Yo-Yo Ma is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music or exploring cultures and musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination. Ma is an exclusive Sony Classical artist, and his discography of over 50 albums - which have won him 15 Grammy Awards - reflects his wide-ranging interests. Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras throughout the world and his recital and chamber music activities. Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras throughout the world and his recital and chamber music activities.



Out of all the former Beatles, Paul McCartney by far had the most successful solo career, maintaining a constant presence in the British and American charts during the '70s and '80s. In America alone, he had nine number one singles and seven number one albums during the first 12 years of his solo career. McCartney pursued a different path than his former partner John Lennon did, and within a year after the Beatles' breakup, McCartney had formed Wings with his wife Linda, and the group remained active for the next ten years, racking up a string of hit albums, singles, and tours in the meantime. The late '80s, brought McCartney's first full-scale tour since the '70s, a considerable success, and during the '90s, McCartney has been concentrating on more classical projects. McCartney released Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005), which contained the lead single "Fine Line" and the follow-up "Jenny Wren," and became the first artist in history to broadcast live music into space with his performance of The Beatles' song "Good Day Sunshine," on November 13, 2005. The divergent musician was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1999. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1996.


Eldar left his native Kyrgystan for the United States in 1998, a boy of 11 with a slight grasp of English but an astonishing natural talent that immediately captured the attention of the jazz world. In the last seven years, with the support of his family, he has established American roots, continued his education, absorbed the culture, and emerged as one of the most distinctive jazz pianists of the new generation. Eldar has won rave reviews from jazz critics and top jazz venues across the country. Billboard wrote, "Eldar has the fastest hands in jazz ... melds Russian soul with American razzle-dazzle (the up-tempo tunes) in standards, not-so-standards and originals ... His nine-tune set brought the house down ... He seems to easily channel Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson in his approach, but to his credit he gets lost in the music in his own way."




In 2004, Norah Jones released her highly anticipated follow-up album, Feels Like Home. Pairing once again with producer Arif Mardin, Jones pursued a similar approach to Come Away with Me, mixing '70s singer/songwriter-style tracks with blues, country, and her own mellow take on piano jazz. In 2003, Jones played in a group called the Little Willies along with Lee Alexander (bass), Richard Julian (guitar/vocals), Dan Rieser (drums), and Jim Campilongo (guitar), playing covers of classic American music like Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. This one-off performance ultimately turned into sporadic shows at the venue whenever their individual schedules would allow, slowly incorporating original songs into their set along the way. In time, the Little Willies began considering the release of a live album, but instead wound up documenting their sound in the recording studio. Late in the year the single "Thinking About You" announced her return to a solo career. It landed on the album Not Too Late, released in early 2007.

A classmate of director Sergio Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev, Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone was hired by Leone for Per un pugno di dollari (1964) on the strength of some of his song arrangements. His score for that film, with its sparse arrangements, unorthodox instrumentation (bells, electric guitars, harmonicas, the distinctive twang of the jew's harp) and memorable tunes, revolutionised the way music would be used in Westerns, and it is hard to think of a post-Morricone Western score that doesn't in some way reflect his influence. Although his name will always be synonymous with the spaghetti Western, Morricone who has written nearly 400 film scores has also contributed to a huge range of other film genres: comedies, dramas, thrillers, horror films, romances, art movies, exploitation movies -making him one of the film world's most versatile artists.




Singer/songwriter Amos Lee draws inspiration from such soul and folk artists of the '70s as Bill Withers, John Prine, Neil Young, and James Taylor. The Philadelphia native first became serious about performing while attending the University of South Carolina during the mid-'90s. After graduating, the English major taught elementary school before deciding to pursue a music career full-time. A period of waiting tables and bartending followed as Lee honed his songwriting skills. Eventually, he landed some high-profile opening-slot gigs including an extended tour with pianist/vocalist Norah Jones. In addition to Lee's touring band, studio musicians Pete Thomas, Greg Liesz, and Chris Joyner added vital and tasteful elements to the recording process. His second studio album Supply and Demand, illuminates Lee's growth from emerging singer-songwriter to established recording artist, with big league songwriting, compelling musicianship and captivating vocals.






Best known for his work in collaboration with director Tim Burton, composer Danny Elfman created one of the most distinctive bodies of work in contemporary film music, bringing his talents to a dark fantasy world populated by superheroes, monsters and freaks. The son of novelist Blossom Elfman, his brother Richard's 1980 film The Forbidden Zone was his first film score. Assembling a band dubbed the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, Elfman recorded the movie's soundtrack; abbreviated to simply Oingo Boingo, the group remained a going concern following the project's completion, later earning a significant cult following during the New Wave era.



From 1949 to 1975, Blue Note Records signed and/or recorded just about every trumpet-player-that-mattered in jazz: Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, Don Cherry, Blue Mitchell. Fitting then, that now that the label is enjoying an artistic and commercial renaissance, it's no mere coincidence that its current roster includes two of the most celebrated, influential and gifted trumpeter/composers to walk the planet since those halcyon days: Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard.



The Cowboy Junkies were founded by guitarist and songwriter Michael Timmins and bassist Alan Anton (born Alan Alizojvodic), who first played together in a Toronto-based band called the Hunger Project in 1979. They later moved to the U.K. and played with an avant-garde instrumental outfit called Germinal, but eventually grew weary of the group's style and returned to Toronto in 1984. They started jamming with Timmins' brother Peter on drums, and in 1985 they recruited a vocalist in sister Margo, at the time a social worker who'd never sung publicly before. Dubbing themselves the Cowboy Junkies simply because the name had a ring to it, they formed their own independent label, Lament, and released their debut album, Whites Off Earth Now!!, in 1986.



The Little Willies formed for purely practical reasons. In 2003, the group of five friends, who were all individually involved in other projects, booked a gig at The Living Room on New York's Lower East Side as an excuse to spend an evening playing music together. They soon discovered that they shared a deep musical vernacular. Although they hailed from the far corners of the country California, Massachusetts, Texas, Delaware the members of The Little Willies all grew up listening to a certain breed of classic American music: the songs of Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt and Kris Kristofferson, to name a few. As one Little Willie noted, "Something about living in a big city like New York makes you miss the stuff you grew up with, and in our case it was some of these songs. The original idea was to just be a cover band and play all these great songs we knew."




Katie Melua was born in Georgia (former USSR) in 1984 growing up in the capital Tbilisi and later the seaside town of Batumi. The family left Georgia when Katie was 8 and moved to Belfast due to her father's profession as a heart surgeon. When Katie told this to one of her teachers later on in England he described the move as: "from the frying pan into the fire".  She never really viewed it as that because she had a great childhood both in Georgia and Northern Ireland. Katie found the people in Northern Ireland extremely warm and made great friends at St. Catherine's Primary School and Dominican College, Fortwilliam - Katie went to catholic schools in Northern Ireland while her younger brother went to a protestant school. Katie didn't always want to be a singer or songwriter. Her ambition when she was thirteen was to be a politician or a historian "I honestly thought I'd be able to bring peace to the world.... If I ruled it!"




Joshua Bell's artistry is a mixture of the adventurous and the traditional and he has the uncommon ability to bridge the two effortlessly. His last Sony Classical release is a case in point, featuring a cadenza Bell composed himself for Mendelssohn's venerable Violin Concerto--a bold departure from customary practice. Romance of the Violin similarly strikes a balance between a reverence for the past and a desire to update it. The young artist took fresh inspiration from the 'old school' of violinists (such as Kreisler, Sarasate, and Wieniawski) who mesmerized audiences with their direct, personal interpretations. Bell found a link to these bygone artists through his violin teacher, the late Josef Gingold, who instilled the values of the old school.
 



Pianist Bill Charlap was born and raised in New York City. He is the son of Broadway composer Moose Charlap ("Peter Pan") and singer Sandy Stewart (Benny Goodman) and has been playing the piano for as long as he can remember. In addition to leading his own trio with Peter Washington on bass and Kenny Washington on drums, Charlap has been a member of the Phil Woods Quintet since 1995. He has performed with Benny Carter, Clark Terry. Jim Hall, Al Grey, Red Mltchell, Frank Wess, Warren Vach, Milt Hinton, Louie Bellson and Grady Tate among many other jazz superstars.




