Legacy & (next) Legacy are the brand new musical projects by Paolo Fresu. New compositions for celebrating three anniversaries: his 40-year-old Quintet his 20-year-old Devil Quartet and his 22-year-old Duo with Uri Caine 3CD Box Set & 3 LP Box Set limited, coloured and hand numbered. Both signed by Paolo Fresu.
At the beginning of the '80s, trumpeter Paolo Fresu attended the Siena Summer Jazz Seminars and amazed Enrico Rava with his creativity, talent, and technique. Over the next ten years, he became a major player on the Italian scene, first with his own quintet (which is still going), then branching out in a variety of projects. After finishing his Conservatory studies, he became a teacher at the same Jazz Seminars in Siena; he lives half the year in Paris, from where he coordinates the major Time in Jazz Festival he created in his hometown…

Reduced to a quartet for the most part, with Barry Adamson joining Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, Mick Harvey and Thomas Wydler on only a couple of tracks, the Bad Seeds turn from the interpretive triumph of Kicking Against the Pricks to another strong high, the mostly-original Your Funeral…My Trial. The one cover is a sharp, unsurprisingly dramatic version of Tim Rose's "Long Time Man." As for the rest of the album, Trial shows the Seeds working as, again, a remarkably accomplished and varied act, ever available and ready to explore a wide range of musics distilled into Cave's often dark, always passionate vision. Arguably Cave and company have by now so clearly established their overall style that Your Funeral…My Trial is much more a refinement of the past than anything else, but so good is their work that resistance is near impossible. If anything, the brooding power of the Seeds is more restrained than ever, suggesting destructive endings and overwhelming love without directly playing it.

US composer and musician Johannes Luley is probably best known as the driving force of US band Moth Vellum. Five years after the release of Moth Vellum's highly acclaimed debut, Johannes is unleashing a solo album of stunning beauty and complexity. "Tales From Sheepfather's Grove" is an epic work that is bound to take the prog community by storm. Johannes replaced the drum kit with a vast array of hand percussion instruments, giving the album a very primeval feel. These tribal grooves represent the foundation for a dense, cinematic sound scape comprised of acoustic guitar, mandolin, ukulele, moog synth and lush vocal arrangements. The occasional electric guitar is the icing on the cake. "Tales From Sheepfather's Grove" features elements of progressive rock, classical, ambient, world and folk, all combined into a unique sound. It will take listeners willing to immerse themselves on a dreamlike journey. The 8 songs are flowing into each other seamlessly, telling a story of finding higher power within ourselves.

The comparison of Connor to Bonnie Raitt is unavoidable, considering the similarities of their vocal style and skill at slide guitar. But Connor offers a more savage guitar approach, akin to George Thorogood, and she comes on as a bit nastier. The album is filled with impressive guitar work, but the bad-girl pose wears thin after a while.

The German Electronics artist Robert Schroeder (discovered 1978 by EM pioneer Klaus Schulze) has produced numerous excellent solo CDs. The music of Robert Schroeder is various, but always soulful. Ferro OXID is produced in the real good style of the 80s EM. Sequencer and analogue Synthesizer sounds estimated by Berlin School style are emphasized and the impression of the good old Schroeder style is strongly expressed here. Exciting electronic soundscapes, bizarre tones, tension and relaxation, diversion, dreamy romantic synthesizer melodies (mostly played with the Minimoog) and infectious grooves are the right ingredients when it comes to the highest of all the relaxation, excellent listening and best Electronic Music.

If the 10 years these Texas guitarists have spent as a team exploring the world bar by bar has been "research," what they've learned is how to please a crowd. The formula's simple: no-frills songs about women and working for a livin', set to meat-and-potatoes arrangements that leave plenty of room for their guitars to roam. Kubek's six-string snarls the loudest, hitting Albert Collins-style sustains and grinding out beefy chords. King skirts around the fringes with his sweet-toned, jazz-informed fills or works at groove-level, anchoring things with his basic, chopping, R&B-style chording. King's vocals are really his trump card. They're smooth and slinky when he's romancing in "Make It Right" or gravelly as Kubek's fluid guitar when he's a driven man in numbers like "Runnin' Blind." The album ends with the kind of guitar grand finale that sets a crowd on fire just after last call. The tune, "Standing in My Door," lets both six-stringers sting.