John Cage's admiration for the music of Erik Satie is well known; Cage organized a Satie festival early in his career, and even casual listeners will detect a spirit of experimentation and a certain irreverence common to the two. Perhaps no one has explored the relationship in greater detail than pianist Bertrand Chamayou on this 2023 release, which hit classical best-seller lists in the autumn of that year. There are several real finds here. One is a rare Cage piece, All Sides of the Small Stone, that was actually dedicated to Satie's memory, and another is a work by Satie specialist James Tenney, Three Pages in the Shape of a Pear (In Celebration of Erik Satie), which suggests lines along which this compositional axis might be extended. In the main body of the program, Chamayou balances Satie and Cage nicely, picking some Cage works that sound quite a bit like Satie and tying the development of the prepared piano closely to these. This is a fresh interpretation. The overall effect has both charm and humor, qualities that aren't always associated with Cage. However, after hearing this album, listeners will feel that maybe they should be. Chamayou has, up to now, been better known for mainstream French and German repertory, but this release reveals him as a talented interpreter of 20th century music as well.© James Manheim /TiVo

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

Pioneer and figurehead of the new London jazz scene, Shabaka Hutchings is the inspiration and catalyst behind a large number of groups and collectives that mix genres and styles with great artistic freedom (Sons of Kemet, Shabaka and the Ancestors, The Comet is Coming). Now he’s back with an intimate record that’s as simple in its composition as it is powerful in its poetic and spiritual dimensions. Abandoning his saxophone in favour of the flute, clarinet and the shakuhaschi (a traditional Japanese flute with an ethereal sound), Shabaka—whether playing solo or in a duet (accompanied by Alina Bzhezhinska on harp, Kadialy Kouyate on Kora, Dave Okumu on guitar or Kwake Bass on the drum machine, depending on the track)—makes the most of all the technical possibilities offered by the studio to produce eight finely tuned tracks that take the listener on a deeply syncretic and dreamlike journey. His beautiful playing coupled with his intentionally simple, minimalistic songs and clear melodies is magical, each track seamlessly linking to the next and expressing traditions and sounds from all around the globe. Enchanting, soothing, fraternal: it’s hard not to think of the libertarian world music of Don Cherry when you listen to this sincere and harmonious album. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz 

In 2000, the European label DC Recordings reissued on CD the soundtrack from the cult sci-fi animated film La Planète Sauvage (released in English as The Fantastic Planet). The René Laloux film, which won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973, was supported by a soundtrack by Alain Goraguer, mostly known for his work as Serge Gainsbourg's arranger. Goraguer's music consists of 25 short vignettes. Each is a contextualized adaptation of one of three main musical themes. The main theme is very reminiscent of Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother Suite" (same half-time tempo, mellotron, harpsichord, and wah-wah guitar), and the other two are a ballad and a circus-like waltz. The music is very '70s-clichéd and will appeal to fans of French and Italian '70s soundtrack stylings. Although repetitive, the album itself creates an interesting marijuana-induced sci-fi floating mood, blending psychedelia, jazz, and funk (the album has been sampled by a few hip-hop artists). The 16-page booklet includes stills from the film, a description of the plot, and biographical notes on the composer, the director, and the illustrator, all in English -- but, alas, no musicians' credits. DC Recordings reissued the album on both CD and LP, the latter version also including a poster.© François Couture /TiVo

