/ Features

What made Ellington a Duke? Though born in the final year of the 19th century, few figures in 20th century music were as influential as composer, pianist and bandleader Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington. By the time of his first ever long-playing album, 1951’s Masterpieces by Ellington, he was already American royalty, well-established via films, Broadway musicals and the enduring compositions he gifted to the Great American Songbook. Masterpieces also kicks off the nine-disc journey through

In 1996, Rhino Records released Cowabunga!  The Surf Box, a four-disc celebration of surf music, both vocal and instrumental, from its earliest days to the then-present.  It’s taken more than fifteen years, but James Austin, the co-producer of that long-out-of-print box, has returned with an all-new companion piece.  Surf Age Nuggets, released through the RockBeat label (ROC-CD-3098), offers another four discs’ worth of “trash and twang instrumentals,” as the cover promises.  Its 104 tracks

Are you ready to add some Black to the red and green this Christmas?  If you are, you’ll be richly rewarded thanks to Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings’ Johnny Cash: The Complete Columbia Album Collection (88697 91047 2, 2012).  It’s no easy feat to distill the essence of an artist into one package, let alone when the artist in question is John R. Cash.   Yet this collection spanning 33 years (1957-1990), 61 albums and 63 CDs succeeds in revealing the man behind the black in all his many