Medieval echoes juxtaposed with modal excursions-sweet and timely music as Machaut and Duffay make it to the future. Subtle, funky, and real- this court music is made relevant for today's audience. Not that it needs to!
Well, in the wake of the drummer’s death, Blaser has reconfigured Consort in Motion; on their second album, A Mirror to Machaut, the ensemble features Joachim Badenhorst on tenor sax, clarinet, and bass clarinet; Lossing on piano, Wurlitzer, and Fender Rhodes; Drew Gress on bass; and Gerry Hemingway on drums. The music has traveled even farther back in time, too—the album combines avant-jazz improvisation (and some composed pieces) with 15th Century court music by Guillaume de Machaut and Guillaume Dufay. . .
Surprisingly, given its source material, A Mirror to Machaut would be hard to describe as “chamber jazz”; there’s a little bit of that in the opening “Hymn,” but there’s more than a tinge of mid ’60s Blue Note exploration as the album goes on, too. The way the spacious trombone/clarinet interactions of “Saltarello” lead into the somehow mournful and aggressive at the same time “Dame, Se Vous M’estes Lointeinne” (it helps that it’s mostly a drum solo; Hemingway is an absolute beast here) reminds me of Eric Dolphy‘s Out to Lunch in its persistent attempts to throw the listener off balance. On “Color,” by contrast, Lossing’s electric piano playing, which reminds me of Chick Corea‘s, and Badenhorst’s reeds bring to mind Miles Davis‘s Bitches Brew.
Among his current projects, Consort in Motion is the most intriguing. The ensemble's 2011 self-titled debut featured legendary drummer Paul Motian anchoring a quartet with Blaser, pianist Russ Lossing and bassist Thomas Morgan performing adventurous reinterpretations of the early Baroque compositions of Claudio Montiverdi and his 17th century Italian contemporaries. This session, which differs in both approach and personnel, delves further into the past by adapting the late medieval court music of Guillaume de Machaut and Guillaume Dufay, while employing a more modern instrumental palette.
Since Motian's passing, Blaser reconfigured the ensemble, retaining Lossing as the sole original member. Veteran bassist Drew Gress and master drummer Gerry Hemingway helm the rhythm section, while Belgian multi-instrumentalist Joachim Badenhorst joins Blaser on the frontline. In addition to the expanded personnel, the most notable change to the lineup's instrumentation is Lossing's addition of Rhodes and Wurlitzer, whose feverish amplified tonalities imbue the proceedings with an electrifying Milesian undercurrent.
Blaser's interest in Davis' early fusion experiments can also be heard on One From None, but in this antediluvian setting the futuristic sound of Lossing's overdriven analog keyboards provides striking contrast to the date's reharmonized Gregorian plainchants. The aptly titled "Color" is exemplary, conjuring a roiling bitches brew of seething sonorities and volatile rhythms. Conversely, the stately "De fortune me doiy pleindre et loer" is given an authentically austere reading, while the lush opener, "Hymn," unites disparate threads, regaling with a series of probing solos underpinned by a latticework of hemiolas and isorhythms—contrapuntal rhythms common to the pre-Renaissance period.
Blaser himself eschews electronic effects, eliciting lyrical cadences that seamlessly alternate between introspective melancholy and expressionistic ardor, using controlled multiphonics and assorted mutes to add tonal color to his evocative statements. The stalwart rhythm section provides adroit accompaniment, with Hemingway's thunderous interpolations on the anthemic "Dame, se vous m estes lointeinne" a rousing highlight. Badenhorst and Lossing's virtuosic variations impart rich dynamics to the set; the former's sinuous ruminations on "Bohemia" and the latter's dulcet filigrees throughout "Cantus Planus" convey a full spectrum of harmonic invention.
Considéré comme l’un des meilleurs trombonistes de sa génération, Samuel Blaser mène de front plusieurs formations aux esthétiques différentes. Chez Hat-Hut, en compagnie de Marc Ducret, il propose des disques très ouverts, enregistrés live et plutôt radicaux dans leur forme. Avec A Mirror to Machaut, il prolonge un travail amorcé avec sa formation Consort In Motion sur les musiques de compositeurs européens de la Renaissance ou, comme c’est le cas ici, du Moyen Âge tardif.
Le disque est signé chez les Canadiens de Songlines, ce qui n’est pas anecdotique. Il est produit par Benoît Delbecq, familier du label. On retrouve les sonorités claires, précises, fines et bien équilibrées qu’on pouvait apprécier sur les disques Phonetics et Pursuit. Mirror to Machaut est une adaptation, un jeu en forme d’hommage des musiques de Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377), compositeur charnière dans l’histoire de la musique occidentale. Les artistes chevronnés et impliqués dont Samuel Blaser s’entoure ici développent leur propos avec intelligence : chacun apporte à l’édifice une de ces pierres qui font les cathédrales. S’appuyant sur les partitions d’origine, ils les réinterprètent, se les ré-approprient et leur donnent un son actuel, qui mêle sensualité et sentiment de plénitude à l’austérité de la musique médiévale.
Gerry Hemingway, qui succède à Paul Motian, apporte une rythmique décalée et abstraite tandis que Drew Gress fait de sa basse un pilier, un lien entre passé et présent, particulièrement sur « Dame, se vous m’estes lointenne », où elle résonne comme un instrument ancien. Le pianiste Russ Lossing, lui, introduit des respirations par de subtiles ornementations et un beau sens de l’espace. Les timbres des soufflants, enfin, se complètent et donnent de la chaleur à l’ensemble. Leur jeu tout en retenue et en raffinement emporte leurs prises de parole dans de sobres envolées.
