Always tied to a confusing time line, the first released recording from the original configuration of Return to Forever was actually their second session. An initial studio date from the ECM label done in February of 1972 wasn't issued until after the band had changed in 1975. The Polydor/Verve recording from October of 1972 is indeed this 1973 release, featuring the same band with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Airto Moreira, Joe Farrell, and Flora Purim. There's no need splitting hairs, as both are five-star albums, showcasing many of the keyboardist's long enduring, immediately recognizable, and highly melodic compositions. Farrell's happy flute, Purim's in-the-clouds wordless vocals, the electrifying percussion of Airto, and Clarke's deft and loping electric bass guitar lines are all wrapped in a stew of Brazilian samba and Corea's Fender Rhodes electric piano, certainly setting a tone and the highest bar for the music of peer groups to follow. "Captain Marvel" -- the seed for the band sans Farrell and Purim that was expanded into a full concept album with Stan Getz -- is here as a steamy fusion samba with Corea dancing on the keys. By now the beautiful "500 Miles High" has become Purim's signature song with Neville Potter's lyrics and Corea's stabbing chords, and unfortunately became a hippie drug anthem. Perhaps Corea's definitive song of all time, and covered ad infinitum by professional and school bands, "Spain" retains the quirky melody, handclapped interlude, up-and-down dynamics, exciting jam section, and variation in time, tempo, and colorations that always command interest despite a running time of near ten minutes. "You're Everything" is a romantic classic that surely has been heard at many weddings, with another lyric by Potter sung in heaven by Purim, while the title track is Purim's lyric in a looser musical framework with Clarke's chart coalescing with Corea and Farrell's pungent flute work. As much as the others have become icons, the extraordinary sound of Farrell on this date should never be trivialized or underestimated. The final track, "Children's Song," was a springboard for several of Corea's full-length album projects, and is heard here for the first time via a trio setting in a slow, birthlike motif. The expanded version of this recording includes many alternate takes of four of these selections, but also includes "Matrix," which was not on any RTF albums, and there are four versions of "What Game Shall We Play Today?," which was only available on the ECM release. From a historical perspective, this is the most important effort of Corea's career, quite different than his prior previous progressive or improvising efforts, and the pivotal beginning of his career as the most popular contemporary jazz keyboardist in history.© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo

In 2013, Chick Corea teamed up with a couple of gold-standard rhythmists - Christian McBride on the double bass and Brian Blade on drums - with whom he recorded Trilogy, a brilliant live album which saw him blend his own repertoire with classic standards by Thelonious Monk, Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein, Kurt Weil, Irving Berlin & co. Just as the title indicates, Trilogy 2 repeats the exercise: same cast, same idea, same great result. Of course, the relationship between the three of them has been consolidated over the years. And while Corea’s piano remains one of the best of his generation, it’s the McBride/Blade tandem that really shines as a creative stroke of genius. The accuracy of their interventions and punctuations are staggering, never off-kilter and never over the top. Finally, the repertoire is a touch more original than on the previous Trilogy, with Steve Swallow’s Eiderdown, Monk’s Crepuscule with Nellie, 500 Miles High by Return to Forever, Lotus Blossom by Billy Strayhorn as well as Pastime Paradise by Stevie Wonder. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

