This double-CD set managed to sneak onto the market in the mid-'90s, below the radar of all but the most diligent fans and the best record stores. Across their history, through two different "original" lineups, and the variants and offshoots of the more enduring second incarnation (as well as its splintering into at least two groups sharing some of the same repertoire), and releases on more than half a dozen labels, Renaissance piled up a significant body of music. Astonishingly, this double CD was the ...   [ read more ]

CD $23.73

Winsome Evans, director of Australia's Renaissance Players, offers a treasure trove of "endangered" early music. This ensemble brings near-forgotten music to life and documents it in this collection of Spanish-Jewish songs and Mediterranean dance tunes. The pieces cover the woes of exile, the lure of the siren, the moon, the sea, the fires of passion, the pangs of love, and the endless adoration of Yahweh. Period instruments or near-replicas are played in an authentically appropriate style. Vocal sty...   [ read more ]

CD $16.13

Having already achieved varying degrees of commercial and critical success with Roy Ayers' Ubiquity project and Robert Flack, Harry Whitaker went into the studio to record Black Renaissance: Body, Mind & Spirit, a tone poem reflecting on the state of African American music in the 1970s. Debunking the myth of the record's rarity aside (scarcely available for decades until its 2002 reissue by Ubiquity), this album is a map of the African American musical canvas -- a symphony of melding infl...   [ read more ]

CD $16.13