Cette musique multiséculaire qui, revitalisée par un vocabulaire et une syntaxe contemporains, invente une nouvelle forme d’harmonie, élégante et expressive, nous ramène à un Moyen Âge murmuré, sans doute fantasmé, dont son caractère intimiste nous rapproche.
A collaborative effort by strong-willed, creative souls who explore complex and hard to reach spheres with lots of thought and grime. No surprise here, except that this second album really works well showcasing the power of jazz and just how far and deep it can go. Good work!
The September Trio is Harris Eisenstadt (drums, composition), Ellery Eskelin (tenor saxophone) and Angelica Sanchez (piano) and “The Destructive Element” is their second CD after the self-titled debut, which tried to integrate new classical music ways of composing in jazz ballads with the result that the album had an intellectual touch somehow. Their new album tries to separate these genres, which suits the pieces much better.
The album starts with “Swimming, Rained Out”, one of three marvelous ballads, which are structured in a similar way: First there is a rather free intro (in the first case a diffident drum solo), followed by Angelica Sanchez’ solid chords providing an ideal harmonic carpet for Ellery Eskelin’s exquisite melodies while Eisenstadt remains in the background, rather adding sound colors than usual rhythmic support (maybe Mr Eisenstadt’s most impressive quality). The same goes for “Back and Forth” and “Cascadia”, which start with free improvisations on piano before they delve into sheer beauty as well. The title track is a ballad as well but it follows different rules.
Another element on this album are Harris Eisenstadt’s personal preferences which he tries to transfer into music, like writer Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim quotation in the title-track, Arnold Schoenberg’s avant-garde music in the two parts of “From Schoenberg”, and Akira Kurosawa’s movies in “Here Are the Samurai”. The two “From Schoenberg” parts are the most ambitious compositions quoting Schoenberg’s “Concerto for Violin and Orchestra” while “Here are the Samurai” represents the whole album in a nutshell. Eisenstadt, Eskelin and Sanchez start with a somber balladesque cascade, then the tune continues with rolling percussion and a challenging confrontation of saxophone and piano painting the fight of the Samurai with the bad guys (whether you have Kurosawa’s Yojimbo or The Seven Samurai in mind does not matter). Last but not least the cool jazz themes in “Additives” and “Ordinary Weirdness”, which always fall apart before they have the chance to get pretentious, are also two of the many highlights of this album.
After Convergence Quartet’s “Slow and Steady” this is Mr Eisenstadt’s second coup within a few months. Let’s see what he comes up with next. Highly recommended!
Drummer-composer Harris Eisenstadt has a beguiling way of meshing simplicity and sophistication, a characteristic that seems most arresting in the context of his September Trio. It is the smallest of Eisenstadt’s regular ensembles, and features a pair of dynamic stylists who are simpatico with Eisenstadt’s casual complexity. Tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin often plays here in a cool, voluptuous manner that is amiable and attractive, and pianist Angelica Sanchez can tag her phrases with question marks and exclamation points without seeming the slightest bit overwrought. The leader acts as rhythmic sketch artist—there is no hunger to fill the void of the bassist, a role that occasionally falls to Sanchez—and is the least aggressive instrumentalist in the group.
There are a couple of songs directly influenced by Schoenberg; the dilapidated syncopation in the different motifs offered up by Sanchez and Eskelin in “From Schoenberg, Part Two” may be consonant with Schoenberg’s notion of “developing variation.” The relatively tumultuous closer, “Here Are the Samurai,” is inspired by a scene of conflict and foreboding in the film Yojimbo, and the title of The Destructive Element refers to a passage in Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim that talks about the industry and integrity required to truly immerse yourself in chasing a dream. (That the title song is the shortest among these nine originals is a slice of Eisenstadt’s Canadian-wry sensibility.)
It’s a lot of highbrow allusion, and yet the emotional anchor of The Destructive Element lies within the ballads, which are drop-dead gorgeous. There is sheer beauty in the mix of diffidence and passion Eskelin brings to “Swimming, Then Rained Out,” and to the chords and harmony Sanchez gently pours out on “Cascadia.” It’s simple, sophisticated, sublime.
This is September Trio’s second release and Eisenstadt’s 14th recording as a leader. The band first performed at The Stone in 2010 and released their first album in 2011. Critic Stuart Broomer wrote of their eponymous debut: “It’s unlikely that there’s ever been a CD quite like this one,” in reference to a program of compositions by a drummer made up almost entirely of ballads. The Destructive Element features wide-open ballads and blues alongside longer-form pieces.
“The music for our first record just kind of spilled out of me,” Eisenstadt remembers. “This time, I knew we had the opportunity to play two sets most nights for ten days, so I wanted to bring a variety of pieces in. I love the way Ellery and Angie both have gruffness and lyricism in their playing. Those kinds of contrasting inclinations appeal to me.”
Eisenstadt wrote the album’s title track originally for voice and piano. Ellery Eskelin’s warm, robust tenor delivers the vocal melody as though declaiming the words themselves. “I was stunned by Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim as an English major in college in the mid-late 1990s,” Eisenstadt recalls. “I had a particularly influential professor, John Mizner, who I took course after course with; ‘Introduction to Literature,’ a month-long intensive on Beckett, ‘Romantic Heroes and Anti-Heroes,’ ‘Literature of Existentialism,’ then an independent study on Conrad’s Lord Jim.”
Conrad’s contention that in order to live authentically humans must submit themselves to the sometimes joyous, sometimes painful act of amassing experiences struck a chord. “It’s one of the things I admire about Arnold Schoenberg as well. He wrote the music he heard, year after year, for a lifetime. He resolved to submit himself to the destructive element - writing music, finding ways to get it played, often in the face of great adversity, even when forced to flee Europe and start a new life in the US.”