For fans of a group who built their reputation on "Sweetness and Light" and "Starlust," the opening moments of Lush's third album were a shock. The brisk, forward clarity of "Ladykillers"—from the thick, snapping drum tone to the burly, aggressive precision of the guitars, not to mention the intelligible feminist lyrics—were far from the reverb-drenched shoegaze textures of the band's previous records. That clarity persists throughout most of Lovelife, both lyrically and sonically, so immediately, the album's narrative became "Lush goes Britpop" (after all, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker showed up to sing a duet with Miki Berenyi on "Ciao!"). The world had turned since the halcyon days of "the scene that celebrates itself," and effects-drenched guitars and ethereal vocals had been supplanted in the British popular consciousness by lads who swore by their Rickenbackers and at least three Kinks albums. But, fun fact: Lush had always been a "Britpop" band, all the way back to the caffeinated rush of their spiky debut EP. (Berenyi had been playing a Rickenbacker the whole time, too!) For Lush, Lovelife was more a return to form than a capitulation to style. To be sure, the crystalline sonic approach taken by the band and producer Pete Bartlett gives Lovelife a sound that's quite distinct from the whoosh-and-swoosh of Spooky or the miasmic Split, but whether it's the thick harmonies and gentle textures of "Papasan" or the wall of guitars on "Heavenly Nobodies" or even the tra-la-las of a song that is called "Tralala," there's no mistaking that this is a Lush album. Although the sugar-rush confection of "Single Girl" seems a bit of an outlier, it's still a maddeningly catchy number that provided the album a much-needed boost on the charts and has held up incredibly well over the years; it's also only slightly less infectious than the razor-sharp "Childcatcher." Darker numbers like "Olympia" and "I've Been Here Before" provide dynamic contrast, while the dubby "Last Night" reads like a Split outtake. In total, it's an album that's far more diverse than its reputation would lead one to believe, and is an excellent summation of the band's strengths. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

This beautifully packaged album consists of seasonal songs and music from around France and is Malicorne's most consistently excellent album.© Steve Winick /TiVo

Casual buyers and browsers should note that the vocal works on this album, accompanied by orchestra, are not the original works of Debussy. They were made in 2012 by composer Robin Holloway at the request of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. They were performed at that time by Renée Fleming but have not been recorded until now. The settings are unorthodox and never boring, and they will probably strike different listeners in different ways. Holloway reorders the songs, believing that they were not intended as a sequenced set (probably debatable), inserts some of the composer's Verlaine settings in the new ordering, adds transitions between most of them, and tacks on a high-powered epilogue of his own. The end result, perhaps, is Debussy for the 21st century, amped up and intense, with hidden psychological themes and ideas wrung out and brought to the fore by the orchestration. There will be little disagreement, however, about two of the main attractions: soprano Vannina Santoni is a talented newcomer from whom one wants to hear more, and Mikko Franck, heard at the end in La Mer, is an excellent Debussy conductor; his rendition of this well-trodden work is full of detail and entirely absorbing. Santoni has a big voice that stands up to these orchestrations, and Alpha's sound from the Radio France auditorium keeps everything in balance. Nothing if not an intriguing Debussy release. © James Manheim /TiVo

This recording is a manifesto: modernism, culture, temporality, style, improvisation are all concepts with which Joël Grare plays, like a juggler. At a time of globalisation, of standardisation of cultures, this disc lets us hear the vision of the world of one man, at one given time. The Paris-Istambul-Shanghaï Ensemble (Chinese violin, theorbo, bass and percussions) forms the musical base of this invitation to travel. The guests, such as Claire Lefilliâtre, contribute their personnality by taking up the learned or popular themes. This "group", somewhere between a chamber music ensemble and a traditional one, plays standards like Jazzmen. Their standards? Magnificent themes stemming from Spain, Turkey, China, ancient music...Analysing these melodies well beyond their borders, thoroughly enjoying them to interpret them better, improvising, composing, whether or not in the style of their country or their period, following his mood, the taste of tea, the moment; welcome to the world of Joël Grare.

