Fabien Mary – Left Arm Blues (And Other New York Stories) (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Fabien Mary – Left Arm Blues (And Other New York Stories) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 44:31 minutes | 519 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazz & People

Fabien Mary is one of the best trumpet player of the contemporary jazz scene. He played with Wynton Marsalis, Diana Krall, Benny Golson, Harold Mabern, Johnny Griffin, Steve Turre, Michel Legrand, Archie Shepp and many others. The story behind this album is a broken arm in New York. Or how French trumpet player Fabien Mary transcended his forced immobilization by composing ‘Left Arm Blues’, an album of originals that refect the hopes from a young jazzman in a city that never sleeps and always swings.

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Fabiana Striffler – Sweet and so Solitary (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Fabiana Striffler – Sweet and so Solitary (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:23 minutes | 422 MB | Genre: Jazz, Modern Classical, Vocal, Experimental
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Traumton

Fabiana Striffler is a classically trained violinist who revives the art song with her recording “Sweet and so solitary”. She is assisted by singer Friederike Merz and pianist Johannes von Ballestrem. All three have in common that they playfully overcome genre boundaries. Striffler does this, among others, in the Berlin Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, with New York Jazzavantgardisten or the Afrobeat Formation Polyversal Souls. In the music of her trio sound experiments can be found, in which also synthesizers and ceramic bowls are used. Above all, the voice plays an important role, with and without text.

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Fabiana Striffler – Archiotíc (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Fabiana Striffler – Archiotíc (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 43:21 minutes | 465 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Traumton

About three years ago Fabiana Striffler stunned audiences and media with her album Sweet And So Solitary. The Jazzpodium dedicated a double page to the violinist and composer from Berlin and called her music a “fascinating cosmos of sound”, which Deutschlandfunk summed up: “Fabiana Striffler’s entire album is stubborn, sometimes demanding and stubborn.” Concerto magazine found, “Such songs If Gustav Mahler were to compose, a time machine would have catapulted him into the early 21st century: mysteriously radiant, touching and full of unheard-of sounds. ”Striffler even met with a response in England, for example in Hifi Critic:“ It takes great skill to make something sound so profound and so grotesque at the same time. “

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Fabian Müller – Passionato (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Fabian Müller – Passionato (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:09:31 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berlin Classics

Following a highly personal and splendidly reviewed Brahms recording, Fabian Müller follows up with “Passionato”, an album centring not on a single composer, but on a “central masterwork of Western piano music”: Beethoven’s “Appassionata”. Radiating from this hub, Müller weaves a programme that shows why he is regarded as one of Germany’s most promising young pianists.

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Fabia Mantwill Orchestra – EM.PERIENCE (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Fabia Mantwill Orchestra – EM.PERIENCE (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 59:30 minutes | 692 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © XJAZZ Music

Berlin-based composer, saxophonist and vocalist Fabia Mantwill – who is also a nominee of the German Jazzprice 2021 – bridges several distinct musical worlds, from jazz to folk to classical music. Her music encompasses the beauty of our world in a way rarely captured by contemporary musicians. Organic. Creative. And powerful. She developed her signature jazz chamber orchestra – the Fabia Mantwill Orchestra – which is featured on her debut album EM.PERIENCE (2021) alongside world renowned soloists such as Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ben Wendel and Nils Landgren. EM.PERIENCE is a brilliant debut with a completely new collective-individual voice. Unswerving and uncompromising, pointing from many traditions into a new musical future.

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Fourplay – The Best Of Fourplay (1997/2020) DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Fourplay – The Best Of Fourplay (1997/2020)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time – 67:38 minutes | 2,66 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 67:38 mins | 1,49 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: HDTracks | Artwork: Front cover

First released in 1997, “The Best Of Fourplay” showcases the smooth jazz supergroup’s signature style of indelible melodies, tasteful arrangements and addictive, toe-tapping grooves. Besides choice album cuts from Fourplay’s Warner Bros repertoire, the 13-track compilation includes the band’s hit versions of Marvin Gaye’s “After The Dance”, fronted by the silky-voiced El DeBarge, and the Isley Brothers’ “Between The Sheets”, featuring legendary soul singer, Chaka Khan. The new edition of the album includes the bonus track, “The Closer I Get To You”, a duet between Patti Austin and Peabo Bryson. The album was remastered using hi-resolution digital transfers from the original analogue master tapes.

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Fourplay – Snowbound (1999/2018) DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Fourplay – Snowbound (1999/2018)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time – 58:23 minutes | 2,17 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 58:23 minutes | 1,19 GB
Genre: Jazz | Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front cover | © evosound

Fourplay’s first Christmas album “Snowbound” features traditional and contemporary holiday songs, all performed in the supergroup’s popular smooth jazz style. “Snowbound” is strong group effort shines as the band weaves in and out of each other’s lines on “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” or as the rhythm section casts mellow, funky grooves in the path of the title track, under occasional trumpet and sax fills. The quartet delivers one other original piece, James’s “The Ivy Variations”, plus a naturally fluid reading of Joni Mitchell’s often-overlooked song “River”, taken from her five-star album “Blue”.

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Fernando Arias & Noelia Rodiles – Slavic Soul (2021) DSF DSD64

Fernando Arias & Noelia Rodiles – Slavic Soul (2021)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:06:22 minutes | 2,70 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download | Booklet, Front Cover | © Pentatone Music B.V.

Cellist Fernando Arias and pianist Noelia Rodiles team up for this recording, portraying 30 years of Slavic masterpieces for this combination: From the still neglected Dohnányi’s Sonata, op.8 to one of 20th Century’s chamber music masterpieces: Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata op. 40. Intense and brilliant performances in this album which also includes Janacek’s gem “Pohadka”.