“From Schoenberg Part One” and “…Part Two” borrow materials from Schoenberg’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. “There’s a sadness to the Concerto but also a hopefulness. Schoenberg had recently fled Europe and had just been hired at UCLA. He’d left everything behind but also been given a new and vital opportunity.” We can hear the push and pull of somber and optimistic turns the two pieces take, the insistent short saxophone/piano unison bursts behind a kaleidosopic drum solo, the grounded-in-the-bass, soaring-in-the altissimo register counterpoint between Sanchez and Eskelin.
On “Additives,” the trio race through longer and longer rhythmic unisons on their way to open pastures and back. Sanchez’s left hand announces the stately opening of “Ordinary Weirdness,” then Eskelin’s entrance sends us through a constantly shifting backdrop of sustained melodies and shifting piano accompaniment.
Eisenstadt composed “Here are the Samurai” years ago, after seeing Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. “There was this scene when the samurai walk into a village and all havoc is about to break loose. An old woman looks up from the laundry she’s washing and she has this resigned look on her face, like ‘oh boy, here we go.’ For some reason that translated line of dialogue stuck with me as I imagined the drums confronting these repeating, twisted melodic/rhythmic cells played in mostly unison by the saxophone and piano.”
A delightful blend of true pop and rhythm from Brazil, home of the best popular music in the world. A surprise album by a journalist who travelled his country to discover an expansive sound that takes you all over the world.
The liner notes for Ruspo’s debut, Esses Patifes (These Criminals), describe the album as a journalistic meditation on Brazil’s disparate geography through the lens of “tropical lo-fi.” While that framework might be useful for approaching the album, the richness of Ruspo’s lyrics and production is what makes this album shine.
Ruspo (the nickname of Ruy Sposati) composed and recorded the album while travelling between a diverse set of cities in Brazil, ranging from its largest cosmopolis (São Paulo) to cities that epitomize some of the country’s most famous natural geographic features: the Amazon river (Belém and Altamira), the mines (Belo Horizonte), and the rainforest (Campo Grande and Dourados). The combination of an indie aesthetic with the geographic specificity produces a lovely album that parallels similar place-centered efforts by indie artists such as Sufjan Stevens while also drawing from the newer tendencies in Brazilian popular music. The result is an album that should appeal to Brazilophiles and adventurous fans of lo-fi indie music alike.
All 14 of the tracks are strong, weaving between detuned guitars and children’s voices (“Altamira”), quirky approaches to baile funk (“Chatuba do Agroboy”), new wave (“Santos”), and kitschy bossa nova (“EUA”). Fans of Jorge Ben might be drawn to “Tenha Fé,” a reworking of Ben’s samba-rock track (also known to fans as “Confiança”). Ruspo’s version replaces the exuberance of late-1960s samba-rock with afro-Brazilian rhythms, marimbas, and driving piano riffs. The song also features excursions to flute solos, saxophones, string patches, and even the berimbau. That kind of eclecticism is characteristic of most of the album.
Many tracks complement Ruspo’s songwriting by juxtaposing instruments more familiar to a marching band with the fuzz of electric guitars and synthesized effects. Muted trumpets and clarinets often express the sad beauty at the heart of many of these songs even when the lyrics express bitter critiques. For example, without the warm sounds of the clarinet on top of the baile funk beat of “Chatuba do Agroboy,” Ruspo’s anger at the environmental and social repercussions of big agriculture in the Pantanal might lose its bite.
Ruspo’s overall approach to the production of his vocals will sound familiar to fans of Bright Eyes or Elliott Smith. He adds to the melancholy of his subject matter through slightly out-of-tune vocal doubling. The result is often effective at evincing a sad and introspective beauty from his lyrics even as they veer into vulgarity and anger.
De longe avistado, o alvo, caso a luz favoreça, traz sua sombra antes de seu próprio corpo. A mancha escura pode assustar antes mesmo se mostre vilão ou quem sabe apenas mero transeunte daquele caminho. O trilho por onde a sombra percorria já tinha outras pegadas expostas em rastro. São elas: os álbuns que carregaram uma espécie desenrolada de tropicalismo feito próximo à segunda década do século XXI (Curumin, Apanhador Só, Tulipa Ruiz e Wado, são alguns) e, por ordem cronológica decrescente, “Claridão”, álbum de 2012 de SILVA. À primeira vista, a sombra surge lenta e anunciadora. Também, contudo, não expõe muito bem os contornos de seu dono. É, portanto, ambígua.
O encontro com “Esses Patifes” é momento de decisão – e até agora não a fiz. Escrevo indeciso como se estivesse sendo abordado por um disfarçado ator no meio da avenida da cidade, me pedindo um favor que tanto pode se revelar em um simples ato que eu lhe dê gentilmente ou seja o início de uma pegadinha em rede nacional que termine com minha cara de pastel para as câmeras. Explico-lhes o porquê: a estética é atmosfera e, ainda, soe técnica frente à passionalidade, é o que conduz o exercício. Creio ser vítima de afetação o debute de SILVA e, por que, afinal, não consigo a “Esses Patifes” atribuir alguma fragilidade especialmente calculada? A resposta não está, portanto, na estética por si só. “Claridão”, aliás, foi resenhado com certo louvor aqui no Fita Bruta do qual não compartilho e creio ser insustentável,
Em “Esses Patifes”, a condução da narrativa, em grande parte, só é possível por causa das escolhas estéticas de Ruy Sposati, o Ruspo. As viagens do jornalista que se dedica aos confins das lutas centrais entre poder dos afastados agrícolas contra a resistência dos esquecidos indígenas é determinante para que a eletrônica-emergente seja companheira natural das letras desoladas de Ruspo. “Esses Patifes” é um álbum em que não pesa o talento primário de Ruspo. Não importando, prioritariamente, a origem dos instrumentos ou da habilidade de quem os arranjou e executou, o álbum se mostra antes da discussão de estética e da própria linha evolutiva natural desse trabalho.
