The exceptional and unaffected Martha Argerich gives here a spellbinding performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto.

At his heart Joe Bonamassa is a blues player and it was for this evening at Shepherd’s Bush Empire that he elected to put on a display highlighting his true love of the genre. Backed by a full horn section, Bonamassa rolled through blues-tinged stalwarts from his vast collection.

Casino is a more pop-oriented album. Blue Rodeo seem to have finally established their fine blend of harmonies and laid-back country-rock à la the Band and Bob Dylan. Produced by Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam, Michelle Shocked).

The Borderline, a small club in the heart of London was chosen to stage a revival of Bonamassa’s early career power-trio jam nights. Armed with a Fender Stratocaster – Bonamassa along with a single drummer and bassist launched into a setlist marked with extended takes of songs from his first set of albums including some never before performed live on stage.

Ce saxophoniste réussit à s’imposer en douceur, non pas comme un jeune loup virulent, ni comme un nouveau J.C. épisodique, mais comme un maître mature. Quelques disques en leader, quelques participations remarquées dans des groupes (tel celui des frères Moutin) et puis cette formation, équilibrée et ronde. Sylvain Beuf a un son précis, net. C’est un esthète du saxophone au phrasé très mélodique, très aérien sans pour autant céder à la facilité d’une rapidité bâclée. Ses compositions (neuf en tout) sont à cette image, très pensées, très réfléchies, sans pour autant être compliquées. Le dialogue entre Manuel Rocheman et le saxophoniste est constant et dominant. Il faut dire que Rocheman donne là une belle prestation, enjouée et délicate.

This stalwart independent label, headquartered in San Francisco, began in a small Ann Arbor club and grew into one of the most important imprints in blues. Thirty-three tunes ricochet between the potent old-school Chicago stylings of Buddy Guy and Junior Wells's classic "Hoodoo Man Blues" and Big Walter Horton'ss swinging shuffle "Put the Kettle On" to the intriguing pop-folk hybrid of Roy Rogers and Norton Buffalo and the dashing retro-nuevo guitarisms of Nick Curran & the Niteflies to the brawny Texas-schooled sounds of Omar & the Howlers and Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King. The label's Delta blues side is underrepresented, although James Cotton and Elvin Bishop offer two great flavors of cottonland grind.

This symphony probably may not have changed musical history from the moment it was first written, in Salzburg in early 1774 by the 18-year-old Mozart. But it crystallises the young man’s emerging compositional self-confidence, and that shows him spreading his wings in symphonic music just as he had already started to do in the opera house and in his chamber music.