Euripides wrote The Trojan Women in 415 B.C., but his tragic play about the aftermath of the fall of Troy continues to resonate many centuries after it was first performed. Eleni Karaindrou, best know for her film scores for Ulysses' Gaze and Eternity and a Day, composed this score for a 2001 production of The Trojan Women after being struck by the parallels between the ancient Greek story and the recent situation in the Balkans. Although she chose to use various folk instruments from around the Mediterranean, such as the lyre, an ancestor of the modern violin; the lauto, a Greek form of the lute; and the ney, an end-blown flute, her stark compositions are not folkloric recreations. Instead, she blends the ancient timbres of the instruments with a vocal chorus to create a sound that is not quite modern but not archaic either. Perhaps the best word to use in describing Karaindrou's austere, beautiful music is timeless.

Grant Green - Live At Club Mozambique (1971) {Blue Note}
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© 1971, 2006 Blue Note / Capitol / EMI | 0946 3 63522 2 0
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Groove / Guitar

Live at Club Mozambique was, according to Bob Belden's liner notes, rumored to exist for decades in Blue Note's Grant Green discography, but was never released. His explanation as to why is satisfactory – Green's star had waned considerably – and makes some sense, but the label had 15 unissued albums by the guitarist by 1971. This date recorded at the famed Detroit jazz club (Green was living in the city at the time) is the second such set of grooves to be issued from the club floor – Lonnie Smith's was the first. The band consists of Idris Muhammad, Ronnie Foster, Houston Person, and the all but unknown Clarence Thomas, and the two tenor saxophonists (Thomas also played soprano here) laid out heavy, deep funk on the tunes that were chosen.

This recording demonstrates, the Lindsays still continue to make the same sort of expressively intense and interpretatively aggressive recordings the group produced for the past three decades. And it must be admitted that the current Lindsays are every bit as willing and able to bend tempos, push phrases, and exaggerate dynamics as the original Lindsays. Indeed, in the group's need to prove its potency, it is now even more willing and there are times when the Lindsays' approach is too powerful for Haydn's music. Listen to the climax of the Largo assai from the G minor Quartet: if you like the sound of Peter Cooper's stabbing violin rending the tempo and texture of the music, you'll love the rest of the recording. If you don't, you won't. ASV's sound is nicely detailed, but slightly too reverberant.

Fragile is a Japanese jazz-fusion band with an extensive career within their country. The Sun and the Melodies is their tenth album; conducted by the masterful guitar of Koichi Yabori, at times it gives the sensation of being listening to many more musicians than a trio. Highly recommended.

Columbia/Legacy's 2001 release The Best of Eddie Money supplants the earlier 1989 collection Greatest Hits: The Sound of Money as the best overview of Money's career. Again, it's not sequenced chronologically, nor is it as tight as it should have been (Money is somebody who would really sound terrific on an eight- or ten-song collection), but it's very good all the same, containing all of his big hits, plus live versions of "Rock and Roll the Place" and "No Control" previously only available on a promo EP. So, even if it's not perfect, it will still satisfy the needs of most Money fans.

This album has it all, upbeat, blues- rock, but with a blend of R&B,and solo acoustic blues and rock ballads and more. Bryce Janey began his career in his hometown of Marion, IA at the age of 13 in a blues-rock trio called The Janey’s. With his mother on drums and his father BillyLee on guitar, The Janey’s played regionally and nationally from Chicago to Los Angeles. They shared the stage with over 50 national acts, including Buddy Guy, Delbert McClinton, Blues Traveler, Johnny Winter and Koko Taylor. While still in The Janey’s, Bryce began a solo career and released his first CD, Practice What You Preach, in 1996 on Hot Fudge Music label.

This album features various performances by the McCoy Tyner Big Band from 1991 to 1993. While it is by no means a "must-have" for fans, it is a nice cross-section of what the band sounds like live.