As Mehldau explains in his liner note for the album, "Although it totals around 300 minutes, the order of songs is not arbitrary, and I have tried to tell a story from beginning to end in the way I've sequenced it." He continues, "There is a theme and character given to each four-side set."Of the Dark/Light theme, he says, "In concerts, I find that I contrast dark and light emotional energies and highlight the way they depend on each other. Sides 1–4 focus on this dichotomy in pairs, beginning with the dark energy of Jeff Buckley's 'Dream Brother,' which is followed by the grace of Lennon/McCartney's 'Blackbird.'" He further says, "Although the songs on Sides 5–8 (The Concert) come from different concerts, on this set, I arranged them in a sequence similar to that I would perform in a single concert in 2010–11," he continues."The third set could be thought of as Intermezzo and Rückblick–like in character. I'm thinking of the penultimate movement of Brahms's Third Piano Sonata with that title. Rückblick means a look backward, perhaps a reappraisal. Brahms's Intermezzo movement was a look back at what had taken place in his Sonata before moving to the final movement. Here, the listener is invited to look back to music that was recorded 10 or more years ago, in 2004 and 2005." Mehldau explains that his approach to the sequence of the fourth set "is to focus on the rub between the keys of E minor and E major. I return to the theme of dark and light from the first set, now allowing the listener to focus on how 'dark' and 'light' might manifest in tonality."Brad Mehldau played in a number of different ensembles, including label mate Joshua Redman's quartet, before becoming a bandleader himself in the 1990s. The Brad Mehldau Trio made eight recordings for Warner Bros., including the five Art of the Trio albums with former drummer Jorge Rossy (released as a boxed set by Nonesuch in 2011). The pianist's years with Nonesuch have been equally productive, beginning in 2004 with the solo disc Live in Tokyo and including five trio records— Day is Done, House on Hill, Live, Ode, and Where Do You Start—as well as a collaboration with soprano Renée Fleming, Love Sublime; a chamber ensemble album, Highway Rider; two collaborations with label mate Pat Metheny, Metheny Mehldau and Quartet; a CD/DVD set of live solo performances, Live in Marciac; and collaborations with Kevin Hays and Patrick Zimmerli on Modern Music. Last year, Nonesuch released the debut from Mehldau's electric duo with Mark Guiliana, Mehliana: Taming the Dragon. He also produced Redman's 2013 release Walking Shadows.Mehldau has performed around the world at a steady pace for 25 years, with his trio, with other collaborators, and as a solo pianist, building a large and loyal audience. "It is actually strange, this whole business of performance. It is a direct, intense kind of empathy with a group of total strangers that lasts around 90 minutes. And then, it's over, and everyone goes home. I go back to a hotel room and go to bed," the pianist says in his 10 Years Solo Live note. "Something happened, but what was most vital about it can't really be put in words. It is sweet, kind of bittersweet. In any case, it is not enough to say that the different audiences were important for the creation of this music. They were absolutely necessary; they were pivotal. Without those audiences, this music would not exist in the way it does."

Don't be fooled: this youthful face belongs to an 18 year old violinist with a wealth of knowledge and a tried-and-tested technique. For proof, just look at his Bach record, which came out before this Tchaikovsky Concerto, also on Deutsche Grammophon. With every new outing, Daniel Lozakovich surrounds himself with famous formations: for Bach, the Bavarian Radio Chamber Orchestra; for Tchaikovsky, the Russian National Philharmonic under Vladimir Spivakov (himself a great violinist who conducted his first recital in 2010). This gutsy concerto is addressed by a musician with an ample, sparkling sound, capable of an intense virtuosity and a very tender melancholy. Alongside Spivakov, who also recorded this score, he is quite at home. The hands-on sound recording seeks out the fullness of lyricism here, without robbing the strings of their bite. Note that the young soloist learned his scales under Eduard Wulfson in Karlsruhe. This student of giants like Henryk Szeryng, Nathan Milstein and Yehudi Menuhin (no less) taught his young disciple the violin of the Russian school. This young artist's voracious curiosity did the rest. And so, the second part of his programme here offers passages where pure melancholy has been distilled into music, as in Lensky's aria from Eugene Onegin, an opera that the violinist adores and knows by heart. His performance is inspired by previous interpretations by Fritz Wunderlich and Ivan Kozlovsky. And no-one could deny it: Daniel Lozakovich's violin sings! © Elsa Siffert/Qobuz