Imediato em “Esses Patifes” é a condução do álbum. Não suas referências anteriores. Discordo do termo lo-fi, por exemplo. Não há um álbum lo-fi possível no Brasil caso respeitemos a compreensão evoluída do gênero. Lo-fi não se refere apenas à uma certa falta de cuidado profissional, mas também aos filtros que podem muito bem simulá-lo. Conquanto não é cretino, ambos não estão em “Esses Patifes”. O que há neste álbum é uma fórmula quase ideal de uma vontade emergencial de gerar um trabalho condizente com o entorno coligada a uma possibilidade de estética e narrativa que parecem ser cabíveis.
É difícil acompanhar o ritmo dos lançamentos em tempos de internet rápida, de estúdios caseiros e consequentemente da produção em massa de música. A cada hora pipoca na rede uma porção generosa de discos, EPs, singles, remixes e o escambau; muita coisa passa em branco, algumas infelizmente.
Se não tivesse recebido uma mensagem a respeito de Esses patifes, primeiro disco do projeto Ruspo, provavelmente ele teria entrado para a lista desses álbuns perdidos no tempo e espaço, o que seria, definitivamente, uma pena.
Ruspo é o alias do jornalista, produtor, compositor e cantor Ruy Sposati, que passou os últimos dois anos viajando (em todos sentidos, a julgar por sua música) e escrevendo as 14 canções de Esses patifes, que foi feito entre Santos, Campinas e São Paulo (SP), Belo Horizonte (MG), Altamira e Belém (PA) e Campo Grande e Dourados (MS).
Como dito logo acima, essa longa trip por diferentes paisagens geográficas e culturais reflete diretamente nas faixas do álbum. Não há uma raiz, um gênero que o norteie, é uma obra multifacetada, feita de forma analógica e digital, abraçando o tradicional e o moderno, mais ou menos como fizeram os tropicalistas originais lá nos anos 60.
As letras – todas em português – são inteligentes sem ser arrogantes e/ou pretensiosas, e retratam bem as andanças de Ruspo pelo país, capturando tanto as alegrias quanto as tristezas e agruras brasileiras.
Musicalmente o disco também carrega uma porção de sotaques – do funk ao pós-rock – e mesmo assim não soa como um trabalho de franco-atirador. Como referência, podem pensar em Beck.
A logical choice, to sing in and express himself in a language that feels so much at home for him. Bejar does what he always does-takes us on a verbal journey to who knows where but this album works-sorry for those who can't travel well...a jazz infused journey.
Dan Bejar (known solo as Destroyer) is a bit of a mystery. The bushy haired Vancouverite is the member of The New Pornographers who doesn’t seem to give a care, often meandering offstage to placate a nic-fit, or scaling back his audience interactions to a polite minimum while channeling a Hunky Dory era David Bowie. But, like all worthy troubadours, he has the uncanny ability to enthrall listeners with fantastic storytelling and musical grace. Bejar’s whimsical lyrics, non sequiturs, and callbacks to famous hooks of yesteryear stand proud against his dreamy chords. Given the singer-songwriter’s predilection for toying with expectations, it shouldn’t be too surprising that he chose to release a gem of a covers album that’s sung entirely in Spanish. Dios mio, man.
Prior to Five Spanish Songs‘ release, Bejar shared that his motives stemmed from an impatience with the melodic shortcomings of the English language. This impulse was also bolstered by a decades long admiration of the Seville-based group Sr. Chinarro — led by Antonio Luque, the band’s only permanent member — who inspired him to think fuera de la caja (or, outside the box), despite being only half fluent en español. But, you wouldn’t guess that by listening. Bejar’s sweet vocals soar to a place of tranquility and familiarity on stand out song “Bye Bye”. The track’s instrumentation harks back to the mesmerizing softness of “Painter in Your Pocket” off of 2006’s Destroyer’s Rubies, while the sonic groove that pulses beneath “Babieca” would feel right at home on 2011’s Top Star-rated Kaputt.
Five Spanish Songs is a worthy, albeit unusual choice for an artist who is praised for his unique take on songwriting and lyrics. That said, each tune fits well within the larger collection of Destroyer’s recorded history. Even though the lyrics are culled from Luque, they feel perfectly natural erupting out of Bejar, and even resemble the poetic imagery found in his own work. “Del montón”, for instance, finds Bejar crooning, “I looked at the castle/ And I thought of Franz Kafka/ And wrote a song that ended up in a tavern.” Non-Spanish speakers will miss out on some of this subtle playfulness, but the pleasing melodies, warm guitar work, and fanciful ephemera transcend the need to comprehend the meaning behind every single word. It’s simply a beautiful little record that anyone can enjoy. Five Spanish Songs adds to the legacy of indie pop’s most vexing minstrel, and, at the end of the day, lo único que importa.
On Five Spanish Songs, Daniel Bejar pulls off the rare trick of covering five songs by a single author – the Spaniard Antonio Luque, who records as Sr. Chinarro – while sounding precisely like Daniel Bejar.
That’s a feat for any performer, but more so for Bejar, who is, by nature, slippery and hard to define. He is a midi-mastering solo symphonist one minute (Your Blues), a full-band rocker the next (Destroyer’s Rubies), and most recently a lite-fm Gerry Rafferty devotee (Kaputt, which is a good name for it). The main connector, for me, has always been his skill as a writer. His words have a sinuous-ness that glide effortlessly until they land in a tangle, dense, elegant, impacted with inference. He’s just too good at the oblique image, the tossed off bon mot, the line-drawn portraits of strangers in a crowd to be considered apart from the words. The music just wraps around them.
And yet, here, though he wrote none of these songs, not glancing, caressing “Bye, Bye,” not breeze-y, lounge sophisticated “Babieca,” not blistery, guitar-riffing “El Rito” (the one they’ll slip you on soundcloud as a teaser, even though it sounds nothing like the rest), they sound very much like knowing, teasing, too-smart-to-pin-down Destroyer. They are beautifully sung, sparely filled out in diverse ways and charged with cerebral tension. I went back to Spotify to hear these tunes in their original version and found that, really, none of them sounded a bit like Destroyer. He did all that by himself.
So if you listen to Destroyer primarily for his fey touch with lyrics, his ways of weaving mystery into elliptical images, his slicked-back auteur vision of post-modern gender interactions, you might give Five Spanish Songs a miss. Or you might not. He’s brought the whole Destroyer vibe to an entirely non-Destroyer set of material, and you can feel the waves of cool detachment, of stylish artifice wafting off these tunes just the same as always.
Dan Bejar’s songbook is the sum of clearly discernible influences: the rich characterizations and narrative ramble of Dylan; the obtuse wordplay and meta-musical musings of Stephen Malkmus; the excitable affectation of a young David Bowie. And yet, it’s not an exaggeration to say that no one sounds quite like Dan Bejar—in classic sum-is-greater-than-the-parts fashion, he’s emerged over the past 15 years as one of indie-rock’s most unique and idiosyncratic voices, forging an identity so distinct, he’s even spawned dopplegängers and Twitter lyric generators. His latest release offers further edification, by proving that Bejar's peculiar presence is unmistakble even when he’s singing someone else’s songs in a foreign tongue.
Five Spanish Songs is just that, though there’s a more altruistic impetus to this endeavor than that throwaway title would suggest. Traditionally, when Anglo pop acts opt to record in another language, the motivation is usually opportunistic, a calculated attempt to engender goodwill—and, it follows, sell more records—in overseas countries. (“Sie Liebt Dich yeah, yeah, yeah!”) Five Spanish Songs is, likewise, a means to promote an underappreciated artist in an untapped market, but that artist isn’t Bejar: more than try to make Destroyer a star in Spain, the EP serves as a North American introduction to Seville songwriter Antonio Luque, a prolific Gainsbourgian cult-hero whose long-running band Sr. Chinarro originally recorded the tracks Bejar covers here.
The EP also presents an opportunity for Bejar to celebrate his own Spanish heritage, which has never really factored into his work before (though, given his tendency to overstuff his songs with verbiage to the point of bursting, it makes sense that he'd want to reconnect with a culture where the words for things like “heart,” “nap,” and “thanks” unfurl over multiple syllables). Bejar’s reverence for Luque is evident through his measured, carefully considered diction, which is less flamboyant than it once was, though several degrees warmer than the hushed sing-speak tones heard on 2011’s Kaputt. But if Bejar is faithful to the originals’ melodic structures (despite boasting a voice that’s naturally higher than Luque’s weathered croon), he takes great liberties with their presentation, dressing up each song in a familiar Bejarian guise.
A sweet, sweet piece of music-African and European, displaying each continents riches. Into the future with these delicate and thoughtful sounds of our collective dreams.
The Village, Monoswezi’s debut album, is a collection of rearranged Zimbabwean traditional songs blended with a cool Nordic edge. What the band prize about Zimbabwean music is its inherent openness, a quality that shares much with that fresh airy feel inherent in the Scandinavian jazz sound.
Creatively they carve a musical link that not only sounds entirely new, but crosses the oceans, eschews politics and embraces wholeheartedly the values of cross-cultural collaboration. With members hailing from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Norway and Sweden the boundary-crossing band’s sound is entirely unique. Articulated mbira rings out atop colourful woodwind and the gentle rhythm section.
The music is structured via looping cyclical riffs that lock down into solid rhythmic patterns. The band describes their music as ‘strong’, a term that communicates well the steady, circuitous nature of the music. It is an idea that has been a source of interest for other composers, including minimalist maestros Philip Glass and Steve Reich, whose parallel influence can be heard on works such as the cell-like track ‘Metal Drum’. Here the atmosphere conjures up the same spooky, anticipatory feeling as Glass’s Glassworks or Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood.
Hope Masike, who can be heard playing mbira and singing throughout the album, is a remarkable musician, trained in traditional music, jazz, dance, and more. Not only can she interlock tight rhythms while singing with a smooth unforced voice, but she is one of a relatively small number of females who play the mbira. Following in the footsteps of pioneers such as Stella Chiweshe, Hope plays the instrument – which has historically been male-dominated – with pride. Hallvard Godal’s saxophone technique is clean and unadorned, a sound that locks in perfectly with the struck aesthetic of the mbira. Calu contributes gentle rolling vocals which he sings in Ronga, his Mozambican mother tongue.
