Shortly before she slipped completely into obscurity, singer Lee Wiley recorded two albums for Victor. This Bluebird CD has ten of the 12 songs from West of the Moon, nine of the 12 originally on A Touch of the Blues, and a rendition of "Stars Fell on Alabama" taken from a sampler album. Wiley, only 41 at the time of these last recordings, was essentially through with her career despite still being in prime form. Other than "Stars," Wiley is backed by big bands led by either arranger Ralph Burns or trumpeter Billy Butterfield and mostly performs swing standards, including "You're a Sweetheart," "Can't Get out of This Mood," "Ace in the Hole," "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," and her signature song, "A Hundred Years From Today." An excellent introduction to the work of this unusual and greatly underrated singer.

It is tempting to see the history of music in Frescobaldi's time as a kind of Darwinian struggle between the conservative, rule-bound traditions of the sixteenth century and the freely expressive innovations of the early seventeenth century, or between the prima pratica of contrapuntal rigour and dry, intellectual structures, and the seconda pratica of the expressive madrigal, toccata and sonata with its emphasis on personal expression and freedom. For Frescobaldi, however, the two conflicting styles of composition amount to two facets of the same musical coin, which both shine brilliantly thanks to harpsichordist Hank Knox’s riveting performance on a magnificent 17th-century Italian instrument that is part of Kenneth Gilbert's collection of early harpsichords presently housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres.

Here is Volume 2 of the series "Nouveaux Territoires," launched by the ECM in the fall of 2000. The three works featured in this recording were premiered by the ECM on the occasion of an event entitled Unions Libres, each one being the result of a collaboration with an artist involved in a different medium. In their original format, along with dance, cinema, or poetry, these works attempt to draw together the thoughts and the concerns of today’s artists, throughout all mediums. Presented here in their strictly musical form, these compositions provide dialogues, filled with referents of a social dimension, in tune with the multimedia experience of Unions Libres.

Composed at a time when the keyboard trio was increasingly becoming for Haydn a preferred means of exploring new and highly personal musical grounds in the field of chamber music, these works exhibit all the wit, charm and verve we have come to expect from this most prolific composer. The "Franz Joseph Trio" has undertaken in Montreal the performance of Haydn's complete keyboard trios.

Odete (Odette) Lara was a Brazilian film actress and singer. She appeared in 37 films between 1954 and 1994, including two films shown at the Cannes Film Festival. The possessor of an extraordinary beauty, she became known after hits like Walter Hugo Khuri's Noite Vazia (known in English as Men and Women), 1964, in which she performed alongside Norma Bengell; and Glauber Rocha's O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro (Antônio das Mortes, as it is known in the UK), 1969.

Another old TD soundtrack had been made available on CD in 1994. The story of the US film, directed by Stephen Sommers in 1989, does not seem very extraordinary: it deals with the well known subject of man and woman, cars and money… As stated on the CD insert, this album was prepared without the musical authorisation of TD. This resulted in a large number of very short music tracks.

A truly unique and wonderfully American band, the Lovin' Spoonful released nearly all of their creative legacy between 1965 and the end of 1966. The first album, Do You Believe in Magic, hit in 1965, with the second, Daydream, and the third, Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful, arriving in 1966. Also in 1966, the group delivered the soundtrack to Woody Allen's first film, What's Up, Tiger Lily? This set combines that soundtrack with Hums on a single disc, and truthfully, it works mostly because Hums, which contained such classic Spoonful numbers as "Lovin' You," "Rain on the Roof," "Coconut Grove," "Nashville Cats," and "Summer in the City," is such a fine album. Aside from the minor song "Pow" and a redo of "Fishin' Blues," the music on What's Up, Tiger Lily? is of the instrumental soundtrack variety…

In the depth of its expression and richness of form Johann Sebastian Bach's music has no equal. This becomes especially clear in the famous cantatas for solo soprano, as can be heard in this recording, featuring Ich bin in mir vergnügt BWV 204 and Mein Herze schwimmt in Blut BWV 199 (Weimar version, 1714). The recording is rounded off by a performance of the famous soprano aria Alles mit Gott und nichts ohn' ihn BWV 1127. Once again Dorothee Mields shows that she is one of the leading interpreters of our time for the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Performed with LOrfeo Barockorchester, under the direction of Michi Gaigg, this is an exemplary interpretation of these seldom heard solo cantatas.