Gershwin: An American in Paris; Catfish Row (Suite from Porgy and Bess); Promenade; Rhapsody in Blue; Cuban Overture
Jeffrey Siegel, piano; Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; Leonard Slatkin, conductor.
Mobile Fidelity UDSACD 4007
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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Leonard Slatkin recorded the complete orchestral works of Gershwin for Vox in the mid-1970s, when the quadraphonic format was trying to take hold. This disc contains about half the recordings from that series, in the original 4.0-channel mixes. Slatkin’s interpretations are solid, spirited, and colorful, with excellent playing from his Midwest orchestra. Jeffrey Siegel is not the flashiest pianist to ever take on Rhapsody in Blue, but he’s quite satisfactory, and one of the few to realize that sometimes the piano has a solo passage and at others it accompanies the orchestra. What might influence many to buy this release is its incredibly transparent sound. Even when the storm sequence from Porgy and Bess is blasting away full tilt, you can hear everything clearly. The alarm bells make an entrance from the rear channels, which are also used for the "Cuban" instruments in the Cuban Overture. Otherwise, the sound is up front, with the rears used for hall reverberation. This is a great recording of very good performances of entertaining music -- just right for summer, and appropriate American music for the Fourth of July….Rad Bennett

Cedar Walton Quartet: Recorded Live at the Umbria Jazz Festival
TDK DVUS-JCWQ
Format: DVD-Video

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This disc features an hour-long performance by Cedar Walton (piano), George Coleman (tenor sax), Sam Jones (bass), and Billy Higgins (drums), from July 20, 1976, at Italy’s Umbria Jazz Festival. The set includes tunes by Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, along with originals by Walton and Jones. Sounding more like 1966 jazz than 1976, the band delivers an enjoyable performance that highlights Coleman’s tenor and Walton’s considerable talents on the piano. In many ways this group not only looks back to the 1960s but presages the neotraditional jazz that would become popular in the 1980s and 1990s. The booklet includes an informative essay about the quartet, but the video is not up to contemporary standards and the sound is mono. This won’t be a reference disc, nor should it be your first jazz DVD, but if you can overlook its technical shortcomings, it should provide great musical enjoyment….Eric Hetherington

Haydn: The Creation
Sunhae Im, soprano; Jan Kobow, tenor; Hanno Müller-Brachmann, bass; Vokal Ensemble Köln, Capella Augustina; Andreas Spering, conductor.
Naxos 6.11073-74
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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Haydn’s colorful oratorio depicting the Biblical creation of the world was a big hit in its day and continues to be popular 200 years later. The chorus that ends Part I, known in English as "The Heavens are Telling," is a pinnacle that almost every church choir in the US has attempted. This radiant performance, on two hybrid multichannel SACDs, is sung in German and played on period instruments. The three major soloists have excellent voices and make a well-balanced trio in ensemble passages, and the chorus enunciates clearly and sings with impeccable pitch and good tone. The orchestral musicians make the most of Haydn’s tone painting and imaginative scoring, and conductor Andreas Spering’s reading is spirited and energetic without sacrificing nuance. The sound is clean and well balanced, with overly discreet use of the surround channels -- I missed that last measure of presence and three-dimensionality that Naxos usually provides in its multichannel recordings, as in its recently released Mass in B Minor of J.S. Bach….Rad Bennett

Mendelssohn: Choral Works (Kyrie in D Minor, Psalm 42, Anthems, Motets)
Chamber Choir of Europe, Württemberg Philharmonic; Nicol Matt, conductor.
Brilliant 92207
Format: Hybrid Multichannel SACD

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Recording in high-resolution formats has brought many relatively unknown performers to the fore as they endeavor to obtain a promotional boost from the new formats. One of the best of these organizations is the Chamber Choir of Europe, a professional ensemble comprising singers from ten European nations. On this disc they sing the rarely heard choral music of Felix Mendelssohn, who was at the heart of the revival of Bach’s music in the first half of the 19th century. Some of the pieces are performed with orchestra, some without. No matter the setting, the chorus sings beautifully, with superb tone and excellent pitch. The overall sound is light, but sounds robust at times due to careful phrasing, unanimous attacks, and spot-on projection of the texts. Conductor Nicol Matt is a consummate musician who leads his forces with precision and expressiveness. The sound is not as close-up as I normally prefer, yet both voices and instruments have admirable presence. The surrounds add warmth. If you like this disc as much as I did, be sure to check out these other recordings by the same forces on the Brilliant label: Mozart’s "Great" Mass in C Minor, K.427 [92211], and Bruckner’s Mass No.1 in D Minor [92212]….Rad Bennett

Jude Johnstone: On a Good Day
BoJak BJR 8113-2
Format: CD

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Jude Johnstone’s On a Good Day takes up a contemplative piano-based thread of the singer-songwriter tradition that harks back to early-1970s Carol King, Jackson Browne, and Joni Mitchell’s "River." You might think that some of the harmonies sound like Browne and Bonnie Raitt, and no wonder -- a glance at the credits reveals that that’s exactly who dropped in for these sessions. This is not to downplay Johnstone’s uniqueness; she has a voice of her own and writes good songs, striving less for musical firsts than for basic chord and melodic structures that nicely fit her self-expressive lyrics about how she feels on a good day vs. on a bad day, hard lessons life has taught her, thoughts her house evokes about a relationship with someone, and her take on the hereafter. There’s a nice variety of rhythms and arrangements, with excellent support from the musicians, who bring less experience to the job than do the guest veterans. The second track so closely resembles the musical verses (not the refrain) of Bruce Springsteen’s "No Surrender" that it couldn’t be plagiarism -- no one in her right mind would do so little altering or disguising. I’m guessing Johnstone heard Springsteen’s song long ago and lost conscious memory of it….David Cantor