Maria Muldaur: Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul
Stony Plain SPCD 1304
Format: CD

Musical Performance
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Maria Muldaur’s Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul is her second of three albums paying tribute to early blues pioneers. The first, Richland Woman Blues, was nominated for a Grammy and two W.C. Handy Awards and won an Indie for the year’s best traditional blues album. Like that album, Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul is a tribute to those who laid the foundation for this great and influential American art form. Memphis Minnie is honored on this release. Among the many fine players backing Muldaur are Pinetop Perkins, 91, on piano; Fritz Richmond, jug master from Muldaur’s Kweskin Jug Band days; and Taj Mahal on guitar, vocals, and banjo. With Muldaur’s gritty vocals always out in front and her band keeping to a blues groove, the album’s clear sound avoids fostering a hoity-toity quality that could defeat music whose power comes from its intense sense of humanity transcending monetary impoverishment. Favorite tracks or clunkers are hard to find -- all are so well done -- but Memphis Minnie’s "I Am Sailin’" and "She Put Me Outdoors," the traditional "Ain’t What You Used to Have" and "Take a Stand," and J.C. Johnson’s "Empty Bed Blues" stand out on a disc that should become a classic....David J. Cantor

Mozart: Requiem
Christine Brewer, soprano; Ruxandra Donose, mezzo-soprano; John Tessler, tenor; Eric Owens, bass; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus; Donald Runnicles, conductor.
Telarc SACD-60636
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment

Mozart’s somber swan song has turned out to be one of the most recorded works in the high-resolution catalog. No version has been bad -- this music seems to bring out the best in all players and singers -- which means that a purchasing decision might more likely be based on the performing version used. This one and the performance led by Sir Charles Mackerras [Linn CKS 211] both use the Robert D. Levin edition and are on hybrid multichannel SACD. Mozart died before completing the work, and for years the only completion used was that by his student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Levin followed this version, cleaning it up to make the orchestration more like that which Mozart usually wrote. Both the Runnicles and Mackerras performances are excellent, but the Telarc wins by a hair with a recording that is very transparent while still sounding rich and full (after all, the Atlanta "Chamber" Chorus numbers more than 70 singers). The clarity of the timpani strokes in the opening "Introitus: Requiem" are true strokes of doom, and I’ve never heard so clearly the death-defying brass doublings in the fugal "Kyrie." Telarc’s catalog contains an embarrassment of riches, including three of the best performances of the Requiem. Though each of the other two, led by Robert Shaw and Martin Pearlman, has something to say about the work, this third time is the charm....Rad Bennett

Celso Fonseca: Rive Gauche Rio
Ziriguiboom/Six Degrees 657036 1113-2
Format: CD

Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment

Rive Gauche Rio is Fonseca’s second US and sixth Brazilian release. Drawing on the tradition of Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, and Caetano Veloso to create an infectious style of bossa nova subtly updated for the 21st century, Fonseca has made an album that I’ve been unable to remove from my "to play" stack even after repeated listenings. "Feriado" and "Don de Fluir," the latter a duet with Academy Award-winning composer Jorge Drexler, could be hit singles if American radio stations played more music and less commercial claptrap. The sound is very good, the instruments placed in a three-dimensional space. On "Atlantico," the sounds of the percussion travel across the room. Fonseca’s voice is crisp, clear, and up front. For all I know, Fonseca could be singing about brushing his teeth -- I don’t speak Portuguese -- but I’ll keep listening intently and pick up a Portuguese-English dictionary....Eric Hetherington

Martinu: Rhapsody for Viola, Concerto and Concertino for Piano Trio and String Orchestra, Memorial for Lidice
Tabea Zimmermann, viola; Trio Wanderer; Gürzenich-Orchester Köln; James Conlon, conductor.
Capriccio 71 053
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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Although the Supraphon label released recordings of several of his works in the US, Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) is still relatively unknown outside his homeland. It seems especially odd that he is so little known on this side of the Atlantic -- in 1941 he fled to the US to avoid the Nazi domination of Europe, and in 1952 became an American citizen. His very accessible music is often lush, sometimes spare, and always written with good order and clarity. It is unusual to find a single concerto for piano trio and orchestra from any composer, but Martinu wrote two, each loaded with considerable charm. The first, the appealing Concerto, is denser and more complicated, the joyous Concertino lighter in nature. All of the soloists on this disc play with virtuoso ability, and the orchestra responds to conductor James Conlon with precision and excellent tone. The recording is rich yet transparent, with good use of the center channel to anchor in place the orchestra’s woodwinds. The bass line has precise definition and the balances are ideal....Rad Bennett

Terry Bozzio: Chamber Works
Favored Nations FN2530-2
Format: CD

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At least three alumni of Frank Zappa’s bands have, following his example, composed works for orchestra. Dutch radio producer and Zappa enthusiast Co De Kloet helped shepherd large-scale works by guitarists Steve Vai and Mike Kenneally to completion by introducing the composers to Holland’s Metropole Orkest. He has performed the same service now for drummer Terry Bozzio, whose Chamber Works contains many of the qualities that made Zappa’s orchestral works so fascinating. Bozzio shows an affinity for Stravinsky and other modernist composers, but it’s the unabashedly melodic sections of the two works here that suggest he could be the most successful of Zappa’s followers. He often shows a light, humorous touch, and his feel for juxtaposing dissonance and melody recalls his former boss’s. Although Bozzio wrote Five Movements for Drum Set and Orchestra as a showpiece for his own skills, he doesn’t let things slide into self-indulgence, and in long sections of Opus One: Self Portrait with Scar he doesn’t play at all. The latter work deftly balances quiet, contemplative sections with very dramatic passages. The recording’s mix sometimes overemphasizes the drums, obscuring some of the orchestral harmonies, but Bozzio’s explosive playing on portions of the disc will show off your system nicely....Joseph Taylor