George Fest: The Music Of George Harrison (2015/Vagrant/Hot Records Blu-ray w/2 CDs)/Naxos Classical CDs: Lennox Berkley: Music For Solo Piano & Piano Duet (1993/Terroni/Beedie)/Bogdanovic: Guitar Music (2015/Brilliant Records/Marchese)/Frank Bridge/Cyril Scott: Piano Quintets (1989/Terroni/Bingham String Quartet)/Leo Brouwer: Music For Bandurria & Guitar (2014/Chamorro/Mateo)/Domenico Cimarosa: Overtures 4 (2014/Halasz)/Perry Grainer: Music For Saxophones (2014/Griggs)/Hindsmith: Complete Piano Sonatas: Paciariello (2014)/Simon Mayr: Requiem (2014 CD set)/Sinigaglia: Music For Violin & Piano (2009/Brilliant/Genot)/Weill Brecht: Die Sieben Todsunden (aka Seven Deadly Sins/1965 - 1968/Brilliant)/Eugene Zador: Dance Symphony (2014/Smolij/Budapest Symphony Orchestra)

Blu-ray Picture: B- Blu-ray Sound: B CD Sound: B- Extras: D/C- Main Programs: B/B-/B-/B/B-/B/B/B-/B-/B-/B-/B-

Our new set of music releases are wide ranging, with a new tribute to a late Beatle making for an exceptional tribute night and or first cycle of classical music CDs in a while...

George Fest: The Music Of George Harrison (2015) is our first chance to cover a new cycle of 'Fest' concerts we are starting to hear about (including one for Fleetwood Mac that just happened as we post) and of the several configurations of this show's release, Hot Records has been kind enough to send over the Blu-ray/2 CDs set that is the sonic preference over all others unless you are a serious vinyl fan. Considering Harrison pioneered such multi-music act and music star concerts with his legendary, classic Concert For Bangladesh, it is more than ironic a show would come together in his honor with the same energy, spirit and memorability.

The show is contained on a single Blu-ray of about two hours (with exclusive brief interview clips between some performances) and in the same track order, split between two compact discs as follows...

DISC 1

1. Introduction

2. Old Brown Shoe - Conan O'Brien

2. I Me Mine - Britt Daniel from Spoon

3. Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll) - Jonathan Bates with Dhani Harrison

4. Something - Norah Jones

5. Got My Mind Set On You - Brandon Flowers from the Killers

6. If Not For You - Heartless Bastards

7. Be Here Now - Ian Astbury from The Cult

8. Wah-Wah - Nick Valensi from The Strokes

9. If I Needed Someone - Jamestown Revival

10. Art of Dying - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

11. Savoy Truffle - Dhani Harrison

12. For You Blue - Chase Cohl with Weezer's Brian Bell on guitar

13. Beware Of Darkness - Ann Wilson from Heart

DISC 2

1. Let It Down - Dhani Harrison

2. Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) - Ben Harper

2. Here Comes The Sun - Perry Farrell from Jane's Addiction

3. What Is Life - "Weird Al" Yankovic

4. Behind That Locked Door - Norah Jones

5. My Sweet Lord - Brian Wilson with Al Jardine

6. Isn't It A Pity - The Black Ryder

7. Any Road - Butch Walker

8. I'd Have You Anytime - Karen Elson

9. Taxman - Cold War Kids

10. It's All Too Much - The Flaming Lips

11. Handle With Care - Brandon Flowers, Dhani Harrison, Jonathan Bates,"Weird Al" Yankovic, Britt Daniel and Wayne Coyne

12. All Things Must Pass - Ann Wilson, Dhani Harrison, Karen Elson and Norah Jones

Of all the performances, Jones two covers are not bad, Heartless Bastards do a better job on the Bob Dylan classic Harrison made a big hit than even I expected, Nick Valensi from The Strokes does the underrated Wah Wah justice, Jamestown Revival is pretty good on If I Needed Someone, son Dhani Harrison is haunting sounding like his father in the best way on Savoy Truffle and Let It Down, Cold War Kids are fearless on Taxman, The Flaming Lips do not disappoint on It's All Too Much, the everyone returns to pull off a really good cover of Traveling Wilburys' Handle With Care and they top it all off with the tittle song of All Things Must Pass in fine style.

Yet, there is so much more to the show, a live show that really plays live, feels live and is live. Alive. The artists there really love and care about the music, it is something special, a real happening, as real spirit to it and is one of the best recorded concerts I've seen in a while and we see our share. If you are a fan of harrison or any of these performers, George fest is worth going out of your way for.

Next are an extensive selections of Naxos Classical CDs, starting with Lennox Berkley: Music For Solo Piano & Piano Duet (1993) with Raphael Terroni and Norman Beedie on piano, this one only runs 58:11, but might have been able to add one more track as this is not a bad release over its six pieces in 20 tracks that give us more than enough of an idea where Berkley is coming from. Berkeley died sadly in 1989, so this is definitely meant as a tribute recording.

Bogdanovic: Guitar Music (2015) features Angelo Marchese seven pieces (at 63:34) of Dusan Bogdanovic compositions with usually nice results, though this might be more than many can take for over an hour, but the Yugoslavian-born composer picked Marchese personally and both try to take the music into intense new directions. Having encountered several such recordings like this over the years, this is worth of its cycle, but not one I would re-listen to all the time. Still, good enough.

