Ray Russell - Table Near the Band - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Halsey's fifth studio album The Great Impersonator is due out on Columbia Records on October 25th. In this confessional, concept album, Halsey explores who she would be as an artist and a person if she existed throughout different decades. Jewel Box CD with 4-page booklet. EXPLICIT

The virtuoso Czech pianist and composer Jan Ladislav Dussek lived a colorful life. Born in Bohemia, his career took him to Prague, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Berlin, London, and Paris. He knew Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, was a favorite of Marie-Antoinette and Catherine the Great, and a friend of Muzio Clementi and Joseph Haydn while in London. He then became the teacher and chamber music partner of prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia. His last employ was as music master to Talleyrand in Paris. A composer rooted in classicism, his harmonic daring and expressive melodies would gradually anticipate early romanticism. This is particularly evident in these two late sonatas, whose pianistic brilliance was doubtless inspired by the new English Broadwood pianos. InchLe Retour a ParisInch is a moving homage ot the French metropolis, with pioneering chromatic modulations. In the passionate intensity of InchL'Invocation,Inch a masterpiece written in 1811, we sense some of the melancholy that darkened his last years.

A bona fide guitar hero in his native England, Ray Russell bridges musical worlds on Now, More Than Ever, his potent debut on the Abstract Logix tag. Russell's latest comes seven years after his last studio recording, Goodbye, Svengali, the innovative guitarist's heartfelt tribute to the late Gil Evans. Featuring an all-star cast, including drummer Gary Husband, bassists Jimmy Johnson, Mo Foster and Anthony Jackson, this bold outing straddles that no man's land between rock power and unfettered jazz improvisation while conjuring up ethereal guitar synth sound scapes along the way. Now, More Than Ever stands as one of the more dynamic outings in Russell's extensive discography.