Waltzes, suites, airs, fantasies, inventions — these kinds of pieces have formed the Western classical-piano repertoire for centuries, as anyone who has ever wound a metronome knows. And as anyone who has ever heard Billy Joel also realizes, that studious tradition has always underlaid his music. So this collection of pieces for solo piano written by Joel and performed with highly extroverted skill by Richard Joo represents, in essence, Joel's roots album. As a restless rock & roller, and now as a composer, he restages the scarlet-hued nineteenth-century thrusts and taxing engagements of legendary Russian and German composers. But Joo begins this collection breathing Joel's "Reverie (Villa D'Este)," which exhales delicate French colorations and impressionistic dissolves. Elsewhere, Joo plays a number of showy waltzes, explores Verdian melodicism on "Aria (Grand Canal)," and climaxes the sequence with "Air (Dublinesque)," whose piquant folk-based strains almost meld this new Joel of scales and arpeggios with the always hummable Joel of popular song. Fantasies doesn't always jell this satisfyingly, but for the most part, Joel doesn't let his delusions get the best of him.

“Satisfied”

Only the genius of Tom Waits could combine the subject of mortality, a reoccurring theme in his work, with wordplay that name checks both Mick and Keith, whom he calls "Mr. Jagger" and "Mr. Richards," and the title of their magnum opus, "Satisfaction." And to show just how cool Waits really is, he even got Mr. Richards to play along, one of nine guest appearances the guitarist has made on three Waits albums. "This growling roadhouse stomp is a late-breaking response to the Stones' greatest hit," Rolling Stone said of the track.