The Complete Budokan 1978 captures some of Dylan's very first concert appearances in Japan and is an essential release for diehards, while an intriguing curio for the casual listener. Complete Budokan encompasses all of the material originally issued as a double LP in 1978, plus three dozen additional tracks. This lovingly remastered album, sourced from the original 24-channel multi-track analog tapes, sounds far crisper than the original release (especially the vocals). Released to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the original eight-show run at the infamous Budokan auditorium, we hear the entirety of two shows from February 28 and March 1, 1978. Bob Dylan is at a fascinating crossroads in his career here, and in fine voice. The album finds our hero in between the traveling circus that was the mid 1970s Rolling Thunder tour, and one year before his conversion to Christianity. Dylan shows us what a traditional American great he is, with a near-orchestral band and dramatically reworked takes on classic songs. Some of these arrangements are wonky, especially to modern ears. But they're always intriguingly put together, and intricately executed takes—the highlight being a knockdown, muscular "The Man in Me." It's clear from the start that this is not your grandpa's Dylan. Stirring leads on saxophone, mandolin, and fiddle deliver the vocal melodies to "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." "Shelter from the Storm" is given a halting, reggae-ish tempo, a positively E Street-worthy sax solo, and the delightful touches one would expect from the Dead. Other tunes stray closer to a Vegas revue. "I Threw It All Away" is transformed into a full-blown showtune, as the backing vocals take center stage. One wonders if a line of chorus dancers were onstage for this or the lilting, tango-esque take on "Love Minus Zero." There is occasional flute, notably on "Mr. Tambourine Man," which we weren't sure about at first, but by the third listen we were absolutely digging it, even as it takes the tune straight to Margaritaville. © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz

There's a narrative to the soundtrack for Bradley Cooper's 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, one that mirrors the one told in the movie. Often, the album features dialogue ripped from the screen -- a full 15 tracks, actually, amounting to seven minutes of this 74-minute album -- which means A Star Is Born almost plays like a Disney record from the '60s or '70s: it's designed to tide listeners over until they get a chance to see the movie again. Of course, A Star Is Born is a musical, so its soundtrack is filled with full-fledged songs, all of which serve the story that the dialogue gooses along. Strip out the distracting dialogue tracks and the plot of A Star Is Born is still evident, as the music moves from the grungy Americana of Cooper's character, through his affecting duets with Lady Gaga, toward her flashy pop, and then culminating with "I'll Never Love Again," the song where the two estranged lovers reunite. Each of these phases is expertly executed. Lukas Nelson assists Cooper in the rangy grunge of "Black Eyes," while Jason Isbell's spare "Maybe It's Time" is an affecting slice of Americana. The second stage, where Gaga is duetting with Cooper, fuses their sensibilities seamlessly, particularly on the aching ballad "Shallow" and loping country-rock of "Music to My Eyes," which was co-written by Nelson and Gaga. Her pop section plays like its own EP, and it's snappy, stylish, and savvy, particularly on the retro-disco of "Why Did You Do That?" and soulful "Heal Me." All the songs make sense narratively and on their own, so they hold together well and would amount to a first-rate soundtrack, if it weren't for those meddling dialogue tracks, which wind up sapping any kind of momentum for the album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Another fine Webster release on Verve that sees the tenor great once again backed by the deluxe Oscar Peterson Trio. In keeping with the high standard of their Soulville collaboration of two years prior, Webster and the trio -- Peterson is joined by bassist Ray Brown and drummer Ed Thigpen -- use this 1959 date to conduct a clinic in ballad playing. And while Soulville certainly ranks as one of the tenor saxophonist's best discs, the Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson set gets even higher marks for its almost transcendent marriage of after-hours elegance and effortless mid-tempo swing -- none of Webster's boogie-woogie piano work to break up the mood here. Besides reinvigorating such lithe strollers as "Bye Bye Blackbird" (nice bass work by Brown here) and "This Can't Be Love," Webster and company achieve classic status for their interpretation of the Sinatra gem "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." And to reassure Peterson fans worried about scant solo time for their hero, the pianist lays down a healthy number of extended runs, unobtrusively shadowing Webster's vaporous tone and supple phrasing along the way. Not only a definite first-disc choice for Webster newcomers, but one of the jazz legend's all-time great records.© Stephen Cook /TiVo

