In celebration of their 40 th anniversary, The Cure didn’t just hire out a little pub in their hometown of Crawley, Sussex – they hired out the whole of Hyde Park instead! What an epic location for an epic group. The recording of this concert on July 7, 2018 in London in front of a crowd of 65,000 people is a reminder that the style, sound, creativity, song- writing and atmosphere that Robert Smith and his gang bring to the table is like no other. With his mascara, lipstick and static hair-do, the lead singer of The Cure has never sung so well despite being only a few months off his 60 th birthday here. The concert journeys through four decades of hits (which are sometimes cold wave but are mostly pop) and you can really appreciate the breadth of their work, along with all those melodies that you recognise subconsciously and Robert Smith’s ability to just get on with it. Joined onstage by his long-time partner in crime Simon Gallup (bass), as well as Reeves Gabrels (guitar), Roger O’Donnell (keyboards) and Jason Cooper (drums), he sings some beautiful versions of Pictures of You, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, A Forest, Disintegration, Lullaby, The Caterpillar, Friday I’m in Love, Close to Me, Boys Don’t Cry, 10:15 Saturday Night and Killing an Arab. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, is back with his anticipated fourth album After Hours, an intoxicating R&B record that feels like a natural progression from its predecessors. After 2016’s Starboy and the EP My Dear Melancholy 2 years later, the chart-topping singer made his acting debut in the Netflix thriller Uncut Gems alongside Adam Sandler. This may have been behind the inspiration for this new character the singer portrays with a broken nose, leather gloves and deep red tux in the album cover and the music video for lead single Blinding Lights, reminiscent of A-Ha’s Take On Me, the new wave from the 1980s and its synthwave revival. “I don’t like to leave my house too much. It’s a gift and a curse but it helps me give undivided attention to my work… It distracts from the loneliness, I guess”, confesses the Canadian. Unlike Starboy, there are no features on this album, The Weeknd choosing instead to invite a range of top tier producers to refine the music: Metro Boomin on the epilogue Until I Bleed Out, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker on Repeat After Me (Interlude), the loyal Illangelo, vaporwave pioneer Oneohtrix Point Never for Scared to Live and even hitmaker Max Martin (Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Britney Spears) for the pop-sounding Save Your Tears, resulting in 14 tracks that blend soul, R&B and new wave nuances. ©️ Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

After selling out the Parisian jazz clubs on Rue des Lombards by word of mouth alone, Gabi Hartmann has stepped into the spotlight in recent years by opening for famous artists such as Jamie Cullum and Melody Gardot. She has now released her first album, which should consolidate her reputation as a young artist as it combines fresh inspiration with technical skill. Conceived in close collaboration with Jesse Harris (a New York guitarist, songwriter and producer renowned for his work with Norah Jones, Melody Gardot and Madeleine Peyroux), this signature album gives Gabi Hartmann the opportunity to lay the foundations of her own artistic path and make every facet of it shimmer by exploring highly refined nuances. Gabi is a singer, composer, lyricist and arranger who can effortlessly switch from English to French (there’s even a Portuguese interlude!). Here, she offers a tempting glimpse into a halftone world that’s cottony by design, taking inspiration from contemporary cool (post)jazz (‘Buzzing Bee’) as well as sophisticated and timeless songs (‘Une Errante sur la terre’, ‘Mille Rivages’). She regularly flirts with a subtly deterritorialised Americana (‘I’ll Tell You Something, Baby’) and ‘exotic’ colours and rhythms (as heard on the magnificent cover of the West Indian classic ‘Maladie d’amour’). With her vibrant voice, warm, bright tone and slightly nonchalant phrasing, the French singer dives into subtle orchestrations that combine light choirs, laid-back rhythms, and the distant echoes of retro clarinets, ethnic flutes (the Sudanese Gandhi Adam) and bluesy guitars (Julian Lage and Abdoulaye Kouyaté). Gabi takes the listener on a journey through dreamland with this release. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

