James Carter, a prolific, walking-jazz virtuoso on most sizes of saxophone, demonstrates his versatility by launching this jazz-compatible orchestral album (a collaboration with Puerto Rican classical composer Roberto Sierra) while touring in the UK with that most basic of jazz lineups, a Hammond organ band. On the album, the saxophonist's improvisational strength, and mingling of smoky, romantic cajolings and brusque free-jazz outbursts, neutralises the engulfing impact orchestras sometimes have on jazz soloists.

K's Choice's second album, Paradise in Me, is a competent set of post-grunge rock that relies as much on the group's churning, vaguely hard sound as it does on their songwriting.

Casting its documentary net even wider than Ken Burns's Jazz series, American Roots sets its sights on more of the nation's quintessential styles and musical pioneers - affording context and continuity for viewers turned on by the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. In this four-hour, soul-stirring gumbo, just about every root gets its due, including bluegrass (Ralph Stanley, Bill Monroe); blues (B. B. King, Charley Patton, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson); country (Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Hank Williams); gospel (Mahalia Jackson, Thomas A. Dorsey); folk (Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Mississippi John Hurt); Cajun and zydeco (Clifton Chenier); Tejano (Valerio Longoria, accordion master Flaco Jimenez); and Native American (Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman).

Marillion surprised the European market by earning Top Ten placings in the U.K. and Holland for its single "You're Gone" in the spring of 2004, but the comeback wasn't hard to figure if you listened to the record, which found the band making like U2, with a martial beat, a sustained, repetitive guitar figure, and Steve Hogarth keening, "You are the light," in his best impression of Bono. Elsewhere, Marbles, the band's 13th studio album in 21 years, for the most part recalled not so much U2 as a more long-standing influence, Pink Floyd…

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong make for a charming team on this CD. Accompanied by pianist Oscar Peterson, guitarist Herb Ellis, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Buddy Rich, Fitzgerald and Armstrong perform 11 standards with joy and swing. There are touches of Satch's trumpet, but this is primarily a vocal set with the emphasis on tasteful renditions of ballads. Its follow-up, Ella & Louis Again, is also worth getting. ~ AllMusic

Hearing Albert Collins' icy guitar sound on disc is exciting, but watching the "master of the Telecaster" burn through a typically blistering set adds a whole other level of appreciation to the experience. He was a consummate showman whose crowd-roaming with a 150-foot guitar cord – before the advent of wireless gear – made him as famous for his live sets as his studio ones. This generous DVD delivers a two-for-one bargain, as it features Collins' first 40-minute show at Montreux in 1979 in addition to the hourlong titular set, the latter also available as a companion audio CD. He is on fire for both shows, although perhaps moving a bit more slowly in 1992, which preceded his untimely death by just a year. As was his norm, Collins stretched songs to their breaking point on-stage, and three of the seven tunes he performed in 1992 break the ten-minute mark. But his playing was so inventive and his stage presence so rousing that nothing seems overly extended or drawn out…….

Patricia Barber, who is both a fine keyboardist and an atmospheric singer, contributes roughly half of the material to her Premonition debut. Her dark voice and the generally esoteric program takes awhile to get used to (listeners will have to be patient), but after two or three listens, this thought-provoking and rather moody set becomes more accessible. ~ AllMusic

A CD reissue of 1958 recordings, it includes four previously unreleased tracks. This is raw but beautiful country-blues, featuring the otherworldly sound of Big Joe's nine-string guitar.