Perhaps the smartest move a non-singing guitar-playing virtuoso like Ronnie Earl could make was ditching the lame singers who permeate most of his earlier efforts and go with an all-instrumental program. On this outing, Grateful Heart: Blues and Ballads, he surrounds himself with an excellent quartet of players with David "Fathead" Newman on tenor sax, Per Hanson on drums, Rod Carey on bass, and Bruce Katz on keyboards, and the results are simply sublime. Instead of a bunch of Chicago retreads, we are treated to a heady mixture of blues, jazz, soul, swing, you name it, all of it infused with taste, tone and economy. When Earl burns, the results are jaw dropping; when he slows it down, his choice of notes is exquisite.

As its title suggests, Tommy Castro's seventh album is a note of thanks to the artists who inspired the West Coast guitarist/vocalist. While rocking R&B and blues greats like B.B. and Albert King, Chuck Berry and Buddy Guy are obvious choices, Castro digs deep into their catalogs. He covers B.B. King's "Bad Case of Love," Albert King's "Everybody Want to Go to Heaven," Berry's "Tulane," and Guy's version of Willie Dixon's "When My Left Eye Jumps." More interesting, though, are Castro's '60s soul roots which he acknowledges in versions of songs made popular by Wilson Pickett (a powerful "I Found a Love"), Sam & Dave (Curtis Salgado joins in on a duet of "I Take What I Want"), Otis Redding (a thumping "Lovey Dovey" with Sista Monica Parker taking the Carla Thomas part) and James Brown (a swinging "I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On," which is a departure from Brown's usual funky work).

Directed by legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, FLAMENCO, FLAMENCO is an evolutionary musical journey through the light, song and dance of a dynamic and alive art form. Beautifully photographed by famed Academy Award(R)-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (APOCALYPSE NOW), and showcasing a powerful new Flamenco through dazzling musical and dance performances by emerging talents and the greatest living Flamenco masters, this unique musical odyssey reaches beyond the borders of Flamenco and Spanish culture toward a universal artistic expression.

Firma Melodiya presents recordings of the outstanding violist Mikhail Kugel. Unfortunately, this name is little known in this country and much better known in Europe where he has played concerts and given master classes for the last 20 years. However, in the beginning of his performing career in the 1970s and 1980s, he was considered one of the best Soviet violists. He shared the first prize with Hungarian violist Zoltán Tóth at the international competition in Budapest in 1975 (Yuri Bashmet won the second prize at the same competition).

Although Zawinul tried touring alone in the immediate wake of the breakup of Weather Report, he soon returned to a group format, first with Weather Update in 1986 and a couple of years later with the raffishly named Zawinul Syndicate. The multi-national Syndicate basically expands the Weather Report format into a sextet, with a rock guitar (Scott Henderson) replacing the sax, an extra percussionist on board to join WR's Alex Acuna, and more vocal support then ever – and if a Wayne Shorter-like melody line was needed, Zawinul would play it himself on his new Korg Pepe wind synthesizer. If anything, The Immigrants burrows even further into the world-music bloodstream than WR ever did, with vocals in Spanish and wordless syllables on top of Zawinul's one-chord Third World grooves.