Frank Bridge/Cyril Scott: Piano Quintets (1989) is one of the best 3 CDs here with Raphael Terroni on Piano with The Bingham String Quartet exceptionally performing Bridge's Piano Quartet in D minor, H49 a and Scott's Piano Quintet No. 1 with such smoothness, energy and grace that it makes for an engaging, reference performance. Definitely a nice surprise.

Leo Brouwer: Music For Bandurria & Guitar (2014) runs 62:35 and offers Pedro Chamorro on bandurria (a small lute) and Pedro Mateo on Guitar, delivering a pretty good performance of the Cuban conductors music, now likely to become a new curio with Cuban/U.S. Relations reestablished. We get five recordings in all including world premieres of Incidental Music Of The Countrymen and Micropieces, both of which are as good as any of the pieces performed here. Though I had minor issues with this, expect to hear about this one again.

Domenico Cimarosa: Overtures 4 (2014) is another one of the top 3 CDs here with Michael Halasz and the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice delivering the Italian Opera composer here in a tight, warm, forward 66+ minutes that play well and definitive to me. Being a more recent recording, I would love to hear this one in a higher fidelity format. Too bad this is not an SA-CD.

I could say the same for Perry Grainer: Music For Saxophones (2014) with Joyce Griggs on Saxophone playing 49+ minutes of the music from the man considered one of the greatest saxophone arrangers ever starting with one of his own compositions, then moving onto 14 more tracks (and one more by Grainer) by usually underrated composers (J.S. Bach's Fugue No. IV is track 10) as Joyce in joined by some seriously top rate musicians in a work that shows the versatility, value, pricelessness and range of the popular instrument as well as the talent that makes this a really solid CD worth your time.

Hindsmith: Complete Piano Sonatas (2014) is conducted by Maurizio Paciariello, runs just over 60.5 minutes and features the entire work in three parts. Though it is a good recording and at least an interesting piece, this does feel a bit long and maybe I would have liked a slightly different arrangement. Otherwise, the Paul Hindsmith work is worth hearing for those interested and I would like to hear another after this one by someone else to compare.

Simon Mayr: Requiem (2014) is one of our only CD sets here and its Sequentia takes most of both discs to perform with a large group of name artists pulling off in what turns out to be another world premiere recording. Mixing Italian and German opera sensibilities, the work tends to still have an identity of its own and all involved rightly make it into a true event. The only issue here is at over 166 minutes, it runs a bit too long for my tastes, but it is at least a complete work.

Sinigaglia: Music For Violin & Piano (2009) is a six-piece, 13-track, 65+ minutes recording of the composers music with William Genot on Violin, Massimiliano Genot on Piano and Carlo Negro on Piano that is not bad, but I found to be a bit uneven overall and not as memorable as it could have been. I can't figure out if it is the compositions, musicians or both that are off or just not geling, but this is still a decent release if not always memorable.

Weill Brecht: Die Sieben Todsunden (aka Seven Deadly Sins/1965 - 1968) takes various key works by deconstructionist composers Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and presents them staring with the title work (we are told is one of the most definitive) then moving on to songs from Berliner Requiem, Happy End, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, Die Dreigroschenoper and another Berliner Requiem. At over 70 minutes, that's as filled as any single CD here, but this ranks #4 among the classical CDs as this is the only one that could have used a second disc. Still, this is a very valuable recording worth going out of your way for.

Finally we have Eugene Zador: Dance Symphony (2014), which comes with the subtitle Variations On A Hungarian Folksong as that piece is having its world premiere here on this recording in its entirety, with Mariusz Smolij conducting The Budapest Symphony Orchestra and at just over 71 minutes, brings to life some older, important music. However, this has a slight run-on feel to it and might only interest those who really want to hear this kind of music, though most of the compositions are from 1919 and 1936, yet that is not a problem for me. AN important release to be sure, but with a few limits.

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on George usually looks just fine, but the editors to a few unfortunate liberties to try and get fancy with manipulated and decolored images in a few spots that plays contrary to the naturalness one would expect from anything representing Harrison to the point that it is distracting, unnecessary and break continuity up. I could live with a few darker shots and a few soft shots, but this was wrong to do. Add the varied quality of old film and analog video clips of Harrison that look good and the playback is near excellent otherwise, but a little off.

Most fans will expect a lossless 5.1, 7.1 or even 11.1 sound mix at this point, but all the Blu-ray offers is uncompressed PCM 2.0 Stereo that has the best sound on the list, is obviously from a finely recorded sound source, but that soundmaster is probably even more impressive that the 16blt/48kHz presentation we have here that is really good otherwise. The PCM 16/44.1 2.0 Stereo on the CD set actually is fairly good, but cannot compete with the Blu-ray's stereo-only sound. The classical CDs range from good to a bit harsh and rough at the edges or with more compression than desired as expected, despite the actual recordings going back to 1966. They are likely about the best they will sound in the format, but it is hard to tell.

Unless you count the CDs (we don't), George has no extras, while the rest of the CDs only offer the usual paper text pullouts, usually multi-lingual at that.

- Nicholas Sheffo