Listening to the quirky cool sounds on this collection, the Monoswezi brand is set to expand even further afield, and who knows where their next experiment could take this back-bendingly flexible band…
Though at opposite ends of the earth, Norway and Mozambique fuse fascinatingly in this outfit assembled by Norwegian reeds player Hallvard Godal after time spent down south. Their approach is minimalist, with the looping lines of mbira (thumb piano) mixed with stalking jazz bass, assorted percussion and bells. The songs are traditional, given life by the supple, at times spectacular vocals of Zimbabwe's Hope Masike (who also plays mbira), while Godal's tenor sax and clarinet supply twisting melody lines. The resultant soundscapes stretch invitingly on tracks such as the lilting Hondo, while Kalahari summons up an appropriately threatening desert atmosphere. Classy stuff.
On paper this is a north European jazz band—the founder/saxophonist is Norwegian, the band has received financial support from the Norsk kulturråd—but the lead singer Hope Masike comes from Mozambique and southern Africa is the music’s muse, kept very cool by the jazz-brass, which lingers around her while she makes reckless instinctive-sounding moves from one note into another. This lingering affects her too, she’s slower than she could be, her reckless style teases itself against the instruments, she plays a Shona pattern on her mbira, and her voice gives the music a prickly kind of rebellious life. This sound of a naturally fast impulse, the jump between hum and high “Aow!” the warmth of her smiling delivery, being drawn out by this communal icy-cool focus, is wonderful and delicate.
A luscious album full of meaningful and sensual notes. Abbey's music is perfectly memorialized in this solo piano rendition. An intimate intrepation of a great singers music.
Marc Cary came to New York City to find and save his father. Instead, he found artists like and — and saved himself.
"I hadn't seen my dad in 10 years," Cary says over a recent lunch in downtown Manhattan. "He's a percussionist, but he was living another lifestyle, and I came to rescue him. He was living at the Port Authority Bus Station."
Cary was 21; he arrived with only $20 in his pocket. But he was also a talented jazz pianist. On the recommendation of a friend, he soon connected with the late Art Taylor, a venerated jazz drummer. Taylor was assembling a new incarnation of the Wailers, his own seminal jazz group.
"I called him that night, and he told me to come over immediately," Cary says. At the time, Taylor lived a block away in Harlem. When Cary arrived, Abbey Lincoln was there; she lived next door. "[Lincoln] checked me out, gave me a lot of encouragement and told me that one day we'll play together."
Cary's latest album, For the Love of Abbey, is his first solo piano recording. It honors his 12-year tenure with the late jazz vocalist, as well as her prowess for writing emotionally arresting lyrics. But he also pays homage to all those who shaped him, notably his family.
Today, his father is a barber. "When I got out of touch with him, I just let my locks grow," says Cary, who wears dreadlocks. "I never let anybody cut my hair but my dad."
Born in New York City, Cary was raised between Providence, R.I., and Washington, D.C. Cary's mother, Penny Gamble-Williams, is a cellist. Mae York Smith, his great-grandmother, was not only a classical vocalist and concert pianist for silent movies, but also practiced four-handed piano alongside pianist Eubie Blake. And his grandfather, Otis Gamble, was the first cousin of trumpeter Cootie Williams, best known for his work with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
The last time keyboardist Marc Cary saw the legendary singer Abbey Lincoln was about two weeks before she passed in August of 2010. Toward the end of her life, while living in a hospice, Lincoln reportedly didn’t want visits from musicians, so Cary didn’t see her for about year before then. Battling Alzheimer’s, the 80-year-old Lincoln was surrounded by people when Cary came to see her, but as he remembers, “She didn’t know who anyone was.”
But a flash of cognizance struck her when Cary walked into the room. “She said, ‘Marc! We got a gig tonight!’ I almost cried,” Cary, 46, said in December, a half hour before a gig with his Focus Trio at Bohemian Caverns in his hometown of Washington, D.C. “She looked at me, then she looked around and said, ‘Marc, I’m not home, am I?’ From that moment on, she was as clear as she had ever been.”
That brief moment of recognition touched Cary deeply, and inspired him to make his new solo piano disc, For the Love of Abbey (available June 11 on Motéma), a moving love letter to one of his mentors, an icon he played with off and on for 12 years. On the album, Cary interprets some of Lincoln’s most cherished originals, including “Throw It Away,” “Conversation With a Baby,” “Should Have Been,” “Wholly Earth” and “The Music Is the Magic.”
One of the most interesting aspects of Cary’s new project is that it lacks vocals. Much of Lincoln’s artistic power came from her signature delivery, an attack that could underscore the most anodyne lyric with ferocity. But more important for Cary was Lincoln’s songwriting, which could move seamlessly from world-weariness to child-like optimism. “Her music, even without the lyrics, is so powerful,” he explains. “I really wanted to expose that, especially for those who have never heard her. A lot of people had mixed ideas about her singing, but to me everything came together through her compositions. Her compositions really described how she felt.”
Even though this was a solo outing, Cary says he wasn’t alone. “When I recorded [the disc], [Lincoln] visited me,” he reveals. “There was definitely a visitation. You can hear it in the phrasing of my playing; it’s almost as if she’s singing when I’m playing. That first record date actually freaked me out.”
Dissatisfied with his initial recording sessions in February 2012, he decided to re-record the entire project in May. The performances worked best when he went at the material off-the-cuff. “I didn’t really approach the piano before I started recording,” he says. “Oftentimes I prepare my chops weeks in advance. This time I didn’t approach it that way; I really wanted it to be about the song. I wanted to express myself as if it was the first time I’d ever played that music.”
The strategy certainly paid off. With Cary focusing heavily on the melodies before embarking on orchestral improvisations that often recall the glory of Randy Weston, For the Love of Abbey shimmers and soars. Such is the case with the vibrant reading of “The Music Is the Magic”; the haunting “When I’m Called Home,” distinguished by Cary’s jarring harmonies and halting approach to melody; and the stargazing “Conversation With a Baby,” where Cary articulates with miniature tremolos, suspenseful sustain-pedal work and, again, a conversational melodic sense that characterized Lincoln’s delivery.
