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Christmas & Hits Duos (Slip)
:Album Description:Two CD set. Christmas Songs is a 2005 album by Diana Krall performed with the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. This is Krall's first full-length album of Christmas songs (not counting 1998's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas EP), and her first studio album with a big band. It is her ninth album overall. The Very Best of Diana Krall is the eleventh album by Canadian jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall, released in 2007. On the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, the album debuted at number 19, selling about 30,000 copies in its first ...
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The Very Best of John Coltrane
: :With his inexhaustible technique, trademark sound, and limitless imagination, tenor and soprano saxophonist John Coltrane was one of jazz's most dominant musicians. This collection covers his important Atlantic Records sessions recorded from 1959 to 1960 (chronicled in their entirety on Heavyweight Champion). The tunes signal an important transitional phase from Trane's stints with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk to his emergence as a leader in his own right. 'Giant Steps' 'Naima,' and 'Cousin Mary'--featuring pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Art Taylor--crystallized Trane's supersonic 'sheets of sound' style. 'Like Sonny,' an Afro-Latin dedication to ...
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The Nightfly
: :Donald Fagen's 1982 solo debut extends the sleek, smart pop craft of his work with Steely Dan into the realm of the concept album, taking the Dan's penchant for intricate plotting, evocative narrative voices, and allusive imagery to the logical next step. Fagen's connective thread is futurist nostalgia for the 'New Frontier' as anticipated from the prosperous vantage point of late-'50s America. He romanticizes a brave new world of technology in the sultry diorama of 'I.G.Y.,' celebrating the coming glories of the Atomic Age. He then filters that view through his own suburban ...
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Genius Loves Company
:Album Description:DVD is NTSC format, region code 2 :The fact that Genius Loves Company will be Ray Charles's final new album inspires an unavoidable blue feeling. But it's also a happy reminder that the man spent the last months of his life at work doing what he loved. The overall effect of these dozen duets is autumnal and smooth. Brother Ray is on point and cruising here. Fine moments abound--you can hear his delight even in the rather stiff company of Diana Krall and Natalie Cole. His voice sounds a bit frayed by ...
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Pulse: a Stomp Odyssey
: :Pulse: a Stomp Oyssey is a celebration of the global beat, an exploration of the sights and sounds of continents and cultures, guided by the internationally acclaimed performers of the sensational stage show STOMP. The globe-trotting IMAX journey is billed as 'a tribute to a world of rhythm that has inspired us'. Pulse showcases the cast of STOMP as well as 10 extremely diverse musical groups from around the world.
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Talking Timbuktu
: :Talking Timbuktu is a groundbreaking record that vividly illustrates the Africa-Blues connection in real time. Ali Farka Toure, one of Mali's leading singer-guitarists, has a trance-like, bluesy style that, although deeply rooted in Malian tradition, bears astonishing similarity to that of John Lee Hooker or even Canned Heat. It's a mono-chordal vamp, with repetitive song lines cut with shards of blistering solo runs that shimmer like a desert mirage. Toure may be conversant with some blues artists, but it is unlikely that artists like Hooker or Robert Pete Williams ever heard these Malian ...
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Boney's Funky Christmas
: :Taking, perhaps, his cue from Kenny G, tenor saxman Boney James's silky tone and mainstream arrangements of nine seasonal standards take few risks on the improvisational front. Instead, James sails through such fare as 'The Christmas Song,' the grooving 'This Christmas,' and similar accounts. Reduced to its common elements, Funky Christmas is merely barroom funky, if not a little seductive. And therein lies this cat's charm: bedroom eyes. Perfect for that holiday date you've finally managed to make, Funky Christmas is an easy-listening set that will make ol' Santa think twice before he ...
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Engelbert Humperdinck - His Greatest Hits
: :Engelbert Humperdinck, who at the circa 1968 height of his career shared a manager with fellow hunk Tom Jones, has never enjoyed the campy appreciation that has come to Jones in recent years--mostly because he's way too earnest compared to the teasingly all-man singer of 'What's New Pussycat' and 'She's a Lady.' Humperdinck certainly deserves a place on some space-age bachelor's mix tape with the quietly ebullient 'Quando Quando Quando,' the quietly invitational 'Winter World of Love,' and the quietly fatalistic 'Les Bicyclettes de Belsize'--maybe yours. Or at least your dad's. --Rickey Wright
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Charlie Brown's Holiday Hits
: :Recognizing that the holiday season really begins at Halloween (and, in some quarters, doesn't end until the Super Bowl), Vince Guaraldi and his record company have wisely assembled the hummable themes from various Charlie Brown TV specials. What we have here is the album's ability to communicate the playful irony and loopy, lovable characters that people Charles Schultz's 'Peanuts' comic strip every week. Though only one actual Christmas tune is included--'Christmas Time Is Here,' in both the vocal and instrumental versions--kids from ages 1 to 92 will still appreciate the 'Great Pumpkin Waltz,' ...
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Betcha Bottom Dollar
:Album Description:Inspired by the Oscar®-nominated film The Triplets of Belleville (a French animated movie which features a `40s-style harmony group), The Puppini Sisters -- Marcella Puppini, Kate Mullins, and Stephanie O'Brien -- formed in London. Dressed in 1940's-style wardrobe, the three sing like The Andrews Sisters with inspiring harmonies, and perform classics such as 'Mr. Sandman,' 'In The Mood,' and 'Jeepers Creepers.' But what make The Puppini Sisters truly stand out are their show-stopping interpretations of more current tunes. From Amazon.co.uk:From the first strains of the opening track, 'Sisters,' it's clear that Betcha ...
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