Richard Kiser - Upon This Rock - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The Jesus Record is a bittersweet testament to the late Rich Mullins, who died in an auto accident shortly before he would have started the album. The first disc of the two-CD set contains the demos for The Jesus Record, all of which are performed by Mullins alone, accompanied either by a piano or guitar. Mullins never had the opportunity to properly record these songs. Instead, the Ragamuffin Band recorded them officially, with vocalists like Phil Keaggy, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith filling in for Mullins on vocals. It's an affecting tribute to Mullins' talent - not only are the demos quite moving, but the completed record nearly matches those peaks. Either way, it's a nice way to say goodbye to one of the major forces in '90s CCM. TRACKLISTING 1. Hard to Get (Demo Version) 2. All the Way to Kingdom Come (Demo Version) 3. My Deliverer (Demo Version) 4. Surely God Is With Us (Demo Version) 5. Jesus (Demo Version) 6. You Did Not Have a Home (Demo Version) 7. Heaven In His Eyes (Demo Version) 8. Nothing Is Beyond You (Demo Version) 9. That Where I Am, There You (Demo Version) 10. My Deliverer 11. Surely God Is With Us 12. Nothing Is Beyond You 13. You Did Not Have a Home 14. Jesus 15. All the Way to Kingdom Come 16. Man of No Reputation 17. Heaven In His Eyes.

So what is a ROCK & ROLL SYMPHONY anyway? Well, as David L. Miller, '50s pop orchestral producer-extraordinaire wrote, it's 'Rock & Roll in the Sound of Magnificence!' This is the majesty of the symphony - but with a solid beat and in spectacular concert-hall stereo to demonstrate your high-end system with real speakers (remember those?). When rock and roll came along in the 1950s, the older generation panicked. What was this crazy new music that teenagers were listening to, they wondered, with it's pounding beat and wild vocalists? Where was the melody? And where was the appreciation for the classics and pop standards? a handful of bandleaders decided to take matters into their own hands. Instead of sitting idly by and watching their album sales dwindle while unschooled and unruly musicians scored on the hit parade with 'awful' rock and roll records, these bandleaders set out to make better rock and roll. Rock and roll with real melodies! ROCK & ROLL SYMPHONY NO. 1 (A 1959 Stereo Concert) chronicles their orchestral effort to save rock and roll from itself. These 28 thoughtfully selected and carefully mastered recordings, some classical, some familiar standards ('Blueberry Hill', 'My Prayer', 'Cry') combine gorgeous rich orchestral pop arrangements with a real old-school rock & roll back beat, all in audiophile fidelity and the kind of 'wide' stereo you remember from the early days.

The Venetian musician Ettore Bonelli has always been known as a violinist, a teacher and revisor, but less so as a composer. Precisely the conspicuous amount of revisions, over a hundred, (the famous version of the Concerto for Oboe by Benedetto Marcello, in fact, composed by Alessandro Marcello, published by Zanibon in Padua) to which Bonelli mainly dedicated himself after World War ii, had over-shadowed his rich activity of composition which had occupied him since 1918. He had abandoned this for thirty years and had taken it up again only in the '70s. With pieces with a didactic aim dedicated to the violin, oboe, double bass, and the flute- harp duo. This recording promoted by Alessandro Curri (violist, nephew of Ettore Bonelli, and son of the harper Ilde Bonelli) represents a first glance to the composer's chamber music production focused on works for violin and piano and for viola and piano. With Giuliano Fontanella on the violin and pianists Tania Salinaro and Giovanni Dal Missier, this world premiere recording is revealing a solid and decisive craftsmanship, which inherits and reworks the styles in vogue in the first half of the twentieth century in Italy, without excessive experimentalism yet with skilful refinement.