John Lennon's concert appearances during his solo years were rare and scattered about, so any live document is worth hearing. Yet this one, the fabled One to One concert at Madison Square Garden, doesn't live up to its legend, however noble the cause (a benefit for the Willowbrook School for Children). Much of the problem, one suspects, is that Lennon concerts tended to be quick, casual one-offs; this material might have really rocked if John had broken the tunes in on the road first. Also, the Plastic Ono Elephants Memory Band is a fairly crude bunch of bashers, with Stan Bronstein's flailing sax and surprisingly poor drumming, despite the support of Jim Keltner.

It sat on the top of the country charts for 11 weeks and went double platinum, making it one of the biggest hits in either Waylon Jennings' or Willie Nelson's catalog. Years after its initial 1978 release, Waylon & Willie remains one of their biggest-selling albums, but its perennial popularity has more to do with their iconic status – something this album deliberately played up – than the quality of the music, which is, overall, merely good. Released in early 1978, a few months after Jennings' Ol' Waylon spent 13 weeks on the top of the charts in the summer of 1977, thanks in part to the hit single "Luckenbach, Texas" featuring a chorus sung by Nelson, the album was intended as a celebration of the peak of outlaw, but in retrospect, it looks like where the movement was beginning to slide into predictability, even if both singers are more or less in command of their talents here.

The San Francisco Bay Area rock scene of the late '60s was one that encouraged radical experimentation and discouraged the type of mindless conformity that's often plagued corporate rock. When one considers just how different Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead sounded, it becomes obvious just how much it was encouraged. In the mid-'90s, an album as eclectic as Abraxas would be considered a marketing exec's worst nightmare. But at the dawn of the 1970s, this unorthodox mix of rock, jazz, salsa, and blues proved quite successful. Whether adding rock elements to salsa king Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va," embracing instrumental jazz-rock on "Incident at Neshabur" and "Samba Pa Ti," or tackling moody blues-rock on Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman," the band keeps things unpredictable yet cohesive. Many of the Santana albums that came out in the '70s are worth acquiring, but for novices, Abraxas is an excellent place to start.

"The Carpenters" (originally released as "Horizon") is the sixth consecutive platinum-certified album by American musical duo Carpenters. It was particularly successful in the United Kingdom and Japan, topping the charts and becoming one of the best-selling albums of 1975 in those countries. Horizon also reached no. 3 in New Zealand, no. 4 in Canada and no. 5 in Norway. An American duo consisting of sister Karen Carpenter and brother Richard Carpenter. Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s. Though often referred to as "The Carpenters", their name on official releases and press materials was "Carpenters". During a period in the 1970s when louder and wilder rock was in great demand, Richard and Karen produced a distinctively soft musical style that made them among the best-selling music artists of all time. No fewer than ten of their singles went on to become million-sellers, and by 2005 combined worldwide sales of albums and singles well exceeded 100 million units.

The Chicago Transit Authority recorded this double-barreled follow-up to their eponymously titled 1969 debut effort. The contents of Chicago II (1970) underscore the solid foundation of complex jazz changes with heavy electric rock & roll that the band so brazenly forged on the first set. The septet also continued its ability to blend the seemingly divergent musical styles into some of the best and most effective pop music of the era. One thing that had changed was the band's name, which was shortened to simply Chicago to avoid any potential litigious situations from the city of Chicago's transportation department – which claimed the name as proprietary property.

Daniel Hope's new album "Dance!" reflects his boundless interest in the most diverse styles and periods of music. The star violinist takes the listeners on a journey through seven centuries of music history and explores the rhythms that have set bodies in motion and lifted hearts since time began.

Impressed by the Handel works that he heard in London, Haydn felt the need to compose oratorios. First came Die Schöpfung (‘The Creation’), which met with resounding success; then Baron Gottfried van Swieten proposed to Haydn an arrangement of James Thomson’s poem ‘The Seasons’. Initially, Haydn was little attracted by the text, which deviates from the classic oratorio based on a religious text, but subsequently let himself be convinced. The result, for three soloists, chorus and orchestra, is a vast pictorial fresco of Nature that describes landscapes and the feelings that they arouse. For the first time, Philippe Herreweghe gives us his own vision of an oratorium by Haydn.

William Alwyn valued his Lyra Angelica concerto for harp above all his other music, and it is indeed very beautiful. It was premiered at the first night of the 1954 Proms and, not surprisingly, made an immediate impression. The work is inspired by stanzas written in the seventeenth century by the English metaphysical poet, Giles Fletcher, and Alwyn prefaces each of the movements with a line from his poem, ''Christ's Victorie and Triumph''. The music opens mistily and then a wondrous tune appears, like a carol, and it almost fits the words of the first quotation, ''I looke for angels' songs, and hear Him crie''.

Bach, C P E: Cello Concerto No. 3 in A major, Wq. 172 (H439); Bach, J C: Cello Concerto in C minor.