Christmas with Placido Domingo
Artist: Plácido Domingo

Christmas with Placido Domingo is a wonderful record, but not for the reasons you may expect. Sure, Domingo is blessed with a heavenly tenor voice, as anyone familiar with his operatic career will readily tell you. What Christmas reveals is that soaring tenor can be used not only on traditional, classic material, but on contemporary tunes like... Read More

Rebirth of the Budd
Artist: Roy Budd
Community Score: 10.00

This attractive and well-programmed collection covers the career of Roy Budd, a British jazz keyboardist who established a lucrative second career as a film composer during the '70s. Rebirth of the Budd divides its time equally between Budd's lounge-ish instrumental albums and his film scores, thus creating an effective combination of smooth,... Read More

On Eagle's Wings
Artist: Michael Crawford
Community Score: 7.25

On Eagle's Wings is an excellent collection of spiritual and gospel songs as sung by Michael Crawford, star of The Phantom of the Opera. Not all of the songs are strictly religious -- rather, they're moving pieces with a spiritual undertow. Everything is tied together by Crawford's gorgeous voice, which helps make On Eagle's Wings a disc to... Read More

Songs of Free Men: Recital
Artist: Paul Robeson

Culled from six concerts given in the 1940s, with most of its tracks previously released on 78 rpm albums in that decade, this disc, as annotator Paul Robeson, Jr., notes, presents Paul Robeson at the peak of his singing career (from age 44 to 49) and recreates a typical recital. Robeson sings spirituals, folk songs from various countries in... Read More

All That Jazz: The Best of Ute Lemper
Artist: Ute Lemper

London Records' Ute Lemper compilation takes its title from a song she sang in her London appearance in the musical Chicago in 1998; it is followed at the start of the disc by her performance of "Don't Tell Mama," a song from another Kander & Ebb show, Cabaret, that she appeared in 1986, and which she recorded on her debut album for Columbia,... Read More

In Concert
Artist: Michael Crawford
Community Score: 10.00

Surprising as it may be, Michael Crawford did not release an official live album until the fall of 1998, when In Concert appeared in the stores. Recorded at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts in Cerritos, California just two weeks before the release of On Eagle's Wings, this concert, which was initially broadcast on PBS, is an excellent... Read More

Focus
Artist: Winston Slade