The second half of the 1970s was a prolific era for Bob Marley, at the peak of his glory days, during which he was releasing an album a year. After Rastaman Vibration in 1976, Exodus in 1977, the Jamaican artist released this Kaya in 1978, with tracks originating from the same session as Exodus, recorded during the first few months of his exile in London, in early 1977. The album is widely considered as his lightest, no doubt because of its theme, as Kaya means marijuana in Jamaican slang. The album starts off with Easy Skanking’s“Excuse me while I light my spliff”, as if Marley was totally at ease with the B-side nature of these songs. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the hit machines that were the Wailers, as this album features two of their discography’s biggest successes, Is This Love and Satisfy My Soul – certified double platinum in France and gold disc in the USA. Bob Marley also used these sessions to revisit his Lee Perry period, first with the title song Kaya, for which he wrote a chiselled version without Scratch’s wacky flamenco guitar, like a symbol of Island’s influence – some would say to the detriment of romanticism… –, while Sun Is Shining, more ethereal than its original, rose to new heights and spiciness with Junior Marvin’s electric guitar. On the B-side at the time, one could find She’s Gone, a song about an ousted lover, Crisis, which sounds like a spin-off born out of a rehearsal for Is This Love, or the “rastaman chant” Time Will Tell, cadenced by Nyabinghi drumming. The album ends in a deadpan way with Smile Jamaica, a title composed for its namesake concert on December 5th, 1976 at the National Heroes Park in Kingston, Jamaica, in which Bob Marley took part two days after being shot… © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

The Police never really broke up, they just stopped working together -- largely because they just couldn't stand playing together anymore and partially because Sting was itching to establish himself as a serious musician/songwriter on his own terms. Anxious to shed the mantle of pop star, he camped out at Eddy Grant's studio, picked up the guitar, and raided Wynton Marsalis' band for his new combo -- thereby instantly consigning his solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, to the critical shorthand of Sting's jazz record. Which is partially true (that's probably the best name for the meandering instrumental title track), but that gives the impression that this is really risky music, when he did, after all, rely on musicians who, at that stage, were revivalists just developing their own style, and then had them jam on mock-jazz grooves -- or, in the case of Branford Marsalis, layer soprano sax lines on top of pop songs. This, however, is just the beginning of the pretensions layered throughout The Dream of the Blue Turtles. Only twice does he delve into straightforward love songs -- the lovely measured "Consider Me Gone" and the mournful closer, "Fortress Around Your Heart" -- preferring to consider love in the abstract ("If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," one of his greatest solo singles, and the childish, faux-reggae singalong "Love Is the Seventh Wave"), write about children in war and in coal mines, revive a Police tune about heroin, ponder whether "Russians love their children too," and wander the streets of New Orleans as the vampire Lestat. This is a serious-minded album, but it's undercut by its very approach -- the glossy fusion that coats the entire album, the occasional grabs at worldbeat, and studious lyrics seem less pretentious largely because they're overshadowed by such bewilderingly showy moves as adapting Prokofiev for "Russians" and calling upon Anne Rice for inspiration. And that's the problem with the record: with every measure, every verse, Sting cries out for the respect of a composer, not a pop star, and it gets to be a little overwhelming when taken as a whole. As a handful of individual cuts -- "Fortress," "Consider Me Gone," "If You Love Somebody," "Children's Crusade" -- he proves that he's subtler and craftier than his peers, but only when he reins in his desire to show the class how much he's learned.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

