George Benson – Inspiration (A Tribute To Nat King Cole) (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 40:50 minutes | 907 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Craft Recordings
Inspiration (A Tribute To Nat King Cole) is one of George Benson’s most compelling albums to date. The recording is one of the most meaningful of Benson’s career and is a testament to the spirit of Cole’s timeless body of work. Benson’s heartfelt renditions of some of Cole’s greatest songs with Nelson Riddle arrangements and the 42-piece Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra are complemented by duets with TONY Award winner Idina Menzel and rising star Judith Hill, along with a special collaboration with multi-GRAMMY and Pulitzer Prize-winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.
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George Benson – Guitar Man (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:03 minutes | 863 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Concord Jazz
National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master and Grammy-winning legend George Benson brings his guitar to the forefront in his newest album Guitar Man. The 12-song collection includes a mix of jazz and pop standards – some in a combo setting and some solo, but all of them tied together seamlessly by Benson’s soulful and exploratory signature sound. The album includes masterful takes on such classics as Coltrane’s “Naima,” “Tequila,” The Beatles’ “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” and more.
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George Benson – Breezin’ (1976/2005)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:50 minutes | 602 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Rhino – Warner Records
The 1976 triple-platinum album by 10X Grammy Winner George Benson marked the beginning of the guitarist and singer most successful commercial period. The album garnered 4 Grammys, including Best-Engineered Album, Non Classical and “Record of the Year” for the massive hit (and Leon Russell cover) “This Masquerade,” which topped the Pop, Jazz, and R&B charts.
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George Benson – Body Talk (1973/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 36:52 minutes | 1,39 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CTI Records
With an eye and ear on what was happening on the soul charts — James Brown in particular — Benson made a decided swerve toward R&B on this release. Indeed the JB’s Pee Wee Ellis turns up as a big band arranger on three tracks, and he no doubt had a direct influence on the distinct JB groove of one of the non-big-band tunes, “Dance.” It should come as no surprise by now that this formidable guitarist has no problem handling any kind of groove, although the mixed rhythm section of Jack DeJohnette, Ron Carter, electric pianist Harold Mabern, and percussionist Mobutu sometimes sends mixed messages. Earl Klugh has a few tasty moments on his own, and there are some reconnaissance flights back to the jazz side of George, which he handles with his usual confident aplomb.
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George Benson – Bad Benson (1974/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 33:44 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © CTI Records
Preceding Breezin’, his crossover smash for Warner in 1976, Bad Benson shows the guitarist still hanging on to his Wes Montgomery roots in places while stretching his soul-jazz persona into even funkier arenas. CTI had a formula for making funky, accessible jazz and fusion records that in 1974 still held true. Arranged by Don Sebesky, Bad Benson is a collection of delicious, varied, and sometimes confusing choices. Benson’s own playing is precise and smooth as always, and guitarist Phil Upchurch keeps a large color palette for him to draw from, as in the funkified version of “Take Five.” Other notables are the stellar “My Latin Brother,” which begins as a Debussy-ian impressionistic string study before becoming a heavily arpeggiated variation on the samba. Kenny Barron’s pianism here is the driving force behind a rhythm section that also includes drummer Steve Gadd and bassist Ron Carter. They give Benson a harmonic floor for one of the most inspiring solos of his career. These intensely meaty cuts — along with Upchurch’s stellar swinging in the pocket groover “Full Compass” — are juxtaposed against ballads such as “Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams” and “The Changing World,” a pair of ballads that ape Montgomery’s later snore-fest session for A&M. Not a great album, but a very, very good one.
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George Barnes Quartet – Don’t Get Around Much Anymore (2003/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:10 minutes | 1,20 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Acoustic Disc
Acoustic Disc proudly presents another chapter in its archive series with the last recorded live performance by the legendary jazz guitar great George Barnes and his quartet. The Acoustic Disc Archive Series chronicles rare and unique previously unreleased recordings of historically and musically important acoustic performances.
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, recorded live in July of 1977 at the Willows Theater in Concord, California by David Grisman Quintet engineer Larry Cumings, captures Barnes in magnificent form with his last Quartet, featuring drummer Benny Barth, bassist Dean Reilly and guitarist Duncan James.
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Elysium Ensemble – Georg Philipp Telemann: Melodious Canons & Fantasias (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 59:11 minutes | 1,74 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Resonus Classics
Australian early music group the Elysium Ensemble continue their series of recordings of duos on period instruments focussing on the art of elegant conversation in the Baroque with this album of canons and fantasias by Georg Philipp Telemann.
Based around the Melodious Canons composed in 1738 in Paris, Elysium principals Greg Dikmans (flute) and Lucinda Moon (violin) also introduce a selection of Telemann’s solo fantasias for their respective instruments.
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Georg Nigl, Andreas Staier, Anna Lucia Richter, Petra Müllejans, Roel Dieltiens – Bach Privat (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:24:54 minutes | 1,52 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
This recording is an invitation to immerse ourselves in the musical inner circle of the Bach family. We are familiar with Johann Sebastian Bach as a composer of genius, but we know little about his family life, with the exception of the famous Clavierbüchlein (Little keyboard book) that the forty-year-old composer gave as a present in 1725 to his second wife Anna Magdalena, his junior by sixteen years. This manuscript is a unique document of the music the family played together. It provides us with a point of reference for the ‘programmes’ of these domestic concerts: it contains short keyboard pieces and songs alongside extended arias taken from the church cantatas, as well as chamber music. Bach and his two eldest sons were not only virtuoso harpsichordists but also excellent violinists, while the composer’s son-in-law Bach, J. C. Altnickol, played the cello and was an outstanding double bass player. Anna Magdalena Bach and her oldest stepdaughter both contributed as singers. And the still young children of the second marriage participated by playing easy pieces on their father’s various keyboard instruments. The musicians and singers on this recording, all eminent exponents of Bach and of Baroque music in general, have come together here to bring these exceptional moments back to life.
