August 1969 to August 1970 was the most productive year of Miles Davis's career: in that short span of time, the trumpeter recorded enough material for his studio double-album Bitches Brew, a studio single album Jack Johnson, three sides of another studio double-album Big Fun, four tracks from the double-album Live-Evil...

Hot on the heels of their 2014 GRAMMY nomination, force-of-nature blues-rock vocalist Beth Hart and guitar hero Joe Bonamassa deliver-Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa-Live In Amsterdam (DVD/Blu-ray/CD)-The very first live experience from one of music's most powerful female voices and one of the world's greatest guitar players.

Halfway between the British blues revival of the '60s and the southern rock renaissance of the '70s, the six-stringed genius of Johnny Winter has caught countless of listeners by the ears, from Houston to Woodstock and beyond. His high-energy approach to the blues - reverent to tradition but fiercely of a style all his own - made him not only one of the most sought-after new artists of his time, but a peer and equal to the blues legends he worshiped from the beginning. This career-spanning box set captures Johnny's most electrifying performances over four decades of rock and roll and celebrates his 70th birthday which is on February 23, 2014.

In 2012, for the first time since 1980, guitarist Pat Metheny recorded with a band that highlighted tenor saxophone. Unity Band, which went on to win Metheny his 20th Grammy Award, featured Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass. Metheny added another musician, multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi, and christened the ensemble Pat Metheny Unity Group. Their first record is Kin ( ). The vinyl includes two 140-gram LPs pressed at Pallas MFG in Diepholz, Germany, and a CD of the album.

There should be no overlooking Beautiful Life, a journey of 12 songs which includes singularly memorable covers of Bob Marley's "Waiting in Vain," Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams," Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" and Ani DiFranco's self-empowering "32 Flavors." Included in the rest of the tracks, which cover the spectrum from jazz to soul, are two new songs "Cold" and "Satiated" which are emotionally volcanic. Produced by Terri Lyne Carrington, Beautiful Life features an all-star cast that includes bassists Esperanza Spalding and Richard Bona, vocalists Gregory Porter and Lalah Hathaway, pianists Robert Glasper and Gerald Clayton and Reeves cousin and frequent longtime collaborator George Duke.

From His Head to His Heart to His Hands, the 3 CD/1 DVD anthology features released and unreleased gems from solo sessions to live performances from The Fillmore East and Fillmore West, The Bottom Line and other historic venues. This compilation also will feature a fascinating new mini-documentary combining vintage audio interviews with Bloomfield and live performances with new reflections from his friends, collaborators and admirers.

With a membership that suggests the super groups of the late 1960s, Royal Southern Brotherhood unites three noted front men into one five-man entity.

On this album you will hear boogies, shuffles, and the blues it hits right in the band s wheelhouse! Headed by a great legendary blues guitar player.

Returning to the studio as Cibo Matto, they have made their most impressive and cinematic album, packed with kaleidoscopic grooves, demented horns, crazy synthesizers and funky-but-chic blasts of pure danceability.

Drummer, composer, and producer Tom Skinner who is the drummer for The Smile and Sons of Kemet releases his new album, Voices of Bishara, on November 4, 2022, via Brownswood / International Anthem / Nonesuch. The first recording under Skinner’s own name is a reference to an album he listened to repeatedly during the COVID-19 lockdown: cellist Abdul Wadud’s 1978 solo album By Myself, which was privately pressed on Wadud’s label, Bishara. The common Arabic name has the intention or meaning of “good news” or “the bringer of good news.”  Voices of Bishara began life when Tom Skinner asked some musician friends to join him for a Played Twice session at London’s Brilliant Corners. These regular sessions had a simple format: play a classic album in full through the venue’s audiophile system and then have a live ensemble improvise a response. The night in question focused on drummer Tony Williams’ 1964 Blue Note album, Life Time, and the music conjured that night inspired Skinner to write an album’s worth of new music.  Skinner recorded an album of that music with a cellist, bass, and two saxophonists subsequently putting it aside, occasionally bringing it out for some attention in between his many other creative projects. Gradually, the record began to take shape as he embraced the studio recordings and accentuated their idiosyncrasies.

“Orange And Blue” was first released in 1994 and is a remarkable testament of Al Di Meola’s unique sense of swing. The legendary guitarist recorded the album on the “Al Di Meola Jazz Guitar”, a custom hollow-body guitar designed in collaboration with Gibson, which allowed him a warmer tone to add to his established signature sound. The album itself is a tasteful collection of explorative compositions, with standout songs such as ‘Chilean Pipe Song’ further cementing Al Di Meola’s growth as a versatile writer and gifted guitarist.

This special 60th Anniversary reissue of groundbreaking jazz artist Sun Ra’s iconic 1962 album The Futuristic Sounds of Sun Ra features all-analog re-mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. The package includes Tom Wilson’s original liner notes, plus insightful new essays by jazz historian Ben Young, as well as by Irwin Chusid, who is also a journalist, radio personality, and author.