It has been an uphill battle for the Odd Future’s great leader. He was once one of the rising stars of the underground rap scene only to be wiped out by a series of setbacks. Tyler came back with a bang, demonstrating his passion for beautiful orchestration on the excellent Flower Boy released in the summer of 2017. The Flowerboy revealed a diversified pallet of charged soul and R&B that was conscientious and terribly sensitive, already beginning to move away from the constraints of rap. Tyler favored detail over bursts of witty remarks like on Cherry Bomb. It was a divergent move that the Angelino had already taken with the erratic Goblin. While it follows Flower Boy musically in terms of melody (EARFQUAKE, A BOY IS A GUN), IGOR is unique and proves that if Tyler had stumbled upon obstacles in the past, it’s because his genius was badly contained rather than managed.While Flower Boy maintained the beautiful vestiges of the Goblin era, IGOR is a more radical departure. Do not be fooled, IGOR is not a rap album. No, IGOR blurs the lines between rap, electro, soul and R&B with a fantastic layering of synthesizers and tasteful samples (Head West, Bibi Mascel, Run DMC, Ponderosa Twins Plus One…). There is still significant influence from Pharrell Williams (I THINK) who can be found on the production of ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?. When it comes to lyrics, Tyler discusses a range of lost lovers further raising the question of his sexual ambiguity. IGOR features many of Tyler usual collaborators: Kali Uchis, King Krule, Frank Ocean, A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti. An absolute classic. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

With his sixth album, Gregory Porter excels once again in perfectly blending jazz, soul, rhythm'n'blues, pop and gospel. In addition to being blessed with a voice of pure velvet (so cliché, but so true), the Californian, who knows Great Black Music inside out, is also a real wordsmith. In these troubled times, Gregory Porter's music refreshes and rejuvenates, like on "Revival Song," a sort of neo-gospel hymn that ignites the soul and frees the body. This sense of wellbeing can also be felt when Porter puts on his crooner hat on "If Love Is Overrated" or when he channels his inner Marvin Gaye and George Benson on "Faith In Love." Brilliantly produced by Troy Miller (Laura Mvula, Jamie Cullum, Emili Sandé), All Rise propels the American singer towards greater global recognition, reaching audiences well outside the jazz sphere. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

Expanding on the concept of Songs for Young Lovers!, In the Wee Small Hours was a collection of ballads arranged by Nelson Riddle. The first 12" album recorded by Sinatra, Wee Small Hours was more focused and concentrated than his two earlier concept records. It's a blue, melancholy album, built around a spare rhythm section featuring a rhythm guitar, celesta, and Bill Miller's piano, with gently aching strings added every once and a while. Within that melancholy mood is one of Sinatra's most jazz-oriented performances -- he restructures the melody and Miller's playing is bold throughout the record. Where Songs for Young Lovers! emphasized the romantic aspects of the songs, Sinatra sounds like a lonely, broken man on In the Wee Small Hours. Beginning with the newly written title song, the singer goes through a series of standards that are lonely and desolate. In many ways, the album is a personal reflection of the heartbreak of his doomed love affair with actress Ava Gardner, and the standards that he sings form their own story when collected together. Sinatra's voice had deepened and worn to the point where his delivery seems ravished and heartfelt, as if he were living the songs.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

After bursting onto the scene in 2013 with the brilliant WomanChild, Cécile McLorin Salvant raised the bar two years later with For One To Love, an even more impressive and complete album on which her voice worked wonders, and the more traditional Dreams & Daggers, recorded live at the Village Vanguard and the DiMenna Center with her faithful trio, the Quatuor Catalyst and the pianist Sullivan Fortner. She chose only to work with the latter of the two for her 2018 vintage album titled The Window. Born on August 28th, 1989 in Miami, Florida, she studied French law, baroque and vocal jazz in Aix-en-Provence in France before winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010 (at only 20 years old, in front of a panel of judges made up of Al Jarreau, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Patti Austin, Dianne Reeves and Kurt Elling!). For this album she decided on a vocal-piano duet. A baptism of fire which further demonstrates her astounding vocal ability. It is an album that also focuses on the complex nature of love through covers of songs by Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein and even Stevie Wonder. This is further proof that Cécile McLorin Salvant is anything but the cliché of a jazz singer, as trumpeter Wynton Marsalis puts it: “ You get a singer like this once in a generation or two…” © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Acoustic Album N°8 is an album of acoustic covers of Katie Melua's 2020 album, Album N°8. Moving from a luxurious orchestration to a single instrument is not a problem for the Georgia-born Briton, who is as comfortable with the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra as she is alone with her guitar. The breadth of the symphony orchestra's strings form a kind of counterpoint to the often intimate and autobiographical character of the songs' lyrics. Here, everything flows: the simple and natural beauty of the acoustic guitar (sometimes enhanced by keyboards played by Mark Edwards) fits perfectly not only with the lyrics, but also with Melua's personality and her incomparably pure voice. The listener will be able to curl up to songs that evoke the end of a love affair (A Love Like That, Airtime) or Katie Melua's father's journey to the Caucasus (Leaving the Mountain). There is also a track co-written with Katie's brother Zurab (Maybe I Dreamt It). This tribute to choreographer Pina Bausch is accompanied here by the sober and sensitive contribution of the violinist Simon Goff. The latter also features in Remind Me To Forget. A pure and peaceful album, with the feel of an intimate concert. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

