Windham Hill Memories

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! For this year's post, it will be a late one due to the fact that the holidays came by too quickly for me to prepare myself. Tonight I will be reviewing George Winston's 1982 album, December . To learn more about George Winston, click the link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Winston Now to begin, December is George Winston's fourth solo piano album, released in 1982 as a holiday album, follow up to the album Autumn , and as a tribute to the winter season. In 2001, a 20th Anniversary Edition of the album was released, including two bonus tracks not included on the original release. As of last year (2013), the album was again reissued by Valley Entertainment with Dancing Cat Records, since the original Windham Hill label is now defunct. This most recent reissue has been packaged in a Digipak and features a revised cover art, making the image wider and blending the text onto the art cover rather than above it. For comparison&#

I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of those who visit my blog regularly. I have decided to only update my blog once to three times a month. This way I'm not overwhelmed with so much work and I can keep my blog active at the same time. Stay tuned for this year's Christmas post!

Within the month I've been away, I have been working on a new logo for my blog site. Here it is: It might not look like much but it was the best I could do. I feel like it needs improvement though. As for the background, this is also being updated. Stay tuned for more posts!

Hello everyone! I hope you had a wonderful summer. Coming soon, you will notice changes continuously being made to the layout and background as I never had the time to completely give this site a proper face lift as I promised to back in June. Also, the way I post my blog entries is going to change as I've created a way to organize my information: with a chart. Another topic that I will be covering on here is "collaborations", meaning more than one Windham Hill artist featured on a song or album. I admit I've had trouble keeping up with this site but it's time to get back on the horse. Get ready for a whole new experience here at Windham Hill Memories.

Hey everyone. I have to confess something: I will be temporarily blocking this blog to the public. Not sure exactly when it will be back up, but I need time to make blog posts, turn them into drafts and save them for posting for when I'm ready to. In other words, I'm giving this blog a makeover. I hope to return soon with more posts. Until then, have a great summer!

Today, I will be reviewing a CDs of the band, Nightnoise. This one was put out as part of the " A Windham Hill Retrospective" series from 1992. Here are the images: Here is the front cover of the case.  Here is the back of the case.  This is the inside of the case.  And here is the CD. Not as shiny as the Modern Mandolin Quartet one though. I won't tell you much on them just yet, but I will when I review them in a future post. But I will tell you for now that Nightnoise was a music group that performed from 1984 to 1997. Their style of music consisted of Irish traditional music, Celtic music, jazz, and classical chamber music, which inspired a generation of Irish musicians to perform in a similar style. Nightnoise has released seven albums on the Windham Hill label and at least two "greatest hits" albums that are being reviewed on this very blog. To learn more on the band, click here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightnoise

This week on Windham Hill Memories, I am going to briefly talk about a CD by a orchestra group called the Modern Mandolin Quartet. I found this CD at Goodwill (along with my other Windham Hill finds) about a month ago. Here are the images: This is the front cover and CD case.   This is the inside of the case. Here is the CD in my hand. It's so shiny that you can see me taking a picture of it. And finally, here is the back of the CD case. For those who don't know, MMQ is a string quartet group of mandolin family instruments, composing classical and bluegrass music, and the group was co-founded by Mike Marshall of Montreux fame. While still a member of Montreux before the band broke up, Marshall, who had a passion and strenth for classical music, co-founded MMQ in 1986. The group released four recordings under the Windham Hill label, then other labels years onwards. In 1995, they arrived at Carnegie Hall and their latest album, Americana is availa

This week I will be doing my review on the Jim Brickman album, By Heart: Piano Solos, released in 1995 by Windham Hill Records. Now if you never heard of Jim Brickman or his music, here's a link to the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Brickman And for further, more reliable research, here's the link to his website: http://www.jimbrickman.com/ I do promise to explain more about Jim's life, career and album discography in the future. But for now, here is the album By Heart . The songs "Angel Eyes" and "If You Believe", from this album gained radio airplay. The following year, the CD's title tune, "By Heart," became his first top 20 adult contemporary (AC) hit. (Wikipedia, para 2, Musical Career). This album became one of his best releases as it earned 4 stars and a half out of 5 stars. My personal favorite tracks from the album are "If You Believe", which was featured on Windham Hill Sampler 96 and "L

I found two more CDs at Goodwill on Saturday and I figured that it was for the best that I showed you them. This week I will post the Jim Brickman CD, By Heart: Piano Solos , which was supposed to go up but couldn't because I ran out of time. I promise to post it this week.

Normally I wouldn't do a review on an artist or album in random order, but since this is only temporarily, I thought it would not only keep you guys entertained but it can also help me get back into the swing of things in terms of blog post making. Anyway, the reason I only come on here monthly now is because I haven't been on here lately due to college work and illnesses in the stomach. During the days when I'm not on, however, I have purchased my own copies of Windham Hill CDs at my nearest Goodwill store. So far, I bought three. I've seen more but I couldn't afford all of them so I selected the ones that were in the best condition so far. The following Windham Hill CDs I purchased are: Jim Brickman - By Heart: Piano Solos, Nightnoise: A Windham Hill Retrospective, and Modern Mandolin Quartet - Intermezzo .  Here is a picture of the Windham Hill CD finds that I managed to purchase at Goodwill so far: I am really excited to share with you these a

I've decided that I would continue making blog posts either before or by April or during the summer, when I have more time. I've been having "releasing" problems and have been struggling with school work. Once things get organized, I will be able to update my posts and get back on track. So before I return to posting regular material on this blog, I thought it would be nice to share something special for St. Patrick's Day that is Windham Hill related. Today I will be reviewing the CD, " Windham Hill Classics: Celtic Legacy ". Basically this is a compilation of celtic new age music composed by Windham Hill artists. Here are the reviews from Amazon.com: 5.0 out of 5 stars Sheer delight August 26, 2001   By Abigail Goutal Format: Audio CD "I've had this for a year, and it's absolutely lovely, excellent meditation music. "Gwenlaise" is, hands down, the most beautiful piece I'v

I am truly sorry for not posting anything this Wednesday. I've been busy with college work. So to make up for that, please enjoy this post.

Before I begin, I just want to say Happy 2014! I hope you guys had a great holiday season. Now that it's January, it's time for me to get back to work.