Helge Sunde is a 44-year-old Norwegian trombonist and composer who often works with jazz/classical composer Geir Lysne, sounds as if he checks out Hermeto Pascoal, Django Bates, Carla Bley, and British jazz and TV composer Colin Towns – and who has produced a cracker of a contemporary big-band album with this set. Sunde's Denada ensemble has produced powerful work before, but the balance of moods, melodic variety and arranging ingenuity on Finding Nymo (the sax-playing Nymo brothers Frode and Atle are star soloists) ought to raise his standing outside continental Europe. He throws listeners off the big-band scent with the eerie vocoder whispers at the start, but busy phrase-swapping between the horns, and arrhythmic ensemble riffs with solo-sax wails rising out of them introduce a Django Bates feel. When In Rome is a hooting, swaggering theme with revving engines and street noise, Valse Triste starts like a funeral lament and turns into a demonically waltzing dance, and the title track begins as tentative, sputtery improv, then coalesces into a melody. Guests Olka Konkova (piano) and Marilyn Mazur add flourishes to an already formidable set.

Bryan Lee could be called one of the last of the old-school blues guitarists. Born in 1943, Lee grew up to the sounds of the same seminal blues guitar idols (Albert King, Elmore James, etc.) that influenced scores of British and American blues and rock players. Based in New Orleans, Lee fortifies his approach to electric blues with aspects of Louisiana musical culture, both pop and blues. KATRINA is a tribute to that hard-hit metropolis, consisting of well-crafted originals (the emotion-laden title song) and choice covers (the oldie "Barefootin,'" the anthemic "Nobody's Business"). To put the icing on the cake, KATRINA is produced by contemporary blues ace Duke Robillard (no slouch himself on the guitar), who also contributes some fine acoustic six-string sounds.

Stiff Upper Lip, AC/DC's 15th studio album, may not reach the heights of Back in Black or Highway to Hell, but it delivers strongly and satisfyingly. It's the record that the highly touted, Rick Rubin-produced Ballbreaker should have been: a simple, addictive, hard album, bursting with bold riffs and bolstered by a crunching, thrillingly visceral sound. Sure, there are absolutely no new ideas, but that's the point. AC/DC know their strengths and they embrace them. And why shouldn't they? Nobody writes a better riff than Malcolm and Angus Young; each song has a riff so catchy, it feels like you've heard it for years.

Allen Hinds was raised in Alabama and now resides in California. His eclectic blends of blues/jazz/rock all mesh into a very distinct style of his own. Like a cross between Robben Ford, Alan Holdsworth and Jeff Beck, his music is intelligent, phrasing sophisticated and tone for days. Jimmy Haslip says "It SMOKES", Will Kennedy says "his songs are not based around notey licks, he's all about strong melodies, great phrasing"

Thievery Corporation's Eric Hilton and Rob Garza have always treated the line between acoustic and electronic music as a drunken sailor might, unpredictably falling on one side or the other with equal frequency. By this measure, The Richest Man in Babylon is their soberest effort to date, striding confidently into jazz, soul, world beat, and other styles with a direct, reverential approach. The band's last record, Sounds from the Verve Hi-Fi, featured a set of classic jazz tunes unadorned with remixes or reinterpretation. But the songs on Babylon are originals, incorporating not just jazz but Afro-beat, Brazilian dance, Persian and Indian music, reggae, and psychedelia, all while making expert use of new and old collaborators like Sleepy Wonder, Lou Lou, and Shinehead. Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini makes an instant impression on the first track, "Heaven's Gonna Burn Your Eyes," her voice freeing the song's melody and structure with just a few hypnotic bars. It's hard to call this an electronic record at all; even their dub-influenced tracks miss a certain studio sheen, as if Hilton and Garza simply waded into a sweltering Jamaican beach party and hit record. But while it misses the ambient, ethereal edge that made The Mirror Conspiracy a downtempo classic, Babylon satisfies with organic energy and tasteful eclecticism.

The Bee Gees were a pop music group formed in 1958. Their lineup consisted of brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful as a popular music act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers of the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies; Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The Bee Gees wrote all of their own hits, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists…