Here’s a preview of a track from Ringo Starr’s forthcoming solo album, Ringo 2012. “Wings” is actually a badly needed remake of a song Starr co-wrote some 35 years ago.

At thirty-one minutes, this debut album by the Jeff Kimmel Quartet is shorter than some EP’s, but bass clarinetist Kimmel and his friends make the most of their time.

What with all of the bits of nasty weather, work deadlines, etc … a person can get just plain frazzled. So what’s needed on the drive to work is some romantic and swanky musings. Pink Martini definitely fits the bill.

I don’t know exactly what kept Cynic apart for a decade and a half following 1993′s groundbreaking Focus, but the band returned almost as if little time had passed — still technical, still heavy, and not a little bit weird and jazzy in places … maybe even “beautiful,” some odd minds might call it. What made this band so special [...]

“Jazz is the sound of surprise.” — jazz critic Whitney Balliett, 1926-2007