Way Out West is a jazz essential, certainly as indispensable as its cover created by William Claxton. For Sonny Rollins, the album is a conglomerate of firsts. Recorded on March 7, 1957 in Los Angeles, the album is the first collaboration of Rollins with two other musical giants: Ray Brown on the bass and Shelly Manne on drums. Also for the first time, Rollins has not invited a piano player to his band and has begun exploring new, powerful solos with a simple rhythm section. His tenor saxophone’s sound is amazing and Brown and Manne are hardly reduced to simple stooges. The trio is working as one, subtle in its conversations and improvisations and powerful when the rhythms get tougher. When Way Out West came out a few years before the launching of Coltrane’s revolution, Sonny Rollins was the undisputed god of the sax kingdom.

At 36 years old, the queen of the romantic, sophisticated ballad has released her 8th album, simply named Album no.8. While the title is minimal, the means in which the work was produced are far from it. Here, Katie Melua is joined by the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra. The collaboration is rather apt considering the British singer’s Georgian origins. The strings serve as a luxurious backdrop to these often-autobiographical songs which cover subjects from the end of a loving relationship (A Love Like That, Airtime), to a journey she took with her father in the Caucasus mountains (Leaving the Mountain). The orchestra is present on each of the tracks but by no means does it squander the delicacy of the songs. Especially when some soloists (sax, piano, guitar…) or even a funky and jazzy rhythmic section occasionally drop in to lighten up the proceedings (Voices in the night). Producer Leo Abrahams did the arrangements on the album which sometimes evoke the finesse of Nick Drake or the contemplative emotion of John Barry. We also find an homage to the choreographer Pina Buasch, cowritten with Zurab, Katie’s brother (Maybe I Dreamt It), a tender evocation of the singer’s childhood (Heading Home), and also the very seductive English Manner, the portrait of a love triangle, unveiling a more colourful aspect to Katie Melua’s art. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

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All Blues represents a return to roots of sorts for Peter Frampton. At the outset of his career, he was a hotshot six-string slinger, earning his stripes playing sheets of loud, gnarled guitar in Humble Pie, the band Steve Marriott formed after leaving the Small Faces. Frampton never lost his rep as a great guitarist and the blues was never far from his fingertips, but he also didn't devote a record to the blues the way he does on this 2019 album. It's possible Frampton intended the album to be part of a full-circle farewell: when he announced the album's release and its accompanying tour, he also announced that he has inclusion-body myositis, a degenerative autoimmune disease that weakens the muscles. Knowledge of Frampton's disease does lend All Blues a degree of poignancy; it's not intended as his final album -- at the time of its release, he had a collection of original material in the works -- yet it's hard not to think that it may not exist if Frampton didn't believe he should seize the day. That's precisely what he does on All Blues, an album that takes its name from the Miles Davis composition that kicks off the trumpeter's seminal 1959 album Kind of Blue. Frampton's choice to cover Davis suggests how he's willing to play within the margins of this album, adding hints of jazz and swing. Primarily, though, he's interested in delivering revved-up covers of blues standards, occasionally with the assistance of a friend: Sonny Landreth pops up on "The Thrill Is Gone," Steve Morse shows up on "Going Down Slow," while Kim Wilson plays on "I Just Want to Make Love to You." If Frampton doesn't take many chances with either the songs or arrangements -- this is straight-up classic British blues that leans heavily on the Chicago school -- there's still a palpable sense of passion and joy on All Blues, and that evident big, beating heart makes it worth a spin. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo