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

The natural wear and tear of a couple? Houston Person and Ron Carter wouldn’t know… A quarter of a century after the beginning of their collaboration, the tenor saxophonist and the double bassist (both now in their eighties) continue their beautiful partnership. For Remember Love, they climb up the Everest of the American Songbook; they’re themes that have been played a thousand times by the whole world, yet the warmth of the duo’s interpretation makes them fascinating. Person’s tenor is a summit of gentleness and languor. Carter’s feline double bass scales the steep paths. We find here two wise old men playing with pure musical velvet. It’s no reinvention of the menu of the day, but beautiful all the same… © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

After he turned 70, French disco innovator Marc Cerrone celebrated half-a-century in the music business with the release of Cerrone by Cerrone, a continuously mixed set of reworked hits from throughout his storied career. He originally made updated versions of these songs for his DJ sets, keeping the essence of the songs intact but updating the production for contemporary dancefloors. This mix presents the retouched songs in action, blended with a few remixes by other producers, including previously released versions by Dimitri from Paris and Joey Negro. The majority of the tracks feature re-recorded vocals by Brendan Reilly, who appeared on Cerrone's 2016 dance-pop effort Red Lips as well as albums by Disclosure, Basement Jaxx, Duffy, and many others. While he's certainly a skilled vocalist, he doesn't particularly add anything new to the songs, and he often pushes them a bit too far into slick, radio-friendly blandness. He sounds far more like a member of a boy band than a disco diva. The mildly Auto-Tuned vocals on this version of the prog-disco classic "Supernature" render its appearance somewhat of an anticlimax. With all that in mind, the set is still quite enjoyable. The songs themselves have largely held up, and the production mainly stays true to the classic '70s disco sound, seamlessly flowing into more of a disco-house style on several tracks. Dimitri's lush remix of the sweet, saucy "Love in C Minor" is especially grand, and it segues into a strong version of "Je Suis Music." "The Impact," from Cerrone's incredible 2020 space-disco voyage DNA, is a more hypnotic diversion, and a bit of vocoderized lyrics from another song ("The Only One") helps thematically bond it with the rest of the album. "Striptease" is another dazzling, sequencer-heavy highlight. Cerrone by Cerrone is good fun while it's playing, but even considering the format of continuously mixed hits and remixes, 2001's Cerrone by Bob Sinclar is a more satisfying career overview. © Paul Simpson /TiVo

After the hostile reaction to the politically charged Sometime in New York City, John Lennon moved away from explicit protest songs and returned to introspective songwriting with Mind Games. Lennon didn't leave politics behind -- he just tempered his opinions with humor on songs like "Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)," which happened to undercut the intention of the song. It also indicated the confusion that lies at the heart of the album. Lennon doesn't know which way to go, so he tries everything. There are lovely ballads like "Out of the Blue" and "One Day (At a Time)," forced, ham-fisted rockers like "Meat City" and "Tight A$," sweeping Spectoresque pop on "Mind Games," and many mid-tempo, indistinguishable pop/rockers. While the best numbers are among Lennon's finest, there's only a handful of them, and the remainder of the record is simply pleasant. But compared to Sometime in New York City, as well as the subsequent Walls and Bridges, Mind Games sounded like a return to form.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Trumpeter Chris Botti's To Love Again: The Duets picks up where his stellar 2004 release When I Fall in Love leaves off, with more gorgeously lush and heartfelt orchestral jazz via the London Session Orchestra. This time showcasing guest vocalists -- as well as a handful of instrumental tracks -- Botti takes an even more classicist approach than before and once again brings to mind such iconic jazz albums as Clifford Brown with Strings and Miles Davis' Porgy and Bess. Largely known as a smooth jazz artist with a sweet trumpet tone, it wasn't until When I Fall in Love that Botti dropped the smooth jazz synthesizers and pop-oriented compositions in favor of Gil Evans-style jazz orchestrations and an acoustic backing quartet. Subsequently, Botti made the best album of his career and didn't sacrifice any of his own laid-back smooth jazz style. In fact, having long been compared to trumpeters Chet Baker and Miles Davis for both his minimalist improvisational style and matinee idol image, this move toward more straight-ahead jazz is actually a better fit. To Love Again does nothing if not reinforce this opinion and finds Botti seeming even more relaxed and in his element. This is no more true than on the romantically melancholy lead-off track "Embraceable You," which finds Botti's horn weeping and sighing over the George Gershwin standard. The same can be said of his work with Sting on the '60s classic "What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life." In fact, with such a phenomenal cadre of singers -- including Michael Bublé, Paula Cole, Gladys Knight and others performing such standards as "Let There Be Love" and "Lover Man" -- there really isn't a bad track. Part of the brilliance of the album is that, while it is classicist in tone, many of the vocalists come from the pop world and give the songs a contemporary spin that rubs nicely against Gil Goldstein and Jeremy Lubbock's stylishly old-school arrangements. It also doesn't hurt that Botti is working with such phenomenal jazz talents as pianist Billy Childs, bassists Robert Hurst and Christian McBride, drummer Billy Kilson, guitarist Anthony Wilson and others. That alone makes the few instrumental tracks on To Love Again some of the standout moments on an album as much about vocals as it is about Botti's own creative "voice."© Matt Collar /TiVo