Butcher Brown’s new album Presents: Triple Trey (featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND) will be released on September 16, 2022. The inspiration for this album comes from Tennishu’s solo album Triple Trey released in May 2019. Shortly after, Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO came up with the idea of performing the album live with Butcher Brown and a big band. The performance received such an enthusiastic response from the audience Butcher Brown decided it must be recorded. So, in August of that same year, the band stepped into Minimum Wage Studios in Richmond and began laying down what would become Butcher Brown Presents: Triple Trey (featuring Tennishu and R4ND4ZZO BIGB4ND). The result is a groundbreaking fusion of rap and big band. There’s nothing like it.

Ella Fitzgerald's "Songbook" records - with her peerless renditions of the best songs from iconic composers from Irving Berlin to Rogers & Hart to Cole Porter to George & Ira Gershwin - are the cornerstone of the Verve catalog and the standard for jazz vocal recordings. Ella never released a live version of these Songbooks. This record, discovered in the private collection of Norman Granz, will make the first time a live Songbook has been released from the First Lady of Song.

I've been playing since I was 11 years old," says Charlie Gabriel, the most senior member of the legendary Preservation Hall Band, "I never did anything in my life but play music. I've been blessed with that gift that God gave me, and I've tried to nurse it the best way I knew how." While he's faced plenty of challenges nursing that gift for more than 78 years, none likely rank with last winter's passing of his brother and last living sibling, Leonard, lost to COVID-19. For the first time ever, Gabriel put down his horn, filling his days and weeks instead with dark reflection, a stubborn despondency broken now and then by regular chess matches in the studio kitchen of Hall leader Ben Jaffe, working overtime to bring his friend some light. One such afternoon also included Joshua Starkman, sitting off in a corner playing his guitar and half-watching the chess from a distance. When Charlie returned the next day, he brought his saxophone. "I was just inspired to try it, to play again. It had been a long time, and a guitar makes me feel free. I do love the sound of a piano, but it takes up a lot of a space, keeps me kind of boxed in." That day was to be the first session for Eighty Nine, almost entirely the work of Gabriel, Jaffe and Starkman, recorded mostly right there, in the kitchen, by Matt Aguiluz. Charlie Gabriel's first professional gig dates to 1943, sitting in for his father in New Orleans' Eureka Brass Band. As a teenager living in Detroit, Charlie played with Lionel Hampton, whose band then included a young Charles Mingus, later spending nine years with a group led by Cab Calloway drummer J.C. Heard. While he's also fronted a bebop quintet, played and/or toured with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennet, Aretha Franklin and many more, this is the first time his name appears on the front of a record, as a bandleader. Since 2006, Gabriel has been a member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, featuring prominently on That's It, So It Is, and Tuba to Cuba. Eighty Nine was different, and not simply due to a smaller ensemble. "We had no particular plan, or any particular insight on what we were gonna do. But we were enjoying what we were doing, jamming, having a musical conversation," Charlie says, further musing, "Musical conversations cancel out complications." Eighty Nine includes six standards and three newer pieces on which Gabriel is a writer: "Yellow Moon," "The Darker It Gets" and "I Get Jealous." The record also marks Charlie's return to his first instrument, clarinet, on many of the tracks. "The clarinet is the mother of the saxophone," he says. "I started playing clarinet early in life, and this [taught me] the saxophone." Finally, Eighty Nine includes three tracks of Charlie singing. "I always sung, but it wasn't my forte to become a singer," he says. "The truth is, people often develop a real relationship with a song once they hear the words. Sometimes I enjoy singing them.

Trombone Shorty returns with Lifted, his first album in 5 years and the follow-up to his Blue Note debut Parking Lot Symphony, featuring special guests including vocalist Lauren Daigle & guitarist Gary Clark Jr. An album that captures the energy of his legendary live shows, Lifted combines classic New Orleans sounds (funk, gospel, street rhythms, Mardi Gras Indian chants & second lines) with modern lyrics, melody & beats to create something fresh & unique. Part Jimi Hendrix, part James Brown and all New Orleans, Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews is the bandleader and frontman of Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, a hard-edged funk band that employs brass-band beats, rock dynamics & improvisation in a jazz tradition.

CD companion to the recent vinyl reissue of the third album from hugely influential British bluesman John Mayall, who gave a boost to a young Eric Clapton when Mayall asked Clapton to join his Bluesbreakers band! Having left the Bluesbreakers behind, Mayall originally released this solo album in 1980 and showed that he had the chops to stand on his own! This reissue revamps the artwork with vintage photos of Mayall in a gorgeous 4 panel digipak!

On Curtis Stigers's 2022 release, this multi platinum artist takes a look back with new versions of his international hits "I Wonder Why," "Never Saw A Miracle," and "You're All That Matters To Me," as well as "This Life," the theme song to the TV show Sons Of Anarchy, and (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding" from The Bodyguard soundtrack. Stigers revisits these classics and more, in his signature laid back, jazzy, bluesy style.