A bassist vital to the US jazz scene since the 90’s – partner of choice for musicians as notable as Joe Henderson, Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, and Pat Metheny – Christian McBride, alongside his frequent work as a sideman (on over 300 records to date), leads a rich career as a frontman, expanding upon his orchestral formations (from trios to big band) in varying registers. He encompasses a large palette of styles that are always deeply anchored in the foundations of traditional African-American jazz. This new record conceived and recorded in partnership with another bass virtuoso, Edgar Meyer, himself exploring other idioms and imagining other landscapes (from bluegrass to “crossover” classical), indisputably introduces a new perspective to the bassist’s rich discography.Intended to feel like a conversation between friends, each speaking in a relaxed, playful tone, offering support through active listening in order for each to be able to “play their own melody” with full peace and security of mind, But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody? sounds like a charming and timeless departure into a world entirely dedicated to the bass. Applying their great virtuosity towards each melody, without ever veering into competitive territory, the two musicians, with an irresistibly natural sense of groove, never cease to seduce the listener through a repertoire that draws not only from jazz, but also from folk, classical music, bluegrass, and funk, making room for the kind of collective memory that goes beyond styles and generations. An album with no pretense other than the pure pleasure of playing music – authentically all-encompassing in the best possible way. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz

The superb French/Ivory Coast drummer Manu Katche, long a backing force on many ECM sessions, steps out on his own for the first time on this label and comes up with a gem -- with a little help from some of the ECM stars. Indeed, "Neighbourhood" is a very appropriate title, for there are several interlocking orbits of personnel within this album. For a start, the CD marks another collaboration between trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and saxophonist Jan Garbarek, the latter whom Katche has been backing on and off since the early '90s. Moreover Stanko brought along part of his Polish rhythm team, pianist Marcin Wasilewski and bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz, for the session. Michel Petrucciani is clearly on Katche's mind, for not only is the album dedicated to the late pianist, the reflective, ardently lyrical mood of Katche's compositions -- and Wasilewski's piano work -- are quite reminiscent of Petrucciani at his most relaxed. And Katche can write; his tunes are often wistful and thoughtful, his percussive backing crisp yet subtle, carefully filling in the cracks while keeping just enough of a gentle pulse. The best of the lot, the simple angular tune of "Good Influence," grabs you by the throat, tugs at your heart, and doesn't quit the memory -- sure signs of greatness. By contrast, "Lovely Walk" kicks up the tempo behind an ostinato bass while "Take Off and Land" brings in a touch of fatback funk. If there is a single wellspring behind this music -- besides Petrucciani of course -- Herbie Hancock's acoustic combo recordings of the late '60s come closest in terms of ambience and harmony. Call this album an inspired descendant two generations and an ocean away.© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo

Berg, Schoenberg, Bartók, Stravinsky... Isabelle Faust has a formidable track record in acclaimed recordings of the major twentieth century violin concertos, and now she’s partnered with Jakub Hrůša and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra to bring us the Britten. Composed for the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa between 1938 and 1939, this is a work the 24 year old composer began just before leaving Europe for the States, and completed the following year in New York. Brosa then premiered it in 1940, at Carnegie Hall. Faust’s recording is a live one, captured in 2021 at the Munich Isarphilharmonie, after which the second half of her programme sees her enter the studio with her time-honoured duo partner, pianist Alexander Melnikov, for a chamber programme presenting the two other works Britten wrote for Brosa just before the concerto: Reveille, premiered in 1937 at London’s Wigmore Hall, over which the violin line’s gradual awakening is apparently Britten’s fond joke over the time it took Brosa to get out of bed in the morning; then the four-movement Suite which the two friends premiered in Barcelona the previous year, just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Incredibly, this appears to be the first time that an artist has put the three Britten-Brosa works together on the same recording, unless you count compendiums. But the sense of freshness doesn’t even stop there, because Faust and Melnikov then conclude the album by joining with Faust’s violist brother, Boris Faust, for the world premiere recording of Britten’s Two Pieces for violin, viola and piano, written in 1929 just after his sixteenth birthday, but not published until 2013.Faust and Hrůša leave no emotional stone unturned over this broadly conceived, meticulously shaped and detailed concerto reading. And it verily prickles, end to end, with energy both latent and full-throttle, intellectual and physical.When the American composer Elliott Carter reviewed the Violin Concerto’s premiere, he sensed an autobiographical element – pacifist Britten’s personal response to the politics and war in Europe. You very much get that feeling here. The Vivace is a true dance of death – listen to the orchestra’s deadly, Dies irae-esque snap and swing onwards from 1’45”, and the quavering wail of Faust’s response. The hall and capturing make their own eerie contributions to the drama too, notably around 3’30” as the piccolos bleed into the air high above the tuba; followed by the mighty orchestral climax into Faust’s fabulously paced and coloured cadenza.Equally audible is Britten’s homage to Brosa’s Spanish heritage, beginning with the dancing lilt and sun-flecked radiance with which the orchestra, then Faust, handles the concerto’s very opening motif; and then how perfect for the first chamber work to be Reveille, with its own, now more peaceful, Spanish lilt, Faust’s lithely winding, improvisatory-feeling, pizzicato-peppered long lines representing a feast of tones and timbres, flitting between husky and silvery, to poetic support from Melnikov. For an especially supreme piece of duo work, head to the Suite’s concluding Waltz, with its drama-rich succession of deftly handled contrasting moods, textures, tempi and metres. Then with the Two Pieces we have two different brands of lucid, watery beauty, played out via tightly intertwined dialogue, pleasures including the way the Faust siblings match tones one moment, and contrast the next. Honestly, what a cracker of a recording. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

