During the late '50s, Ella Fitzgerald continued her Song Book records with Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, releasing a series of albums featuring 59 songs written by George and Ira Gershwin. Those songs, plus alternate takes, were combined on a four-disc box set, Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, in 1998. These performances are easily among Fitzgerald's very best, and for any serious fan, this is the ideal place to acquire the recordings, since the sound and presentation are equally classy and impressive.© Leo Stanley /TiVo

During the late '50s, Ella Fitzgerald continued her Song Book records with Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, releasing a series of albums featuring 59 songs written by George and Ira Gershwin. Those songs, plus alternate takes, were combined on a four-disc box set, Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, in 1998. These performances are easily among Fitzgerald's very best, and for any serious fan, this is the ideal place to acquire the recordings, since the sound and presentation are equally classy and impressive. © Leo Stanley /TiVo

On the fourth volume in this eight-CD series, Tatum sounds at his best on "Ill Wind" and "The Man I Love." Taken from the 119 piano solos he cut for Norman Granz in four lengthy recording sessions during 1953-55, these performances are concise, relaxed, and surprisingly predictable, if virtuosic.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

In the year of his 90th birthday (which he would have celebrated on the 23rd of September 2020 had he not died in 2004), Ray Charles is honoured with a new 90-track compilation box set. Just another compilation like all the rest? Yes and no. Ray Charles is undoubtedly one of the most-compiled artists in the history of music. Published by Tangerine, the label that the musician set up at the end of the 50s to keep the rights to his songs, this box set starts out like all the others: with the post-Atlantic hits, Georgia On My Mind, Hit The Road Jack, One Mint Julep, Busted... These are timeless treasures of proto-soul, but there doesn't seem to be much novelty here. The rest is much more interesting, and much rarer: tracks recorded between the second half of the 1960s and the 2000s, many of which were only released on vinyl, never reissued on CD and until now unavailable on digital. This is the first time that Ray Charles' lesser-known years have been given the compilation treatment in this way, and it is a revelation. In the 90s and 2000s, the production of his songs had a synthetic feel, and they did not age too well. These rarer songs are often hidden gems of southern soul, flavoured with country and wrapped in sumptuous symphonic orchestrations. Whether he is singing the Muppets (It's Ain't Easy Being Green) or Gershwin (Summertime, a duet with Cleo Laine), Ray Charles is always deeply moving. Now, the dream is to hear reissues of all these albums in their entirety. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

Although Hucknall tries to resurrect soul in his own original songs, he's most successful at evoking the past, notably on Simply Red's second number one, a remake of the Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes classic "If You Don't Know Me by Now."© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

You've Got Mail is standard romantic comedy fare, for better or for worse -- composer George Fenton creates a lightweight score as self-consciously cute and saccharine as the film's co-star Meg Ryan, and while it's not exactly boring, it's by no means engaging, either. There's no doubting the consummate skill at work here, just as there's no mistaking the soullessness of the whole endeavor -- this is music as paint-by-numbers, as predictable as the sun's rise each morning and interchangeable with dozens of other breezy, soufflé-light evocations of modern love. Perhaps it's the ideal soundtrack for a lazy day curled up on the couch with a Danielle Steel novel and a cup of Taster's Choice, but otherwise its willful inoffensiveness is completely offensive.© Jason Ankeny /TiVo

Throughout history, being a witch has often meant little more than simply being a woman who was difficult to deal with. In modern Ghana, where the tradition is still strong, "witches" are typically village widows (whose husbands had valuable property before they died) or women suffering from mental or physical illness. Rather than being supported by their community, these women are excluded and pushed out—often violently—and their property seized. One should not mistake this ostracism for an unmodern belief system—it's sexism, opportunism, and oppression given a cloak of spiritual traditionalism. But it persists, and these women are often left with nowhere to go other than one of a half-dozen "witch camps'' located around the country. Though the Ghanian government is attempting to close them, they provide, at the very least, safety and shelter, but not much else. In an effort to highlight the injustice inherent in their sheer existence, ethnomusicologist Ian Brennan went into several witch camps and recorded the "instant compositions'' of their residents. Singing—or chanting in some cases—in local dialects and using instrumentation at hand, these 22 short recordings are emotional documentation, rather than the capturing of some folkloric traditions. The anguish, disorientation, and spiritual resilience of these women is apparent throughout, whether on a pensive melody like "Left to Live Life," or the discordant blend of vocal tics and electronic-y distortion on "I Have Lost All That I Love." On "Witch Song," multiple voices, textures, and a driving, percussive arrangement combine for a piece that is largely unintelligible to English-speaking ears, yet completely relatable. The unrehearsed and unpolished nature of the performances (only one of the singers had ever sung by themselves before) and the seemingly improvised nature of the compositions (using everything from a deflated balloon to a tea pot for instrumentation) makes a casual listening session impossible; the insistent and heartfelt nature of the material combines with a dynamic and bracing recording technique to demand your attention. And, as with Brennan's previous work with the Zomba Prison Project, your attention is necessary. By shining a spotlight on oppression using music, it becomes much harder to look away. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz