Paul Louis Hardcastle - is a British composer, musician, producer, songwriter, radio presenter and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known for his song "19", which went to number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in 1985.

Еще один подарок любителям мелодичного инструментального джаза – сборник лучших произведений Paul Hardcastle “Jazz Collection”. О самом исполнителе сложно говорить без применения эпитетов «лучший»: лучший артист в стиле Smooth Jazz, Instrumental Jazz, по мнению большинства джазовых критиков , журналов и радиостанций Америки и Европы. Его композиции не покидают высшие строчки самых различных джазовых чартов!
Пол уже давно создает прекрасную музыку, и много композиций, которые можно назвать лучшими в его творчестве, были написаны много лет назад. Чтобы российские слушатели могли насладиться всей красивой музыкой Paul Hardcastle, лучшими его произведениями, мы выпускаем сборник Jazz Collection, куда вошла часть лучших его треков за последние 15 лет.

Hardcastle VI / Featuring the late Marvin Gaye.
With millions of records sold worldwide over the last few decades, Master class producer/composer Paul Hardcastle has touched generations with his sexy,
syncopated gold, spinning musical yarns that continue to move his rabid and burgeoning fan base at its core.
The Trippin 'N Rhythm release of his latest offering Hardcastle VI, builds upon the rhythmic/dance foundation that established Hardcastle as the pre-eminent force in composing pulsating soulful sides that transcended race and genre.The early ground swell has already begun at radio with the multi-format leak of the lead single a brilliant mash-up of two period classics, Hardcastle's , 'Rainforest' and Marvin Gaye s What's Going On, an intoxicating blend of Hardcastle s club beats providing perfect backdrop to Gaye s thought provoking musical question, bringing both new life. Early
indications signal another multi-format smash mixed and masterminded by his musical genius. With supporting sides like 'DC Boogie', Night Time Hustle and 'Into The Blue', Hardcastle's signature rhythms reign throughout. With a nod to the past and his sights set firmly on the future 'VI' is certain to fan the flames already burning in his base and could once again obliterate the lines between genres taking his music again to heights he established early in the 80s with sales in excess of 4 million albums.

The Great Summit: The Master Takes is a 2001 Blue Note album by Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. It's a reissue of the two Roulette albums Together For The First Time (track 1–10) and The Great Reunion (track 11–17) from 1961. (These two albums have later resurfaced as a Roulette double-LP entitled The Duke Ellington/Louis Armstrong Years and in 1990 as a remastered CD called Together for the First Time/The Great Reunion.)
The contents of this album is an all-Ellington program performed by himself and Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars. These 17 selections are the entire result of the only studio meeting by Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. They both lead a small band - Louis Armstrong's All Stars - and play classic compositions by Ellington such as "Mood Indigo" and "Black And Tan Fantasy".

Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His instrumental ballad "Misty", his best-known composition, has become a jazz standard. It was first recorded in 1956 with Mitch Miller and his orchestra, and played a prominent part in the 1971 motion picture Play Misty for Me.
Scott Yanow of Allmusic calls him "one of the most distinctive of all pianists" and a "brilliant virtuoso". Garner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6363 Hollywood Boulevard. His live album Concert by the Sea first released in 1955, sold more than 1 million copies by 1958, and Yanow's opinion on the album is that it "made such a strong impression that Garner was considered immortal from then on."

Oscar Emmanuel Peterson CC CQ OOnt was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. Considered a virtuoso and one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, Peterson released more than 200 recordings, won eight Grammy Awards, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy, and received numerous other awards and honours. He played thousands of concerts worldwide in a career lasting more than 60 years. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, simply "O.P." by his friends, and informally in the jazz community, "the King of inside swing".

Jean Reinhardt known by his Romani nickname Django (French: [dʒãŋɡo ʁɛjnaʁt] or [dʒɑ̃ɡo ʁenɑʁt]), was a Belgian Manouche or Sinti jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe and has been hailed as one of its most significant exponents.
With violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France in 1934. The group was among the first to play jazz that featured the guitar as a lead instrument. Reinhardt recorded in France with many visiting American musicians, including Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter, and briefly toured the United States with Duke Ellington's orchestra in 1946. He died suddenly of a stroke in 1953 at the age of 43.

Coleman Randolph Hawkins - was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained: "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". Hawkins biographer John Chilton described the prevalent styles of tenor saxophone solos prior to Hawkins as "mooing" and "rubbery belches". Hawkins denied being first and noted his contemporaries Happy Caldwell, Stump Evans, and Prince Robinson, although he was the first to tailor his method of improvisation to the saxophone rather than imitate the techniques of the clarinet.

Carlos Wesley "Don" Byas - was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, associated with Swing and bebop. He played with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Blakey, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others, and also led his own band. He lived in Europe for the last 26 years of his life.

Lester Willis Young - nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called "a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike".
Known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with the music.

Benjamin Francis „Ben“ Webster - war ein US-amerikanischer Tenorsaxophonist des Jazz, der gelegentlich auch Piano und Klarinette spielte. Er wird ähnlich wie Coleman Hawkins und Lester Young als einer der großen Tenorsaxophonisten der Swing-Epoche angesehen. Seine Spielweise variierte vom manchmal gehauchten Ton in Balladen bis zum „kehlig-krächzenden Vibrato“ bei schnelleren Tempi. Bekannt wurde er vor allem durch seine Soli im Duke Ellington Orchestra von 1940 bis 1943 und später als ein meisterhafter Interpret von Balladen. Seine Spitznamen waren Frog und Brute.

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington - was an American composer, pianist, and leader of a jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life.
Some of the jazz musicians who were members of Ellington's orchestra, such as saxophonist Johnny Hodges, are considered among the best players in the idiom. Ellington melded them into the best-regarded orchestral unit in the history of jazz. Some members stayed with the orchestra for several decades. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion.[2] With Strayhorn, he composed multiple extended compositions, or suites, as well as many short pieces.