Those who come from Louisiana always have a good ear for music. Always! Soul, blues, zydeco, rock, jazz, R&B, funk, pop or country, no one native to the New Orleans area worries about labels or genres. There is only good music and bad music. Period. Brittany Guerin, known as Britti, is the latest proof of this. Born in Baton Rouge, the singer, discovered by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, masters every style that resounds within the unique groove of the American South. And as Britti dresses her songs in a certain classicism, she is often reminiscent of classic soul singers that have come before her. Hints of her idols Diana Ross (“Save Me”) and Dolly Parton (“Keep Running”), as well as Norah Jones, Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse (albeit less dreamy) can be heard on her debut album Hello, I’m Britti., a title that clearly references Dolly Parton’s first album from 1967, Hello, I’m Dolly… But even though the influence is apparent, it never limits Britti’s own inspiration, style or personality. An expert in 20th-century equipment and vintage sounds, Auerbach brings the perfect production, with just the right amount of sepia. He was clearly the one who assembled a team of studio legends around the singer, including bassist Nick Movshon (Amy Winehouse, Wu Tang Clan and a whole selection of albums for the label Daptone), guitarist Tom Bukovac (Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks), and Mike Rojas (Ricky Skaggs, Yola, Miranda Lambert), a wizard on the keys. Supported by this glittering cast,  Hello, I’m Britti. navigates soul vignettes, country pop interludes and R&B daydreams with immense ease and a certain class. Building a solid bridge between New Orleans and Nashville, this Qobuzissime has already declared itself one of the great albums of 2024. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Fifteen years on from Changing Places, his first album for the label ECM, Tord Gustavsen is once again offering up an album performed with a trio, which seems to be the line-up most in keeping with his jarrettian tendencies. With his trusty drummer Jarle Vespestad and Sigurd Hole on double bass (replacing Harald Johnsen who passed away in 2011), the Oslo pianist mixes original compositions with Norwegian folk standards and even pieces by Bach. He ties together these apparently disparate themes with lyricism, and with a groove that's all his own. What makes The Other Side even more thrilling is the perfect unison between the players. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

Tom Waits' debut album is a minor-key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness. Within his chosen narrow range of the cocktail bar pianistics and muttered vocals, Waits and producer Jerry Yester manage to deliver a surprisingly broad collection of styles, from the jazzy "Virginia Avenue" to the uptempo off-kilter funkiness of "Ice Cream Man." The acoustic guitar folkiness of the tender "I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love with You" is an upside-down take on the Laurel Canyon sound, while the saloon song "Midnight Lullaby" would have been a perfect addition to the repertoires of Frank Sinatra and/or Tony Bennett. Waits' entire musical approach is highly stylized and, in its lesser moments, somewhat derivative of some of his own heroes: "Lonely" borrows from Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." His lovelorn lyrics can be sentimental without penetrating too deeply, but they still get the job done since these are song portraits in miniature. The frameworks of most of the songs come from the songwriter's literary obsessions with Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac. Waits also has a gift for gentle, rolling pop melodies; his original scenarios are strikingly visual on the best songs, such as "Martha" -- which Yester discreetly augments with strings -- and the now iconic "Ol' 55." Waits' original version is far superior in conveying the early-morning emotions after leaving a lover's room to the Eagles' hooky hit cover -- which ultimately guaranteed Waits an income for life. Closing Time quietly announces the arrival of a talented songwriter whose self-consciousness, wry barroom humor, and solitary melancholy made him a standout from virtually all of his peers, and difficult to pigeonhole.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