Five years without a follow-up to his flippant hit "Cooler Than Me" and pop-rapper Mike Posner might have just as well said "f*ck it" and thrown himself on the pop culture scrap pile, which he sort of did. With his simple and sparse 2016 single "I Took a Pill in Ibiza," he at least offered himself up to the scrap pile with lyrics like "You don't ever wanna step off that roller coaster and be all alone," or better still, "'Cause my name's a reminder of a pop song people forgot," but the wry fella also kicks this hummable ditty off his with his pill-popping reasons, "To show Avicii I was cool." Once "But f*ck it, it was something to do" rolls around, he's cooler than me, cooler than you, cooler than Kanye, and cooler than whomever, at least for the moment. Oddly enough, the man who looked to be the next Mac Miller or Asher Roth looks to be the next Rufus Wainwright by the time the anthemic "Buried in Detroit" appears, and in the middle of this LP there's clever power pop ("Jade"), empowering anthems somewhere between Sia and Alicia Keyes ("In the Arms of a Stranger"), and show-stopping R&B that's Legend and Timberlake twisted into one fellow named Posner ("Silence"). All this genre jumping is done with its heart in the right place, and the songwriting is as sincere as can be, but the self-referential stuff and time-off since his last hit comes up once too often, and the intro and outro of the album come right from Posner's laptop microphone, which is precious to a fault. Still, this wide-reaching, sweet-hearted, and surprisingly hip talent is either a Bieber to believe in, or Eminem and Ellen Degeneres' kid who graduated from that school in Fame. This might not yet be the ultimate showcase for his talents, but At Night, Alone is both a welcome return and a significant step forward.© David Jeffries /TiVo

Moonlight Serenade, Carly Simon's fourth collection of standards in 25 years, digs a little deeper than her previous outings. Perhaps it's the plethora of standards outings by popular artists -- Rod Stewart's done three in a row -- perhaps it's because of her pedigree and background; perhaps it's simply because she thinks she can pull it off; and indeed she can. She delivers these 12 songs with panache, savvy, and just a touch of sass. Produced by Richard Perry, these tracks are not so much elegant as enigmatic. Simon appreciates the swing inherent in delivering a standard, even if it's a ballad. Her smoky voice lends itself well to "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "My One and Only Love," and her sense of theatrics is drop-dead gorgeous on "I Only Have Eyes for You," which is a bit of a radical reworking that actually works. The slippery delivery on these songs -- her read of "All the Things You Are," for example, may be considered vulgar by some, but it's utterly lovely and brave -- is what lends them their unique, sexy character. This isn't for everyone, but it's a winner nonetheless.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Whether he was writing in imitation of Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, and Brahms, Dvorák always winds up sounding like himself. In the String Quartet in C major, with its enormous structures and rigorous developments, Dvorák is at his most Beethovenian. Inevitably, however, the turn of the melodies, the progress of the harmonies, and the motion of the rhythms is pure Dvorák. But in the string quartet settings of his song cycle Cypresses, Dvorák is most himself, a warm-hearted melodist with touching harmonies and stirring rhythms. In these performances by the Prazak Quartet, Dvorák is always at his best because he is always himself. The Prazak Quartet plays with a clear but sweet tone, a supple but strong ensemble, and a sense of having lived with the music all its life. The interpretations are relaxed and natural, but deeply committed and completely compelling. In the Quartet in C major, the ensemble grants the music its due as form in motion, but makes every melody sing and every rhythm dance. In the Cypresses, the Prazak Quartet welcomes the music with the ardor of lovers and it makes every melody sigh and every rhythm embrace. Praga's super audio sound is immediate and intimate. © TiVo