Marc Cary is probably the most Ellingtonian pianist out there right now. That may be the highest praise anyone can confer on a pianist, but Cary reaffims that trait over and over on his new album For the Love of Abbey, a collection of highly improvised solo versions of Abbey Lincoln songs. It’s stormy and ferociously articulate, like Lincoln – Cary should know, considering that he was her music director through the end of her career. It’s intense, hard-hitting but elegant to a fault. Without the constraints of having a band behind him, Cary seizes the opporutunity to play the changes rubato, taking his time over low, lingering, frequently explosive lefthand pedal notes. That this simple game plan would work as impactfully as it does throughout most of the songs here testifies to his power as an improviser: there’s not a single cliche on this album. Cary’s fluency in so many different vernaculars never ceases to amaze: irony-infused blues, menacing modalities, third-stream glimmer and gleam.
Cary opens by taking Music Is the Magic to a towering intensity a bluesy scramble and then back. Down Here below begins with a low-register rumble and rises to an epic majesty, from blues to hard-hitting block chords and a chillingly modal ending. One of only three tracks here not written by Lincoln, Ellington’s Melancholia is less melancholy than a rich exploration of Debussyesque colors and nebulously Asian tinges. Cary’s own For Moseka works cleverly out of a circular lefthand riff to a pensive jazz waltz that he sends spiraling.
Who Used to Dance gets a bitterly reflective poignancy; it’s over too soon. Should’ve Been is spaciously moody, but with bite, ending on an elegantly bitter downward run. My Love Is You is a study in suspense: Cary introduces what seem for a second to be familiar phrases, but then takes everything on unexected but purposeful tangents, a litle Asian, a little vaudevillian. Love Evolves makes a good segue from there, hypnotic and brooding, finally livened with a couple of rapidfire righthand flourishes before its final descent into Chopinesque, haunting austerity.
Throw It Away potently pairs chromatically crushing, eerie lefthand against a gospel-tinged, dynamically shifting melody. Another World provides a sense of relief from the severity yet doesn’t leave it completely behind; Cary throws a clock-chime motif into the works, a neat touch. A rapt, saturnine When I’m Called Home brings back hints of Asian melody and an unexpected ragtime-flavored jauntiness, seemingly a segue with Conversations with a Baby, which grows from tender to emphatic: it’s time to talk sense to that kid! Cary closes the album with a brief modal introduction of his own into Down Here Below the Horizon, a summation of sorts with its glittering, anguished waves, from Romantic rigor to a familiar blues trope that he turns utterly chilling. If you love Abbey Lincoln, as Cary very obviously still does, you will find the way he ends this absolutely shattering. It’ll bring tears to your eyes. As solo piano albums go, the only one from this year that remotely compares to this is Bobby Avey‘s murky Be Not So Long to Speak. Look for this high on the best albums of 2013 page here in December if we make it that far.
How can anyone pay homage to someone so much larger than life itself; someone who outgrew her art and craft and left not just a legacy of songs, but music that will forever be written into the earthly Book of the Lamb? That artist who dared to write and perform homage to such a woman of substance would have to play not only with sublime technique and overflowing musicality, but also with a heart wholly of the earth and one that bleeds every time Abbey Lincoln’s music is played. This is what it took for Ms. Lincoln to sing every time she set out to. This is what Marc Cary takes to bring to record his superb For the Love of Abbey. Mr. Cary knows Ms. Lincoln quite intimately. He played on several of her later albums after locating in New York. In fact it was Ms. Lincoln who took it upon herself, as she did so many times to showcase anew musician: in this case the deeply spiritual and rhythmic pianist, Marc Cary. Here too Mr. Cary plays with a profound intensity that captures the mighty soul of Abbey Lincoln. Mr. Cary’s playing is majestic, especially on “Music is the Magic” and “Down Here Below”. On the latter chart the pianist develops a musical magisterium from which the whole album unfolds and is broadcast to the world.
As a pianist Mr. Cary is a musician through whom the whole history of jazz seems to flow. He converts this extraordinary charge into something of rhythmic electricity. His notes and burgeoning lines seem to follow the wild undulations that Ms. Lincoln brought to her own music. Rising and falling in volume, the music also meanders as it is touched by various idiosyncrasies that develop as the characters in the various narrations are revealed. As songs such as “Melancholia” develop—and Mr. Cary uses forceful touch combined by the sustaining pedal—the gravitas of the music develops not just dramatic tension, but also comes alive with the rich and gleaming beauty of Pan-Africanism. Mr. Cary’s intense melody on “For Moseka” captures the complex nature of Ms. Lincoln’s being. There are times when the music here, with its dazzling arpeggios and rhythmic cadences, comes so close to the spirit of Abbey Lincoln that it recalls all of her music, all at once. That song and the near violence of the melodic and harmonic attack of “Transmutate” recall to mind the wordless vocalastics that Abbey Lincoln created for two great Max Roach albums: Percussion Bitter Sweet (Impulse, 1961) and the earlier, equally iconic 1960 album Freedom Now, We Insist.
