Along with Leos Janacek, Bohuslav Martinu was one of the twin giants of Czech music in the twentieth century, a composer with a distinctly individual voice and a versatility that led him to excel in every medium from stage works to symphonies to string quartets. Martinu was born in the Moravian town of Policka. Starting violin lessons at the of seven, he gave his first recital when he was 15. By the age of 10 he had written his first compositions; his juvenilia include songs, piano music, symphonic poems, string quartets, and ballets. In 1906, he entered Prague Conservatory, but reading and the theater diverted Martinu from his studies, and he was finally expelled for "incorrigible negligence" in 1910. However, he continued composing. Exempted, as a …….
From Allmusic

A highly individual composer, Ernest Bloch did not pioneer any new style in music but spoke with a distinctive voice into which he could assimilate folk influences, 12-tone technique, and even coloristic quarter tones. In a stylistically atomized century his interests were universal, and his music was both beloved by the public and inspirational for a younger and more academically oriented generation. His father was the quintessential Swiss, a well-off manufacturer of watches and clocks, including cuckoo clocks. Ernest had a diverse musical training that included advanced violin training, study of eurhythmics with Émile Jacques-Dalcroze; he traveled from Switzerland to Belgium, Munich, and Paris in …….
From Allmusic

Album LP released in 1962 by the prestigious Decca-London Phase 4, a compilation of 12 songs specifically prepared and arranged by the musician, arranger and composer John Keating (Scotland, 1927), leading his combo instrumental orchestra and chorus. Keating, who worked with Ted Heath from 1952 came to compose, produce and arrange for interpreters internationally very well known. For Decca-London Phase 4 arranged and conducted, along with this second album'Temptation', an additional set of disks that introduced so remarkable synthesizer technology. Keating also extended its activities from the world of swing and jazz to a variety of other musical styles.

Session guitar whiz Dean Brown steps out with his solo debut, a set of tightly played, nicely recorded jazz-funk fusion tunes. Brown's guitar work is undeniably tasty – drawing equally, it seems, from Jimi Hendrix and Larry Carlton. For support he drafts the biggest of the big names: Michael and Randy Brecker, David Sanborn, Billy Cobham, Marcus Miller, George Duke, Christian McBride, and quite a few others.

The band kicks off with "Devil Blues" on which George Adams gets a chance to holler the blues in his dry, raspy, hoary voice. That's a fine start and the band gets into the groove playing with intensity, never letting a moment slip. And when it comes to "Sue's Changes" they extend the tune to 25 minutes, casting, shaping, moulding, and giving it a depth of virtuosity through the several moods it channels. Time serves to forge another masterpiece on the anvil of cogent improvisation.

With the dawn of the 1980's approaching, Leonard Cohen had already amassed a truly astonishing body of work that had long assured his standing as an artist of true genius. However, whilst his work up until then had been rooted largely in the folk rock tradition, Cohen's subsequent output saw him draw from a wider and more varied palette of influences that included forays into the worlds of jazz, synth-pop and classic rock, and crucially, unlike many of his contemporaries' ill-fated ventures in the 80s, he successfully maintained his gift for exquisite song craft.