**Tracks 9 and 12 are only available in 16-bit (CD quality).**At first glance, Rod Stewart and Jools Holland collaborating on a swing album might be a head-scratcher. Dig a little deeper, however, and the pairing makes perfect sense. Although Stewart made his name in the rock 'n' roll world, he has released five albums of pop standards culled from the Great American Songbook. Holland, meanwhile, also has sterling rock 'n' roll pedigree—among other things, he was a founding member of Squeeze—but the pianist has a long history with big band music, having formed Jools Holland's Rhythm & Blues Orchestra back in the late 1980s.Swing Fever grew out of idle conversation the men had in recent years. Stewart had started work on a swing album but was dissatisfied with the results, noting they sounded more like Frank Sinatra than Louis Prima. However, he thought Holland could help him realize this very specific vision—an astute thought, as the inspired collection overflows with sizzling horns, upbeat grooves, crisp walking bass lines, and luxurious arrangements. The debonair opening track "Lullaby of Broadway" alone features a lush backing chorus of female vocalists, a tap dancing interlude and a twinkling piano solo. From there, Swing Fever unfurls hit after hit that shows off the nuances of swing's many moods—a laid-back "Sentimental Journey," a snappy take on "Pennies from Heaven," the jazzy "Almost Like Being in Love," a Rat Pack-conjuring "Frankie and Johnny." A muscular take on the jump blues tune "Good Rockin' Tonight" serves as a link between Stewart's rock background and love of the classics, while their version of Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin'" is an appropriately brassy, theatrical big band number. Vocally, Stewart exudes exuberance throughout, courtesy of raspy razzle-dazzle full of sparkling wit and passion. Holland is likewise a generous bandleader who encourages his instrumentalists to let loose, while his trademark boogie-woogie piano is uniformly crisper and livelier. Swing Fever is a lighthearted delight that demonstrates the chemistry between the two musicians—and points to yet another successful evolution for Stewart. © Annie Zaleski/Qobuz

This is Motian's debut as a leader. It includes ambitious cuts with guitarist Sam Brown and also features pianist Keith Jarrett.© Ron Wynn /TiVo

Hagar's Song is a deeply intimate, intuitive offering from saxophonist Charles Lloyd and pianist Jason Moran, who has been a key part of Lloyd's quartet since 2007. The program is a collection of standards and originals, as well as one thorny, angular free improvisation ("Pictogram"). The title piece is a five-part suite dedicated to the memory of Lloyd's great-great grandmother, who spent most of her life as a slave. Its various sections reflect the harshness of that life, as well as moments of hope and determination. This work is not always "comfortable" to listen to, and it's not meant to be, but it is musically rich and emotionally taut. Lloyd has always celebrated his deep love of jazz and pop traditions, and those are in abundance here. The near-symbiotic dialogue the pair share on Billy Strayhorn's "Pretty Girl" and George Gershwin's "Bess You Is My Woman Now" offers both dialogic imagination as well as deep listening. (On the latter, Lloyd reveals how supple his tonal reach remains on the tenor as he nears 75; he sweeps from its middle register to something closer to the alto's.) The swinging read of "Mood Indigo" commences conventionally, but Moran's deft, blues-drenched, physical stride lends an urgency to the conversation. Likewise his punchy approach on Earl Hines' "Rosetta," where Lloyd takes the melody and opens up its joy vein, while Moran pumps it with rhythmic and lyric invention courtesy of his amazing left hand. Lloyd's love of rock and pop has its place here, too. On Bob Dylan's ballad "I Shall Be Released," Moran begins with a single repeating note, then a lone chord, as Lloyd tentatively states the melody. But by the second verse, he's quoting from Leon Russell's "A Song for You," as Moran moves its harmonic base to the modal. Lloyd brings it back via an emotional blues, but his tenor moves through its registers picking bits and pieces of the lyric line to meditate upon and explore with Moran. The closer, a reading of Brian Wilson's "God Only Knows" is just gorgeous. Moran's elaboration on the harmony in the intro sets it up outside its known parameters. Lloyd quotes the refrain and then takes the lyric line, exploring time and memory -- Lloyd ran around with the Beach Boys in Southern California in the late '60s. Satisfied, he turns it over to Moran to finish with a close, tender harmonic statement that whispers to a finish. Hagar's Song finds Lloyd and Moran at their most naturally curious and deeply attentive best, offering a conversation so intimate the listener may occasionally feel she is eavesdropping.© Thom Jurek /TiVo