Since making his debut as a leader with 2001's At Last, Marcus Strickland has established a reputation as a composer of remarkable depth and breadth. On Nihil Novi, his first Blue Note offering, Strickland showcases a new band – trumpeter Keyon Harrold, keyboardists Mitch Henry and Masayuki Hirano, bassist Kyle Miles, and drummer Charles Haynes. His new tunes offer an even greater array of styles, harmonic textures, and dynamics, and reveal his preoccupation with hip-hop beatmaking. (This isn't a jazz/hip-hop fusion record.) Nihil Novi was expertly and empathetically produced by Meshell Ndegeocello, who also guests on bass. Strickland also brings in some old friends and allies, including Robert Glasper, Chris Dave, Pino Palladino, and Chris Bruce.

The 2006 release of The Essential Gloria Estefan satisfied a long unmet need for a career-spanning English-language retrospective, one that includes the singer's popular hits with Miami Sound Machine in the mid-'80s as well as her subsequent solo recordings. For years, Estefan fans had few best-of choices to choose from – the Spanish-language Exitos de Gloria Estefan (1990), the two-volume Greatest Hits series (1992, 2001), and the latter-day Amor y Suerte: Exitos Romanticos collection (2004) – with no alternatives, not even budget-line knockoffs. The long-overdue release of The Essential Gloria Estefan thankfully resolved this gripe, for it includes the highlights from all aspects of Estefan's varied output, spread generously across two jam-packed discs.

Sweden based heavy rockers Lucifer return with their magnificent fifth album "Lucifer V" which blends influences from Blue Öyster Cult and Black Sabbath with the melodic and enticing voice of singer Johanna Sadonis. After hundreds of shows, including select dates with Ghost in '23, here comes one of 2024's finest pieces of hard rock!
Combining elements of all their previous albums into one monumental mass of electrifying heavy rock and roll. Eerie landscapes shaped by soaring guitar riffs, the thunderous pounding of bass and drums from some sort of groovy inferno, haunted melodies to weep into your drink to, the screeching tires of a 1971 Cadillac hearse, the humorous morbidity and tragic wit of Johanna’s lyrics.

During a period of his career that would feature some notable collaborations with luminaries such as Paul Bley, Bill Frisell, Elvin Jones, and Barre Phillips, John Surman also produced Road to Saint Ives, a gentle, introspective, yet adventurous solo work. The entire album is a one-man effort, from the composition to all of the instrumentation, with Surman building strata of sound over keyboard and percussion structures using bass clarinet and the soprano and bass saxophones he is known for. The resulting work communicates a unique vision and mood, unsullied by the conflicting interpretations of other performers.
The album centers around a portrait of the landscape and spirit of Cornwall, taking more than a few bits of inspiration from British folk music, but remaining firmly perched in the jazz tradition…

Johann Ludwig Bach’s Funeral Music for the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen is a delightful discovery. JS Bach clearly regarded his distant cousin’s music highly, performing 18 of his cantatas in Leipzig during a single year. The Funeral Music, setting in part the Duke’s own text, is magnificent in scoring – for two choirs, soloists and large orchestra including trumpets and drums – and in scale. Like a Baroque Dream of Gerontius, the soul begins fettered in human bonds on earth, then ascends to the heavenly gates, with Part 3 a brilliant celebration of celestial joy. Bach’s descriptions are graphic – ‘bonds’ create staggering dissonances, resolved to momentary silence when ‘torn asunder’.

A disc of music by the two most talented composers of seventeenth-century Austria and Bohemia is welcome and doubly so when the performances are as lively as these. Philip Pickett and his New London Consort have chosen a varied programme of pieces by Austrian Schmelzer and Bohemian Biber and while I would not advise anyone to listen uninterrupted to the entire disc, taken in sensible doses it should afford pleasure. Schmelzer was born in the 1620s, eventually attaining a position of the highest importance at the Vienna court. Biber was born in 1644 and in 1670 entered the service of the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg, with whom he remained until his death in 1704. The programme assembled here is culled from various collections and publications and reflects an assortment of stylistic influences and range of colours and sonorities.

With more than a million copies sold, the soundtrack of Gérard Corbiau's film 'Farinelli' contributed considerably to the international renown of Les Talens Lyriques, in 1994. Back then the voice of the castrato Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782), was created using a computer to mix the voices of countertenor Derek Lee Ragin and soprano Ewa Mallas-Godlewska. On stage, in 2011, rather than a falsettist, world-renowned mezzo Ann Hallenberg, was chosen by Christophe Rousset to portray the first rock star in the history of music.

Both passionate collectors of ancient and ethnic instruments, husband and wife Walter and Laura Maioli got together in 1973 with sax player Caniele Cavallanti, guitarist Antonio Cerantola and percussionist Lino Vaccina to form Aktuala (which means 'actually' in Esperanto). This is a furiously eclectic band whose Arabian, African and Indian themes are built around trance-inducing repetition. Apart from Oregon, they were one of the first to craft a coherent, gimmick-free hybrid of improvisional jazz with a pan-cultural approach to ethnic music, although theirs is much more loosely conceived than that of Oregon. They released three albums between 1973 and 1976 and then broke up. Walter Maioli is today recognized among Italy's foremost experts in prehistoric music-making.

Thomas Fanger and Mario Schönwälder from the famous Manikin label play wonderful Berlin School Retro electronic music similar to Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. Bas Broekhuis adds drums on the last track. Some very long and contemplative tracks on this 2CD set.

It may be a PR cliché, but the phrase ‘hotly anticipated album’ was never more apt than when applied to Laurence Jones’s ‘Temptation’. Having made a big splash on the UK blues-rock circuit, he’s taken an impressive new batch of songs and his fiery guitar playing down to Lafayette,Louisiana. He’s teamed up with producer Mike Zito and the Royal Southern Brotherhood rhythm section of drummer Yonrico Scott and bassist Charlie Wooton. The result is one of the best blues-rock albums of the year so far. ‘Temptation’ is that rare thing, a meeting of musical minds with results that surpass expectations. In the words of Mike Zito: ‘Its raw, its real and it happened in one week’. And it is that ‘in the moment’ feel that permeates an album full of drive, passion, crackling electricity and style.