Since 1985, Mylene Farmer (born in Quebec, but raised in France) and her musical collaborator, Laurent Boutonnat, have expanded the Birkin-Gainsbourg bedroom fantasy song into an entire cosmology of sighing songs and pensive, melancholy, fitfully melodic dances in which fin de siecle libertinism is the motive and intoxicated hallucination the saving grace.

I first listened to this material as a King Crimson fan interested in a side project of Tony Levin's, and was surprised, and initially disappointed, to find that Levin tends to take a back seat to the other musicians throughout the album. As I listened to it more, I began to understand the album: three young, cocky musicians full of piss and vinegar stretching themselves to their musical limits, anchored by Levin's bass/stick. Levin's role is to keep the music hanging together, almost like a musical mentor laying back and letting his students shine while keeping everything tight...

To Bird with Love: Live at the Blue Note was taken from a month that Dizzy Gillespie was featured at the Blue Note in New York, virtually at the end of his playing career, the 74-year-old trumpeter is quite erratic on this set of bop standards.

For this CD reissue of a Riverside set, trumpeter Clark Terry and some of the top Ellington sidemen of the period (trombonist Britt Woodman, altoist Johnny Hodges, tenor saxophonist Paul Gonsalves, Tyree Glenn on vibes, bassist Jimmy Woode, and drummer Sam Woodyard) perform eight songs associated with Duke, but with fresh arrangements.

The early-1960s group the Jazz Brothers featured trumpeter Chuck Mangione and pianist Gap Mangione in a quintet also including up-and-coming tenor Sal Nistico (shortly before he joined Woody Herman's Orchestra), bassist Steve Davis and drummer Roy McCurdy; lots of young talent in that band.

This fine set, recorded on November 30, 1956, has been reissued several times, often as a John Coltrane date, but make no mistake, this is a Tadd Dameron session, and his elegant compositions are its key component.