When one thinks of free improvisations, it is often of high-energy barrages of sound or esoteric sound explorations. The Lisbon Improvisation Players, a quartet/quintet (cellist Ulrich Mitzlaff is on the final two of the six selections) whose best-known member is trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez, plays a different type of free jazz. Not shying away from melodies, tonality and rhythms, the group develops all three as the music progresses. The results are consistently fascinating as the musicians literally create music out of thin air…

Richard Barbieri is an English synthesizer player, keyboardist and composer. Originally with Japan (and their reunion as Rain Tree Crow), more recently he is known as the keyboard player in the band Porcupine Tree.
Five in the Variants series of releases.

Japanese outfit Asturias started out as the solo project of multi-instrumentalist and composer Yoh Ohyama. He started writing material for an album in 1987, and in 1988 the debut album Circle in the Forest was issued on King Records, one of the major record labels in Japan. The sophomore effort Brilliant Streams followed in 1990, and the third and eventually last installment in this series of solo albums were Cryptogam Illusion issued in 1993.
By this time Ohyama had received much praise for his albums as well as his live performances; and had established himself as a Japanese answer to - or version of - Mike Oldfield. However, despite the artistic merits of his work and the praise his creations received sales weren't satisfactory for his record label; and the Asturias project was put on hiatus…

Every time Harvey Mason decides to record a new album he calls on a few old favours and boy it still amazes me who the Mason gang comprises of. The above looks like a ' who's who ' of the fusion jazz music industry. The musicians who didn't appear were probably on tour or on a holiday on the moon. Joining Harvey on this album too are family members Harvey Junior and Heather, who like the maestro himself, are wonderfully gifted all round musicians.

Steve Perry walked away from the music business at the twilight of the 1990s, following the modest success of 1994's For the Love of Strange Medicine and the underwhelming commercial performance of Journey's 1996 album, Trial by Fire. Perry spent the next decade and a half out of the spotlight, quietly re-emerging with an appearance at a 2014 Eels concert in St. Paul, Minnesota. Perry's affinity for Mark Everett's eccentric indie pop outfit came as a surprise, as nothing in either band's music suggested a mutual connection, but as the former Journey singer ramped up the publicity for 2018's Traces, his first solo album in 24 years, his fondness for Everett's songs became plain: the Eels leader explores the depth of grief on many of his songs, and that's an emotion Perry felt deeply at the dawn of the 2010s.

The blues have been imported into Poland by multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and festival producer Irek Dudek (born Ireneusz Dudek). His group, the Silesian Blues Band, featuring Apostolis "Lakis" Antymos, Josef Skrzek, and Jerzy Piotrowski, was one of Poland's top blues-rock bands of the 1970s. Although he's continued to record as a soloist, releasing No. 1 in 1985 and A New Vision of Blues in 1994, Dudek has made his most enduring mark as producer of the Rawa Blues Festival.

The most renowned Canadian classical performer of the 20th century, pianist Glenn Gould remains one of the most fascinating and celebrated figures in all of music, the archetypal riddle wrapped inside an enigma wrapped inside a conundrum. A former child prodigy, his piano artistry was unparalleled, yet he often received less recognition as a virtuoso than as a troubled eccentric; a disconnected recluse notorious for such odd habits as wearing a wool topcoat in the dog days of summer, Gould was a sight to behold even in live performances – seated on a low chair and slumped over the keyboard, humming (sometimes singing) audibly to himself as he played, all the while conducting with his free hand.

Since its invention by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1841, and despite all his efforts to introduce it into military bands and symphony orchestras, we must acknowledge that, unfortunately, the saxophone has not overly aroused the interest of composers. Certainly, thanks to Miss Elisa Hall, who, in the early 20th century, commissioned some twenty-odd scores, saxophonists can take pride in having concertante pieces by Debussy, Vincent dIndy and Florent Schmitt in their repertoire…

Eagle Rock are delighted to announce the release of two films by John and Yoko, Imagine and Gimme Some Truth. Both films, which focus on the Imagine era, have been hand restored frame-by-frame from the original film reels into HD, and their soundtracks have been remixed in glorious 5.1 surround sound, and remastered…