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The Feenbrothers – Play Dave Brubeck (2019) SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

The Feenbrothers – Play Dave Brubeck (2019)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time – 47:57 minutes | 1,89 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 47:57 minutes | 1,02 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Genre: Jazz

The Feenbrothers are an institution in the European music scene. They started out as a family band but were soon in great demand individually, called upon by likes of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, The Metropole Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, Toots Thielemans, Han Bennink, Caro Emerald… the list would go on for several pages, should I name all the artists that have benefitted from their superb musicianship. They each have their own taste in music, and they are not necessarily in agreement as to what they think of as great music, but one exception is the music of Dave Brubeck.

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Fantasies, Rhapsodies and Daydreams by Arabella Steinbacher (2016) DSF DSD64

Fantasies, Rhapsodies and Daydreams by Arabella Steinbacher (2016)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:13:08 minutes | 2,91 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Booklet, Front Cover |  © Pentatone Music B.V.

Less than a century ago it was still very common that great violinists like Heifetz, Kreisler, Menuhin etc. played virtuosic pieces in their concerts, very often also their own transcriptions. Nowadays these pieces are unfortunately rarely played in concert halls, sometimes with the reason that this kind of repertoire is “not serious enough”, which I find is really a pity and also not true. Usually violinists study this repertoire at a young age to expand their technical ability on the instrument but afterwards, they tend to focus more on Concertos and Sonatas. I have to admit that the last time I myself played this repertoire was before I was even a teenager, and I had almost forgotten about it.

However, every time I work together with Larry Foster, he is full of stories about Jasha Heifetz from their time together in the 1960s and it is like being taken to another world. Then suddenly the idea came to us; why not make a recording full of these pieces like in the “old days”?

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Ewald Demeyere – Tears – Harpsichord Laments of the Seventeenth Century (2012) DSF DSD64

Ewald Demeyere – Tears – Harpsichord Laments of the Seventeenth Century (2012)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 00:58:02 minutes | 6,81 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Digital Booklet |  © Challenge Records / Northstar Recordings

Amongst the seventeenth-century harpsichord repertoire, the genre of pieces referring to a loss, whether or not the death of a person, takes a special place, and forms the leitmotif of this disc. These introspective pieces, actually being meditations or contemplations, achieve in a uniquely profound way an almost spiritual level. John Downland’s Lachrimae Pavan, initially a lute piece which the composer reworked as a lute song to the words Flow my Tears and as a consort piece, enjoyed great popularity in the seventeenth century. In fact, it occurs in more than one hundred manuscripts or prints in a variety of arrangements. For this CD I have included two of the finest of those transcriptions, by William Byrd and by Melchior Schildt. Byrd was one of the most influential composers of his generation, in his time called a Father of Musick and Brittanicae Musicae Parens.

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Ewald Demeyere – 18th-Century Flemish Harpsichord Music (2011) DSF DSD64

Ewald Demeyere – 18th-Century Flemish Harpsichord Music (2011)
DSF 5.0 Surround DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:14:12 minutes | 8,79 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Digital Booklet |  © Challenge Records / Northstar Recordings

Highly regarded harpsichordist Ewald Demeyer performs a selection of rarely heard 18th century Flemish solo pieces by some of the lesser known composers of the period, including Josse Boutmy, Dieudonné Raick, F.I. de Boeck, Ferdinand Staes, Charles-Joseph van Helmont, and Natalis Vander Borcht.

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Etta James – At Last (1961/2016) DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Etta James – At Last (1961/2016)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 28:58 minutes | 1,14 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 28:58 minutes | 588 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: AcousticSounds | Front Cover
Genre: Blues | © Geffen Records

This debut from Etta James, released in 1961, launched her solo career thanks to the hit title track which became her signature song and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. In addition to several pop and jazz standards, the album includes three other top five R&B singles, leading to the record’s inclusion on the Rolling Stone list of the top 500 albums of all time.

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Esther Phillips – From A Whisper To A Scream (1972/2013) DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Esther Phillips – From A Whisper To A Scream (1972/2013)
DSD64 Stereo (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time: 38:02 min | 1,5 GB
or FLAC Stereo (tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | 38:02 minutes | 745 MB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: e-Onkyo | Front Cover | Genre: Jazz | © CTI Records

A platinum-selling singer, Esther Phillips had a long and storied career and all of her recordings for KUDU (sub-label of CTI) have something nice on them, but this is probably the best one. The credits for “From A Whisper To A Scream“, Esther’s 1972 Kudu debut – considered by many to be her finest album for the label – lists such renowned players as Hank Crawford on sax, Eric Gale and Cornell Dupree on guitar, Bernard Purdie on drums, Richard Tee on keyboards and Gordon Edwards on bass. Also enlisting the cream of background singers (Joshie Armstead, Hilda Harris and Tasha Thomas) giving Esther just the right vocal cushion for her blues-tinged interpretations of works by everyone from poet/singer Gil Scott-Heron and the great Marvin Gaye to New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint and soul man Eddie Floyd.

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Erin Helyard, Stephanie McCallum – Le Prophete: Works for Four Hands (2016) DSF DSD64

Erin Helyard, Stephanie McCallum – Le Prophete: Works for Four Hands (2016)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82 MHz | Time – 02:15:58 minutes | 2,68 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Booklet, Front Cover |  © trptk

The only way to listen to the latest symphony or opera in the nineteenth century was to either seek out a live performance or perform it at home with a piano partner, quatre mains. Thus, an enormous amount of four-hand literature abounds from the 1820s to the 1930s. Works in transcription largely dominate this repertoire: operas, symphonies, and chamber works were adapted en masse for four hands by skilled and not so skilled musicians alike. But there were also works freshly composed in the medium, and four-handed playing could be heard in the home (its natural environment) but also on the relatively new environment of the concert stage

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