When a BBC interviewer recently asked Dr. John, "What is the secret to musical longevity?" the legendary New Orleans artist had a ready answer. "Living," he replied. Through more than half a century of music making, Mac Rebennack Jr. has been doing just that as he's rolled with the highs and lows that come with being a working musician, and these days he finds himself in an extended stretch of being in the right place at the right time. Now 65, this American icon, whom fellow legend Jerry Wexler once described as "the blackest white man I know," continues to take all that life has to offer, crisscrossing the country and spanning the globe with his band of virtuosic veterans, the Lower 911, and recording whenever the spirit moves him, which is frequently. More than ever, it seems, Dr. John's head is brimming with ideas.






Anoushka Shankar, is a unique artist with tremendous talent and understanding of the great musical tradition of India. Trained completely by her father and legendary sitar virtuoso and composer, Ravi Shankar, Anoushka has been playing and studying the sitar with him since she was nine, and at age thirteen she made her performing debut in New Delhi, India. That same year, Anoushka entered the recording studio for the first time to play on her father's recording, In Celebration. She helped as conductor with her father and dear friend, George Harrison, on the 1997 Angel release, Chants of India. After signing with Angel/EMI Classics. In the Fall of 1998 her first solo recording, Anoushka, was released to critical acclaim. Two albums followed, one of which was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best World Music Album category, making her the youngest ever nominee in that category.





Euge Groove, a pseudonym for saxophone journeyman Steve Grove, played with Tower of Power for four years, sessions with everyone from Joe Cocker, to the Eurythmics, the Gap Band, Huey Lewis and the News, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville, Eros Ramazotti, and Richard Marx, to name a few. His saxophone appeared on Marx's Top 20 pop and #1 AC hit "Keep Coming Back" in 1991. At the end of the '90s, Grove developed the persona of Euge Groove, a corruption of his real name, and recorded a demo that attracted the attention of various labels.



Canadian singer/composer Loreena McKennitt is self-managed, self-produced, and the head of her own internationally successful record label, Quinlan Road. In a recording career spanning nearly two decades, McKennitt's "eclectic Celtic" music has won critical acclaim worldwide and gold, platinum and multi-platinum sales awards in fifteen countries across four continents.Born in the province of Manitoba, Canada, Loreena moved to Stratford, Ontario, Canada in 1981, where she still resides. She has acted and sung in, and composed music for, Stratford Festival of Canada productions ranging from The Tempest (1982) to The Merchant Of Venice (2001). Her label Quinlan Road, has a catalogue distributed around the world by Universal Music, with over 14 million albums sold worldwide.






A staunch adherent of old-style honky tonk and Bakersfield country, Dale Watson positioned himself as a tattooed, stubbornly independent outsider who was only interested in recording authentic country music. As a result, he never sold many records, but his music was championed by numerous critics and alternative country fans. Watson was born in Alabama in 1962 but spent his teenage years near Houston, and he grew to think of Texas as his true home state. He moved to Los Angeles in 1988 on the advice of Rosie Flores and soon joined the house band at North Hollywood's now-legendary alt-country venue the Palomino Club. He recorded two singles for Curb in 1990, "One Tear at a Time" and "You Pour It On," and appeared on the third volume of the compilation series A Town South of Bakersfield in 1992. Watson didn't find commercial country much to his taste, and he relocated to the more progressive-minded scene in Austin, TX, where he formed a backing band called the Lonestars, and 'From the Cradle to the Grave' is his latest release (2007). Watson was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, and you can find a a documentary on Watson, called 'Crazy Again,' which charts Watson's mental breakdown following the death of his fiancee.

Mary Gauthier, after having traveled through a night that had stretched into years, from a turbulent Louisiana childhood through odd juxtapositions of accomplishment and devastation. The result is reflected in the music, a stream that fed her first two self-released albums (Dixie Kitchen, Drag Queens in Limousines), an indie-label release (Filth and Fire), and her stunning Lost Highway debut (Mercy Now), an album continuously "discovered" and lauded earning mentions on the year end "best of" lists in '05, including the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and No Depression. The album even received a benediction from Bob Dylan, who included one of its songs on a playlist for his XM Satellite Radio program.