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After the dark and chilling themes of 2006's Black Cadillac, which saw Rosanne Cash dealing with the deaths of her mother, Vivian Liberto, her father, Johnny Cash, and her stepmother, June Carter Cash -- all of whom passed within a two-year span -- one might assume that her next project would move into an even deeper level of bleakness, but with The List, it's immediately clear that she has instead found a more measured place to stand, and it's a lovely and redemptive outing that looks back to go forward. When Cash turned 18, her father, alarmed that his daughter only knew the songs that were getting played on the radio, gave her a list of what he considered 100 essential American songs; Cash kept that list, and now she's drawn on it for this wonderfully nuanced outing that brims with a kind of redemptive timelessness. The List is a renewal and a testament to life, and it belongs to her father as much as it belongs to her, a beautiful restatement of her father's passions, only now, they've become his daughter's treasures, as well. It's an affirming story, but that's all it would be if Cash didn't sing her heart out here. And she does sing her heart out. The opener, a version of Jimmie Rodgers' "Miss the Mississippi and You," is full of comfortable grace and sentiment, and Cash keeps that fine emotional tone throughout this set. Songs like the folk classic "500 Miles" feel at once both lovingly rendered and reborn for a new century in Cash's hands, and she doesn't update them so much as find redemption and solace in them, which in turn gives these songs a bright relevance, and because of the connection to her father and the list he gave to her, it also feels like a deep personal statement. There's so much to take comfort in here, including her fine rendering of Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country," a nice turn at Harlan Howard's "Heartaches by the Number" (which features Elvis Costello), a calm but still spooky duet with Jeff Tweedy on the faux-murder ballad "Long Black Veil," and a duet with Bruce Springsteen on Hal David and Paul Hampton's "Sea of Heartbreak." Cash sings with a calm, measured authority, and all these the songs fit together with the same sort of refreshing resignation and care. Contemporary country radio probably won't touch anything here, since country these days seems to be more about name-checking than any actual preservation, but Cash is after something else again -- it's about connecting with the past and carrying it forward as an act of personal faith. It has nothing to do with hats or belt buckles.© Steve Leggett /TiVo

Galaxie 500's debut doesn't merely live up to the sweet promise of the band's debut single "Tugboat," Today's final song, but almost without trying becomes its own gently powerful touchstone. While the influences are clear -- third album Velvet Underground, early non-dance New Order, psychedelic haze and fuzz thanks to the reverb Kramer piled on as producer -- the resulting brew easily stands on its own. By never feeling the need to conventionally rock out, the Krukowski/Yang rhythm section comes up with its own brand of intensity. Sometimes the two are persistently skipping along without Krukowski having to bash the hell out of the drums (the downright delightful "Oblivious" is a good example), other times they simply play it soft and slow. Meanwhile, Wareham's low-key chiming and slightly lost, forlorn singing, at places wry and whimsical, often achingly sad, forms the perfect counterpoint to the songs' paces, feeling like a gauzy dream. When he comes up with his own brand of electric guitar heroics, it's very much in the Lou Reed and such descendants vein of less being more, setting the moods via strumming and understated but strong soloing. One particular Descendant gets honored with a cover version: Jonathan Richman, whose "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste" is turned into a deceptively calm epic, with marvelous playing by all three members. It's easier to lose oneself in the flow of the sound rather than worry about any deep meaning, making the stronger images that come to the fore all that more entertaining, like "watching all the people fall to pieces" in "Parking Lot." "Tugboat" itself, meanwhile, remains as wonderful as ever, a cascading confession of love at the expense of everything else, somehow mournful and triumphant all at once. Later CD versions included the "Tugboat" B-side, "King of Spain."© Ned Raggett /TiVo

To get it right in music, you sometimes have to go fast and hard. Or, to put it in the words of La Femme: you've got to "foutre le bordel" [fuck shit up]. In line with their first two albums (the highly acclaimed Psycho Tropical Berlin in 2013 and Mystère in 2016), this iconic group of 2010s French pop has once again chosen a totally extravagant musical melting pot. One of the most representative tracks of this unclassifiable artwork is undoubtedly Disconnexion, with its frantic banjo, alongside a singer/extraterrestrial, accompanied by shrill, arch synths, somewhere between Jacno and video game music. As for Foutre le bordel, it is imbued with a punk spirit reminiscent of the halcyon days of The Clash (but also, why not, Plastic Bertrand). On the other tracks, we come across a mix of rap, Sixties rock, and even winks to the Velvet Underground. La Femme's hallmark is also melodies that are both heady and naive (cf. Le Jardin), sung in turn by male and female performers. Among the latter, we note the presence of Clara Luciani, who, remember, made her début on the first La Femme album. Just like Alma Jodorowski and Ariane Gaudeaux, Clara Luciani happily joins the undisputed pillar of the group, made up of the Basques Marlon Magnée and Sacha Got. As a counterpoint to this swirling "salad", La Femme concludes with a more zen track, bathed in ultra-reverberant instruments, as if in a tunnel leading hopefully to a more beautiful and serene world (Tu t'en lasses). © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

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