The long-awaited collaboration between two icons, Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, did something unique for the reputations of both. For Basie, the Sinatra connection inaugurated a period in the '60s when his band was more popular and better known than it ever was, even in the big-band era. For Sinatra, Basie meant liberation, producing perhaps the loosest, rhythmically free singing of his career. Propelled by the irresistible drums of Sonny Payne, Sinatra careens up to and around the tunes, reacting jauntily to the beat and encouraging Payne to swing even harder, which was exactly the way to interact with the Basie rhythm machine – using his exquisite timing flawlessly.

Pianist Fred Hersch has made quite a few brilliant jazz albums over the course of his career, and several of them have been solo piano recordings, but this one is something special. Alone at the Vanguard is exactly what you'd expect it to be: a solo album recorded over the course of a week of engagements at The Village Vanguard, perhaps the most venerated jazz performance space in New York (and, therefore, probably in the world). In the fall of 2005, Hersch played 12 sets over the course of six nights and recorded all of them with the intention of culling them down to a single disc; in the end, Hersch decided simply to release the final set in its entirety.

As a young pianist, András Schiff earned wide esteem for his 1980s recordings of the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach; in recent years, as part of his long term relationship with ECM, he has gone back to Bach as a sage veteran, earning more acclaim for his New Series recordings of the Goldberg Variations (2003) and the six Partitas (2009). Now, using his own Steinway, Schiff turns his focus to the 48 preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier, making studio recordings in Lugano of both books for this 4-CD set.

The original members of the rock group Asia celebrate their 30th anniversary during a performance at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco.

We can consider Three Rings as the remix of Water Bearer. Words and music seems to be a new version of that wonderful album, but, of course, the result is different. The Blessing, Survival, Summer In My Hand are very beautiful songs, and Digging For Gold or Summer of Love are commercial track released as singles…

John Lee Hooker and Furry Lewis represent generational markers in the development of traditional blues in Memphis and Mississippi. Furry, born around the turn of the century, incorporated ragtime, ballads and other types of secular black music in his repertoire along with the blues. Hooker, born in 1917 in Clarksdale, the heart of the Mississippi delta, was suffused with the blues that by then had become the predominant music of the area. Yet his approach was totally unique and became one of the building blocks of rock and roll.John Lee Hooker: John Lee Hooker learned guitar from his stepfather, William Moore, who played with Charley Patton.