Many film composers wrote classical works in an idiom sharply different from that of their film scores, but with Bernard Herrmann, the difference is much smaller. Then again, his film music itself was more "classical" to begin with. His scores are largely devoid of the big themes and jazz and popular influences that marked the work of many of his contemporaries, especially later in his career. Instead, he built his scores out of obsessive gestures that were a perfect match for the films of Alfred Hitchcock, his most frequent collaborator. He wrote one opera, Wuthering Heights, that was completed in 1951 and, indeed, quoted some of his earlier scores and spawned passages in later ones. It is a gigantic work, filling four LPs when Herrmann recorded it in 1965, and this condensation and arrangement by Hans Sørensen is welcome. He strips the cast down to just Cathy and Heathcliff, with newcomer Keri Fuge and veteran Roderick Williams holding up well through overheated music that evokes Emily Brontë's novel nicely. There is also an orchestral version, again arranged by Sørensen, of Herrmann's 1965 string quartet Echoes; the arrangement works fine inasmuch as his writing was quite orchestral-sounding in the original quartet. The Singapore Symphony, under conductor Mario Venzago in Wuthering Heights and Joshua Tan in Echoes, sounds fabulous, and Venzago was an inspired choice here, with a sure touch for dramatic music. Herrmann fans will be delighted with this, and listeners looking for a chance to sample his opera will find the album ideal. It landed on classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023, testifying to growing interest in Herrmann's music. © James Manheim /TiVo

Astrud Gilberto became an accidental success when her fragile command of English made her the de facto choice to sing "The Girl from Ipanema" at a session led by Stan Getz and her husband, João Gilberto. Of course, despite its overwhelming success, it wasn't clear that she could sustain a career when she recorded her first solo LP, The Astrud Gilberto Album. She had sounded more like an amateurish novelty act than a recording professional, her voice was sweet but fragile, and the Getz/Gilberto album had featured two strong voices, with Gilberto herself an afterthought (albeit a commercially effective afterthought). But The Astrud Gilberto Album was at least as good as Getz/Gilberto (despite what jazz fans say), for several reasons. The Brazilian repertoire plays particularly well to traditionally weak vocalists, her voice was yet more sweet than had been heard previously, and as before, the record featured two strong leaders -- arranger Marty Paich and the incomparable Antonio Carlos Jobim. Paich's strings positively coated the album with radiance, and his choices for lead instrumental voices -- Bud Shank's flute, João Donato's piano, Jobim's guitar -- complemented her vocals perfectly. Gilberto sounded beautiful on a range of material, from the sentimental "Dindi" to the playful "Agua de Beber," and as long as intelligent musicians were playing to her strengths (as they do here), the results were splendid.© John Bush /TiVo

Edward Larry Gordon was a comedian/musician attempting to work his way through the Greenwich Village clubs in the '70s when one day he impulsively traded in his guitar for a zither, adopted the name Laraaji, and began busking on the sidewalks. Brian Eno, living in New York at the time, heard his music and offered to record him, resulting in this singular, unusual album. Laraaji uses an open-tuned instrument with some degree of electrification (and, presumably, with studio enhancements courtesy of Eno), which creates a brilliant, full sound. The first three pieces, "The Dance, Nos. 1-3," are rhythmically charged and propulsive, with tinges of Irish hammered dulcimer music mixed with a dash of Arabic influence. The layered production gives them a hypnotically captivating quality and an echoing vastness, inducing a dreamlike state in which the listener happily bathes. The two parts of "Meditation" are arrhythmic, ethereal wanderings, still effective if less immediately riveting. Day of Radiance is considered an early new age masterpiece and, while it shares certain aspects with the genre (including a heady mystical aura), it has far more rigor, inventiveness, and sheer joy of playing than the great majority of its supposed descendents. It possesses a sense of timelessness that has enabled it to quite ably hold up over the years.© Brian Olewnick /TiVo

Immediately, Houston Person's saxophone and Ron Carter's bass meld so fluidly and effortlessly -- and create such a complete picture -- that it's easy to forget that they are the only two musicians playing. Drums are not missed, nor are piano, horns, or anything else: Person and Carter's communication skills here, as on their previous outings together, are never in doubt; they're "always" in perfect sync. They take on the standards here, and though most of these ten tracks have been recorded to death by other jazz artists, the duo's approach is original and honest enough that the songs sound fresh. "Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be?)" is smooth, soft, and sexy; Irving Berlin's "Always" swings even if it never quite reaches swing tempo; and "Blueberry Hill" is playful and sweet. "Meditation," an Antonio Carlos Jobim tune, proves that bossa nova requires only the most minimal of instrumentation in order for its free-swaying tropical lilt to feel whole. The opening "How Deep Is the Ocean," another Berlin classic, sets the mood by establishing that melody and rhythm are never far apart -- neither musician is in any great hurry here and never eager to dominate or go outside of the songs' stated bounds. It's a collaboration in the truest sense, one in which emotion and the integrity of the material and arrangements trounce showboating.© Jeff Tamarkin /TiVo