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Georg Nigl – Vanitas – Schubert, Beethoven & Rihm (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:33:22 minutes | 1,68 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Like the paintings of the Flemish Baroque painters, the ‘vanities’ presented here can be approached in two ways: on the one hand, as manifestations of doubts and anxieties at the fragility of human life; on the other, as delights to be savoured without moderation, celebrating earthly life through the senses and the pleasure that human beings can derive from them.
After two critically acclaimed recordings each for Alpha, the baritone Georg Nigl and the pianist Olga Pashchenko explore the tortuous meanders of the human soul with vocal works by Schubert (an ‘existentialist’ composer if ever there was one), Beethoven (whose torments hardly need stressing) and the contemporary composer Wolfgang Rihm, whose highly expressionistic Jakob Lenz Nigl performed on stage in 2019. His piece Vermischter Traum, here given its world premiere, is dedicated to the Austrian singer.
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Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Georg Kallweit – Handel: Concerti grossi, Op. 3 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:09 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Even if this selection of ‘Concertos’ was most likely compiled by Handel’s publisher rather than by the composer himself, the overall quality and colourful nature of the music contained do make it a powerful ‘opus’. With their historically-informed and lively playing, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and concertmaster Georg Kallweit demonstrate why many consider them the best Baroque ensemble of today.
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Georg Kallweit, Björn Colell – Passaggio, eine barocke Alpenüberquerung (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:42 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
For several years now, the guitarist and lutenist Björn Colell and the Baroque violinist Georg Kallweit, Konzertmeister of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, have formed a noted duo called Ombra e Luce: ‘With only two musicians and two instruments, we aspire to a perfect rapport and a permanent dialogue. We have access to a rich repertory of original pieces from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries for violin and lute/theorbo: this was a widespread combination, essentially before 1700. We work a great deal on tone colours and nuances, spontaneity and improvisatory playing – a flexible and sensual interpretation of the works we perform, giving full value to chiaroscuro: ombra e luce! We are convinced that, played in this way, our “early music” can speak directly to the hearts even of listeners who are hearing it for the first time. This new recording, “Passagio”, is the result of our recent musical journeys. Setting out from Italy to go farther north, we have virtually and musically crossed the Alps with our instruments. The works on this recording shed a different light on the music of the courts of Modena, Bologna and Venice.’
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Georg Gulyas – Georg Gulyás Plays Barrios (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:30 minutes | 838 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos Sweden – Proprius Records
New release with guitarist Georg Gulyas! After Georg Gulyas’ critically lauded recordings of the collected works for guitar by Bach and Britten on Proprius/Naxos, this internationally acclaimed guitarist now returns to the Latin American guitar repertoire with a brand new album dedicated to the Paraguayan composer Augustin Barrios. Recording producer is Torbjorn Samuelsson who continues the highly praised sound work that characterize Gulyas’ previous records.
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Geoffroy Couteau, Orchestre National De Metz & David Reiland – Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 – Transcription for Piano Left Hand of Bach’s Chaconne (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:01:58 minutes | 1009 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © La Dolce Volta
Within the framework of his complete Brahms cycle, Geoffroy Couteau presents an original programme focusing on the trio Brahms formed with Robert and Clara Schumann, and on their relationship with Joseph Joachim. All these personalities lie at the heart of the conception of both the Concerto in D minor and the transcription of Bach’s Chaconne; two works that also reveal their shared devotion to Bach.
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Geoffroy – Coastline (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 40:59 minutes | 486 MB | Genre: Indie, Alternative, Pop, Electronic
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bonsound Records
The eleven songs form an album that is both original and cohesive, and explores Geoffroy’s many states of mind. Inspired by travel and nature, as well as the desire for transformation, the artist is in full quest- mode for liberty and independence. More electro than his 2015 “Soaked in Gold” EP, “Coastline” still features organic instrumentation, unique to Geoffroy’s aesthetic. He’s produced a solid mix of percussions, guitars, analog keyboards and synths, and woodwind instruments on several songs.
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Geoffrey Tozer – Medtner: Piano Works, Vol. 7 (2001/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:03:25 minutes | 488 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Chandos
There are few stranger, more recondite figures in the entire history of music than Nikolai Medtner. Recently he has been rescued from near oblivion by Hamish Milne, Geoffrey Tozer and Marc-Andre Hamelin in particular, who have, in their different ways, cast a penetrating and affectionate light on music which after repeated hearings subtly insinuates itself into the listener’s consciousness. The moods, particularly in the seventh volume of Geoffrey Tozer’s Chandos cycle, are primarily introspective, whether simply or floridly expressed. Most of the ideas, too, bear a family likeness suggesting a continuous return to a fabric or dreamscape of happier times and places; nostalgia was always central to Medtner’s haunting genius.
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