London-based American jazz singer Stacey Kent's, Blue Note debut, Breakfast on the Morning Tram, is a charming mix of standards, pop covers, French chansons, and originals. The album was produced by Kent's husband, tenor saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, whose latest album The Lyric featured Kent's vocals, and won Best Album at the 2006 BBC Jazz Awards. true. Having lived and studied in Paris, like her grandfather before her, Kent grew up steeped in French music and literature. She has always felt a tremendous connection between herself and her audiences, but she feels a special connection with her French fans.





Singer/actress Lena Horne's primary occupation was nightclub entertaining, a profession she pursued successfully around the world for more than 60 years, from the 1930s to the 1990s. In conjunction with her club work, she also maintained a recording career that stretched from 1936 to 2000 and brought her three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989; she appeared in 16 feature films and several shorts between 1938 and 1978; she performed occasionally on Broadway, including in her own Tony-winning one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981-1982; and she sang and acted on radio and television.



The Cold War was done, the Gulf War just begun and somewhere in the heart of Brooklyn, Medeski Martin and Wood were born in the sun. Playing music together for the first time that summer there was an instant connectionThe Cold War was done, the Gulf War just begun and somewhere in the heart of Brooklyn, Medeski Martin and Wood were born in the sun. Playing music together for the first time that summer there was an instant connection. Talking to JOHN, BILLY and CHRIS it becomes very clear that this trio will be playing music together for a long time to come... each member cites the need to grow individually as musicians and the sincere desire to learn more about themselves and their art away from the band... to practice, to learn and to grow. Together and apart. But as John puts it "as long as the music's still growing and remains fresh then we'll be together forever, we all kinda feel that way."
 




Cassandra Wilson never fails to surprise and inspire. Sexy, honey-velvet vocals wrapped around her own jazzy blue compositions or inventive interpretations of others' material led TIME magazine to name her "America's Best Singer" in recent years. GLAMOURED is a Gaelic word meaning 'to be whisked away,'" says vocalist, producer, and songwriter Cassandra Wilson, explaining the title of her new album on Blue Note Records.




John Williams should need little introduction since he is almost certainly the most well-known film composer, and possibly to many people the best-known composer, period. Born in New York, Williams started out doing television work composing for Irwin Allen shows like "Lost in Space", "Time Tunnel" and "Land of the Giants". His first brush with Hollywood was as a pianist. During the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema, he worked as a pianist and arranger with film music luminaries such as Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, and later Henry Mancini. With such exposure to the industry, and the encouragement of Newman in particular, Williams made the transition into film composition. Early steps in that direction found Williams again working for Irwin Allen, when he came to do a series of popular disaster movies including "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno".





While you can hear traces of Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Jose Feliciano and, Richie Havens in his music, Raul Midon is an extraordinary original whose passion is expressed in his indelible songs. "I like to celebrate the possible, the highest, the best of possibilities for human beings," says Midon, who has been blind since birth and is the son of an African American mother and an Argentinean father. "It's easy to be pessimistic given the state of the world. But I'm inspired by people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi who had the ability to transform. Collectively we create an enormously powerful force that can change the world and overcome any obstacle." Even before he entered the studio with the Mardins, Midon was accumulating the kind of accolades reserved for seasoned pros. The New York Times called him a "virtuoso," while Newsday heralded him as a showstopper.






Marisa Monte was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1967. Her father, Carlos Monte, was one of the directors of the Portela Samba school, and she begin her musical studies, including piano, drums & music theory, at a very early age. Despite coming of age during the height of the Musica Popular Brasileira movement-MPB was the post-bossa nova popular music of Brazil-Monte's first interest was in Classical music and Opera, and so inspired by her idol Maria Callas she traveled to Italy at age 18 to study Classical singing. It was while abroad that Monte first fully recognized the musical richness of her homeland, and decided to return to Brazil and join the ranks of the MPB, following in the footsteps of her greatest influences, including Elis Regina, Gal Costa, Jorge Ben, Caetano Veloso, Nara Leo and Maria Bethenia, and establishing herself as a star in her own right.



Ottmar Liebert has said that "flamenco is a music both romantic and dangerous; it is an attitude as much as it is a musical genre." Therein lies the philosophy that catapulted him to fame at the end of the '80s with an engaging mix of subdued flamenco guitar and South American percussion, rock, jazz, and pop influences. Liebert's "attitude" actually suppresses the more challenging and "dangerous" aspects of flamenco in favor of the romantic -- and the stylish.