A sound alchemist, Maurice Ravel recreated his own works for piano in orchestral versions that soon brought them universal acclaim. Jean-François Heisser, a disciple of Vlado Perlemuter, is now part of a Ravelian genealogy imbued with elegance and emotion. Conducted from the piano, in collusion with the musicians of the Orchestre de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine (OCNA), the Piano Concerto in G major revives the Mozartean tradition so dear to the composer.

Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge celebrate the 500th anniversary of Palestrina's birth in style, recording for the very first time an album of outstanding works by the Roman master that are still little-known. To add resonance to their program, they pair settings of the same texts by three of Palestrina's English contemporaries: William Byrd, Robert White, and William Mundy.

Sounds like Can meets Hawkwind! Unbelievably killer and super, super heavy brand-new Cosmic Psyche/Krautrock album from Brown Spirits, new on Soul Jazz Records!

Blues with a Feeling is a two-CD, 40-track compilation which makes the perfect audio bookend to The Essential Little Walter (or the single disc The Best of Little Walter for those on a budget) by systematically combing the Chess vaults and rounding up the best stuff. No bottom-of-the-barrel scrapings here; this compilation effectively renders all '70s Euro vinyl bootlegs null and void, both from a sound and selection standpoint. While not as exhaustive as the European nine-CD retrospective (in and out of print as of this writing), there are still things on this compilation that are left off the box set on Charly. The rarities (including the low down "Tonight with a Fool," possibly the rarest Walter Checker single of all and one whose title never shows up in the lyrics) are all noteworthy by their inclusion…

Though Heavy Heart was supposedly the "mellow, sensual" album Carla Bley had in mind, Night-Glo is more like it - a relaxed, easygoing, easy-listening series of compositions that nearly spills over into fuzak. Writing for a basic sextet with an added five-man horn section, most effectively when one color melts gently into another, Bley permits the lazy pina-colada mood to amble undisturbed from track to track. Hiram Bullock's guitar, whether in rock or jazz modes, almost defines the laid-back ambience all by itself; Steve Swallow's bass underpins the relaxed groove and velvety horn textures (Randy Brecker is the trumpet voice there); and Paul McCandless can be heard on a variety of single- and double-reed wind instruments. It's a pretty album, always intelligently made, but interminable at times - most noticeably on the aptly named "Rut."

With the vast majority of Beethoven's works being frequently performed as part of the modern canon, we can sometimes forget those few pieces that often lie dormant. This Hyperion album, featuring the Nash Ensemble, celebrates three such works. The program opens with the Op. 104 C minor String Quintet, which keen listeners will instantly recognize as a transcription of the Op. 1/3 Piano Trio. The quintet version came into being as a sort of "oneupsmanship" after an amateur composer submitted his own transcription. Beethoven, who accurately assessed that he could do better, rewrote it and published it as Op. 104. If you're not already familiar with the piano trio, you may never know that the string quintet began its life in a different genre. Beethoven's writing is highly idiomatic while preserving almost the entire original score of the trio. The Nash Ensemble's performance is equally refined and stunning, making it all the more curious why this piece is not performed more frequently.