If ye would hear the angels sing

Paperback-Get into the Christmas spirit with Mager's well-crafted setting of If ye would hear the angels sing. The optional orchestral accompaniment for winds harp and strings adds a wonderful texture beneath the accessible choral lines. A version for unison or SSA is also available. Orchestral material is available on hire.

Rev. Gary Davis is the real thing. The authentic blind-seer. He is a genius with a brightly burning spirit enormous musical intelligence technical brilliance an encyclopedic memory driving passion deep faith araunchy and gracious sense of humor. A mystic. He is an icon of the style of Guitar he was born into known today as the Piedmont blues. Through players of the first half of the twentieth century like Alfred Shultz MoseRanger Merle Travis and Chet Atkins this is the signature American fingerpicking style that would so deeply inform the country folk blues and even rock and roll of our day.Rev. Davis (1896-1972) was bornblack in deep poverty in South Carolina blind from an early age. He overcame these longest of odds to become world famous a giant of American music. He brought together black and white styles country gospel folk themes blues jazz ragtime minstrel songs dance tunes and popular song. He developed his own brilliant fingerpicking style that was deep economical and adaptable enough to easily cover all these genres. Supporting all hiscreativity was an unshakable faith that pulled him through the obscurity the bitter hard times and crushing poverty he would endure until the folk music awakening of the fifties and sixties caught up to him.In this bookand accompanying audio Ernie Hawkins has transcribed 18 of Rev. Davis' best known gospel arrangements. The playing of Rev. Davis has influenced generations of Guitar players from Blind Boy Fuller to Dave VanRonk David Bromberg Ry Cooder Jorma Kaukonen Bob Weir Stefan Grossman and Woody Mann. His tunes have been recorded by a host of today's finest rock musicians: The Grateful Dead Hot Tuna Bob Dylan Jackson Browne and others.

Apple Records was a noble experiment created in the spirit of the 1960s by four musicians who came to represent everything that was best about those tumultuous, experimental, and liberating times. The Beatles started out with the greatest of intentions, but reality soon got in the way. Much has been written about this period in the history of The Beatles' evolution and dissolution---some of it true, some of it wildly exaggerated, but not much of it first-hand. The Longest Cocktail Party is a rare exception. Written by Richard DiLello, who served as Apple Record's 'House Hippie' from 1968 to 1970, this unusual first-hand glimpse into The Beatles' empire humorously chronicles the stranger-than-life stories that were to become legendary, including visits by the Hell's Angels and endless tales of celebrity antics. Alfred Music is proud to offer this latest edition, which features a new and insightful foreword by the author. Originally published by Playboy Press in 1972, The Longest Cocktail Party has proven itself a timeless chronicle of this most colorful period in pop history. / Divers

Nico Muhly's Looking Up for SATB and Orchestra. Programme note:Looking Up is a piece for large chorus and orchestra and is in three sections played without pause. In the 16th century a variety of psalters in meter were printed in England with the idea of making psalm-singing something that could happen easily at home with the rhyming meter being an aid to memorization. These translations are wonderful exercises in brevity and sometimes clumsy rhymemaking and were usually prefaced by a lengthy explanation as to their merits; the title of one of the first such volumes in English is: The Psalter of Dauid newely translated into Englysh metre in such sortthat it maye the more decently and wyth more delyte of the mynde be reade and songe of al men. I thought it would be appropriate to set one of these introductions and the first section of Looking Up sets the preface to Thomas Ravenscroft’s psalter (1621) in which he writes: “The singing of Psalmes (as say the Doctors) comforteth the sorrowfull pacifieth the angry strengtheneth the weake humbleth the proud gladdeth the humble stirres up the slow reconcileth enemies lifteth up the heart to heavenly things and uniteth the Creature to his Creator.” It begins meditatively but eventually grows agitated and fervent with a vision of the “quire of Angels and Saints” “redoubling and descanting” — an ecstatic and terrifying vision of the skies opening up. Ravenscroft then encourages the use of instrumental music for worship at which point a long acrobatic orchestral interlude with jagged edges antagonizes the choir who sing a kind of private anxious meditation on two pitches. One of the most delicious biblical texts is an Apocryphal prayer known as the Benedicite or the Prayer of the Three Children (the same who were rescued by an angel after King Nebuchadnezzar tried to have them burnt in an oven for not bowing to his image). The text is repetitive obsessive and a gift to composers

Third edition of the world's biggest songbook. This is a vast bumper collection, perfect for buskers, of 1001 all-time hit songs.Whatever your taste, there's guaranteed to be tonnes of songs you'll want to play, this book will last you years!Inside the spiral bound cover you will find a generous selection of hit songs, golden standards, jazz and blues numbers, classical pieces, hymns, gospel songs, stage, film and musical music! Arranged here in Melody line arrangements for Piano, Organ, Electronic Keyboards, Guitar and all C instruments, complete with lyrics and chord symbols. / Ligne Mélodique, Paroles Et Accords (Avec Grilles D'Accords)

Budget Books, the sensational value for money series presents Jazz Standards, arranged for PVG. 88 Songs, including Besame Mucho, Caravan, Georgia on My Mind, I'm beginning to See the Light, It Might as Well Be Spring, My Favourite Things, That Old Black Magic, You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You. / Jazz / Partition /