Leo Kottke was initially inspired by fellow southern blues and country masters such as Mississippi John Hurt, Chet Atkins, and Roy Clark. As a young artist, Leo Kottke recorded for John Fahey's legendary Takoma label—garnering sometimes unfair comparisons to that gentle giant of guitar hoo-doo. Subsequently, pickers from Ry Cooder to Jim O'Rourke have been influenced by the work of these elder brothers who laid the groundwork for the atmospheric, improvisational noodling that's sometimes called chamber-folk. Following along these lines, Kottke displays his heritage proudly on the simple yet remarkably nimble One Guitar, No Vocals. "Three Quarter North" is a bluesy, deliciously sloppy waltz interspersed with broken bits of phrasing like the easy, mumbled drawl of front-porch conversation, while the album's longest piece, "Accordian Bells," rises and falls, tinkles and plays like tiny tip-toe dancing. —Paige La Grone

Most of this set was recorded for LP in 1978, but Leo Smit returned to the studios in 1993 to add some recently discovered short pieces. Smit, a friend of Copland and a composer himself, plays all of Copland's piano music with great comprehension. He sustains the flow throughout the difficult half-hour Piano Fantasy, though he doesn't create as much excitement in the Piano Variations as the composer did in 1935 on 78s (now on Pearl GEMM CD 9279). Much of Copland's piano music is occasional works or pieces for students, but the major works in the set make it well worth hearing. —Leslie Gerber

Additional lyrics by John LaTouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

No Description Available.
Genre: Classical Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 18-MAY-1990

The tracks are: 1. Appalachian Spring (complete ballet), 2. Cortege macabre from "Grohg, 3. Letter From Home, 4. John Henry.

Solid Disk guaranteed with no scratches

Founded by the violin-playing Slabiak brothers, Erik and Oliver, Les Yeux Noirs has explored the common ground between Jewish and Gypsy music for more than a decade. Here on the septet's fifth album, tChorba, which is a French perjoritive for "soup," the band continues to refine its Jewish/Gypsy stock while adding in plenty of herbs and spices to make it the band's richest-sounding effort yet. The title cut opens with a funk groove riff before ompapa-ing to rock and back. The band gets its flamenco on for "O'Djila," sounding like they could give the Gipsy Kings a run for their money. Most intriguing is the fusion on "Desirs Derisoires," which has a comfortable reggae lilt to its rhythm as it bounces between Latin pop and exotic Eastern filigree. The purpose of posing the band members under showers in the CD booklet is perplexing, but at least the band has its musical ducks in a row: amidst the stylistic shifts, the music doesn't leave the listener adrift. —Tad Hendrickson