This compilation album gathers tracks from two sets of recording sessions Frank Sinatra did with Brazilian singer/songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim, one in 1967 and another in 1969. The first set of sessions in late January and early February 1967 resulted in the ten-track LP Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, released later in 1967. Jobim joined Sinatra, singing on such tracks as "The Girl from Ipanema," "I Concentrate on You," and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," with bossa nova arrangements by Claus Ogerman. The second set of sessions held in February 1969 were intended for a follow-up LP to be called SinatraJobim that got as far as having an album cover designed, but never came out. Most of the tracks were issued in 1971, during Sinatra's temporary retirement, on an album called Sinatra & Company, although a couple turned up on singles in the U.S. or overseas, and the Sinatra/Jobim duet "Off Key (Desafinado)" sat in the can for decades, not turning up until the box set The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings in 1995. Despite being separated by two years, the first ten tracks and the second ten fit well together. Sinatra sings gently and sensitively throughout. The chief difference lies in the musical backing, as the 1969 tracks were arranged by Eumir Deodato, with orchestra conducted by Morris Stoloff, and they have less of a Brazilian feel. Still, the sessions have always belonged together on a single disc, and they constitute a special niche in the Sinatra catalog.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

The title Méditation makes this release by harpsichordist Andreas Staier sound like a crossover outing, but instead, it is typical of the carefully argued programs this keyboardist has offered in the past, in his characteristic muscular style. Staier meditates on two short motifs that date back to before the Baroque; one is the second line of the Pange lingua chant, the other the bell-like octave-fifth-sixth-third that shows up in countless compositions, and he shows how these motifs were tied into the style of the High Baroque as it developed. Bach appears only at the end, with a pair of preludes and fugues; in Staier's words, he is at the "vanishing point" of the program. Prior to that are various pieces of the Baroque puzzle, including selections from the preludes and fugues of J.C.F. Fischer's Ariadne Musica, a likely model for Bach's own. A fugue from Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum, the most influential counterpoint text of the day, is also included. Staier also contributes some of his own compositions, devised during the COVID-19 lockdowns, that recognizably refer to the other ideas on the album but may, for some, break the mood. A highly thoughtful exegesis on Baroque style that is beautifully recorded at Berlin's Teldex studio and is, despite all the deep thinking, appealing in a visceral way.© James Manheim /TiVo

Astrud Gilberto became an accidental success when her fragile command of English made her the de facto choice to sing "The Girl from Ipanema" at a session led by Stan Getz and her husband, João Gilberto. Of course, despite its overwhelming success, it wasn't clear that she could sustain a career when she recorded her first solo LP, The Astrud Gilberto Album. She had sounded more like an amateurish novelty act than a recording professional, her voice was sweet but fragile, and the Getz/Gilberto album had featured two strong voices, with Gilberto herself an afterthought (albeit a commercially effective afterthought). But The Astrud Gilberto Album was at least as good as Getz/Gilberto (despite what jazz fans say), for several reasons. The Brazilian repertoire plays particularly well to traditionally weak vocalists, her voice was yet more sweet than had been heard previously, and as before, the record featured two strong leaders -- arranger Marty Paich and the incomparable Antonio Carlos Jobim. Paich's strings positively coated the album with radiance, and his choices for lead instrumental voices -- Bud Shank's flute, João Donato's piano, Jobim's guitar -- complemented her vocals perfectly. Gilberto sounded beautiful on a range of material, from the sentimental "Dindi" to the playful "Agua de Beber," and as long as intelligent musicians were playing to her strengths (as they do here), the results were splendid.© John Bush /TiVo