks sung in English, as beautifully done as we ever could have hoped! The arrangements are really fresh – in a style that makes the album far more than just a set of standards – and instead gives it the edgey approach of some of Caetano's best recent work. The set was co-produced by Jacques Morelenbaum, and has a range of instrumental approaches that shifts to fit the mood of each new track – and given that the work on the set runs from tunes by Cole Porter to Nat King Cole, Nirvana, David Byrne, Arto Lindsay, Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, and Bob Dylan – you can imagine the changing moods at work! Titles include "So In Love", "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", "Diana", "Manhattan", "Nothing But Flowers", "Cry Me A River", "Nature Boy", "Jamaica Farewell", "If It's Magic", "Detached", "Blue Skies", and "Something Good". Loads of tracks, too – 22 in all – and packaged beautifully! CD

Wilco continuing the looser, less self-consciously experimental, more straightforward songcraft road they'd been traveling on since Sky Blue Sky, after the art rock leaning previous few LPs – including the classic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – but Wilco being Wilco, their version of straight forward songcraft has more depth and diverse instrumentation than just about any other contemporary rock peers! And after some years of feeling underserved by the "alt country" tag and steering clear of anything too twangy, it's kinda nice to hear the more lap steal and Byrds-y harmonies back in the fold without discarding the art rock textures. Good stuff from a great band in it for the long haul! Includes "Wilco (The Song)", "Deeper Down", "One Wing", "Bull Black Nova", "You And I", "You Never Know", "Country Disappeared", "Solitaire", "I'll Fight", "Sonny Feeling" and "Everlasting Everything". CD

One of the best CDs of gamelan music you could hope to find! While not as straightly ethnographic as some of the other gamelan CDs on the market, this selection of 9 tracks recorded in Bali is some of the most compelling work we've ever heard on the instrument. Engineer David Lewiston does an excellent job of addressing the key elements of different gamelan groupings, and he paces the record with an energy that really keeps things fresh – shifting moods at just the right moment, showing all the strong strands of playing that run through the Balinese gamelan sphere, which is often much harder edged than that of Java. The CD runs for quite a long time, and the music is otherworldly in a way we can't even describe! CD

A legendary set of recordings – a collection whose title may have aged a bit with the passage of time, but whose contents continue to sound as powerful today as when they were first captured by musicologist David Lewiston in the 70s! The album focuses on strands of music with deeper African roots – music that might not be the sort you'd usually expect to hear from Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador – as the sounds are spare and rootsy, and come across much more like ethnographic recordings from various West African regions in years past. Most numbers feature earthy percussion, vocals (often chanted), and some additional instrumentation – with a very timeless vibe, and a quality that's surprisingly consistent, especially given that the work was recorded in three different nations. Titles include "Capoeira", "Los Cholitos", "Salome", "Arullo San Antonio", "Candomble", "Currulao Cantado", and "Voy A Bando". LP, Vinyl record album

Field recordings by David Lewiston that feature regional folk and festival tunes from Southern Mexico. Tracks include "Son Alegre", "Son Sventa Cajvaltic", "El Chinito", "La Jota", and "Valse Chiapenecas". CD

A compilation of the Nonesuch Explorer series. It's split up into The Far East, which features "Ketjak", "Baris", "Frong Song", "Ketawang", "Echigojishi", and "Shrine Music"; India, which contains "Ni Ri Ni Ri Ga Ma", "Jogia", "Yaman", "Banturiti", and "Telisi Rama Chintanato"; Africa & The Americas, which contains "Me Voy A Belen", "Candomble", "Gumbukumbu", and "El Perro"; and Continental Europe, which includes "Krivo Horo", "Sto Limani Tou Piraea", "Ladarke", "Gaida Avasi", and "Sinoc M I Je Lane Mojo Dolazio Mile". LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

Includes pieces by Egberto Gismonti, Astor Piazzolla, and Villa-Lobos – plus the original compostion "Saga Dos Migrantes". CD

Features Don Byron on clarinet and bass clarinet, Lonnie Plaxico and Reggie Workman on bass, Pheeroan Aklaff and Ralph Peterson Jr on drums, Kenny Davis on electric bass, Bill Frisell on guitar, Richie Schwarz on marimba, Edsel Gomez and Joe Berkovitz on piano, Greta Buck on violin, and Sadiq as the poet. CD

One of those rare cases where an all-star group is really worth the weight of its talent – as this quartet really sounds wonderful together, and make you know that you're in for a treat right from the very first note in the set! The best energy of the record might come from the rhythmic conception of drummer Brian Blade, and maybe a bit of the spirit of bassist Christian McBride – because pianist Brad Mehldau and tenorist Joshua Redman come off with all these really inventive, creative elements – very much structured around a sense of rhythm, although one that's nicely complex at most moments – a less-familiar sort of swing, and we mean that in the best way possible. Titles include "Father", "Floppy Diss", "Your Part To Play", ":Moe HOnk", "Right Back Round Again", and "Undertow". LP, Vinyl record album

A beautiful larger form work from Steve Reich – one of his first great concept pieces, based on the poetry of William Carlos Williams! Reich works here with Michael Tilson Thomas, members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and additional singers as well. LP, Vinyl record album

One of those rare cases where an all-star group is really worth the weight of its talent – as this quartet really sounds wonderful together, and make you know that you're in for a treat right from the very first note in the set! The best energy of the record might come from the rhythmic conception of drummer Brian Blade, and maybe a bit of the spirit of bassist Christian McBride – because pianist Brad Mehldau and tenorist Joshua Redman come off with all these really inventive, creative elements – very much structured around a sense of rhythm, although one that's nicely complex at most moments – a less-familiar sort of swing, and we mean that in the best way possible. Titles include "Father", "Floppy Diss", "Your Part To Play", ":Moe HOnk", "Right Back Round Again", and "Undertow". CD

... CD

One of the most beautiful, personal albums we've ever heard from pianist Brad Mehldau – a set that gives away its concept right in the title – put together and performed during the month of April 2020 – surely one of the strangest on the planet in recent years! Mehldau mixes his own music with a few key tracks by others – choosing carefully, as he does with his notes on the solo piano – working with a mode that's surprisingly poetic, but also touched with some of the more melancholic moods that gripped so many of us during the initial moments of lockdown. The set's certainly not going to be alone in the world of Covid-19 creativity, but it's certainly one of the most beautiful – with titles that include "Uncertainty", "Remembering Before All This", "Keeping Distance", "Stepping Outside", "Yearning", "Waiting", and "In The Kitchen" – plus versions of "Don't Let It Bring You Down" and "New York State Of Mind". LP, Vinyl record album