Throughout her life as a musician and a vocalist, Abbey Lincoln practiced studied modulation as she sang some of the greatest torch songs in the history of jazz. The militancy in her voice was so palpable that her songs such as “Driva Man” and “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace”—both from the 1960 record Freedom Now: We Insist the pain of the songs affected true listeners as if the vocalist was putting a twist in their hearts. As she grew older, however, Ms. Lincoln’s penchant for incorporating primal elements in her music became tempered by the deeply felt emotion of love. The dramatic conflict between these two conflicting emotions is one of the high-points of Marc Cary’s playing throughout the record. On songs such as “My Love is You” and the extremely complex emotions of “Love Evolves” Mr. Cary pokes and probes notes, often repeating them as he searches for the exact nature of Ms. Lincoln’s conflict that leads to the mellowing in the dénouement of both classic charts. Abbey Lincoln nerve really strayed very far from deep irony in displaying her love for all things—from those that could be felt and held to those that existed only in the heart and the mind—attributing the frailty of human nature to lovers falling from grace. And she did so in a colossal, almost Grecian manner that included extreme pathos in her tragic songs. Marc Cary appears to also read these feelings well and brings this elementally beautiful “deep song” to “Throw It Away” as well as in the fundamental melancholia of “Another World”. The latter song is captured by Mr. Cary with intensity and grandeur through deliberate repetition of notes and phrases and in towards the end, by arpeggios made more dramatic by his sustained use of the hard pedal. All of the gravity of the song resounds as it comes to rest on a single note.
- See more at: http://latinjazznet.com/2013/06/11/features/jazz-report/marc-cary-for-the-love-of-abbey/#sthash.6tnNNRf5.dpuf
How can anyone pay homage to someone so much larger than life itself; someone who outgrew her art and craft and left not just a legacy of songs, but music that will forever be written into the earthly Book of the Lamb? That artist who dared to write and perform homage to such a woman of substance would have to play not only with sublime technique and overflowing musicality, but also with a heart wholly of the earth and one that bleeds every time Abbey Lincoln’s music is played. This is what it took for Ms. Lincoln to sing every time she set out to. This is what Marc Cary takes to bring to record his superb For the Love of Abbey. Mr. Cary knows Ms. Lincoln quite intimately. He played on several of her later albums after locating in New York. In fact it was Ms. Lincoln who took it upon herself, as she did so many times to showcase anew musician: in this case the deeply spiritual and rhythmic pianist, Marc Cary. Here too Mr. Cary plays with a profound intensity that captures the mighty soul of Abbey Lincoln. Mr. Cary’s playing is majestic, especially on “Music is the Magic” and “Down Here Below”. On the latter chart the pianist develops a musical magisterium from which the whole album unfolds and is broadcast to the world.
As a pianist Mr. Cary is a musician through whom the whole history of jazz seems to flow. He converts this extraordinary charge into something of rhythmic electricity. His notes and burgeoning lines seem to follow the wild undulations that Ms. Lincoln brought to her own music. Rising and falling in volume, the music also meanders as it is touched by various idiosyncrasies that develop as the characters in the various narrations are revealed. As songs such as “Melancholia” develop—and Mr. Cary uses forceful touch combined by the sustaining pedal—the gravitas of the music develops not just dramatic tension, but also comes alive with the rich and gleaming beauty of Pan-Africanism. Mr. Cary’s intense melody on “For Moseka” captures the complex nature of Ms. Lincoln’s being. There are times when the music here, with its dazzling arpeggios and rhythmic cadences, comes so close to the spirit of Abbey Lincoln that it recalls all of her music, all at once. That song and the near violence of the melodic and harmonic attack of “Transmutate” recall to mind the wordless vocalastics that Abbey Lincoln created for two great Max Roach albums: Percussion Bitter Sweet (Impulse, 1961) and the earlier, equally iconic 1960 album Freedom Now, We Insist.
Throughout her life as a musician and a vocalist, Abbey Lincoln practiced studied modulation as she sang some of the greatest torch songs in the history of jazz. The militancy in her voice was so palpable that her songs such as “Driva Man” and “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace”—both from the 1960 record Freedom Now: We Insist the pain of the songs affected true listeners as if the vocalist was putting a twist in their hearts. As she grew older, however, Ms. Lincoln’s penchant for incorporating primal elements in her music became tempered by the deeply felt emotion of love. The dramatic conflict between these two conflicting emotions is one of the high-points of Marc Cary’s playing throughout the record. On songs such as “My Love is You” and the extremely complex emotions of “Love Evolves” Mr. Cary pokes and probes notes, often repeating them as he searches for the exact nature of Ms. Lincoln’s conflict that leads to the mellowing in the dénouement of both classic charts. Abbey Lincoln nerve really strayed very far from deep irony in displaying her love for all things—from those that could be felt and held to those that existed only in the heart and the mind—attributing the frailty of human nature to lovers falling from grace. And she did so in a colossal, almost Grecian manner that included extreme pathos in her tragic songs. Marc Cary appears to also read these feelings well and brings this elementally beautiful “deep song” to “Throw It Away” as well as in the fundamental melancholia of “Another World”. The latter song is captured by Mr. Cary with intensity and grandeur through deliberate repetition of notes and phrases and in towards the end, by arpeggios made more dramatic by his sustained use of the hard pedal. All of the gravity of the song resounds as it comes to rest on a single note.
- See more at: http://latinjazznet.com/2013/06/11/features/jazz-report/marc-cary-for-the-love-of-abbey/#sthash.6tnNNRf5.dpuf
How can anyone pay homage to someone so much larger than life itself; someone who outgrew her art and craft and left not just a legacy of songs, but music that will forever be written into the earthly Book of the Lamb? That artist who dared to write and perform homage to such a woman of substance would have to play not only with sublime technique and overflowing musicality, but also with a heart wholly of the earth and one that bleeds every time Abbey Lincoln’s music is played. This is what it took for Ms. Lincoln to sing every time she set out to. This is what Marc Cary takes to bring to record his superb For the Love of Abbey. Mr. Cary knows Ms. Lincoln quite intimately. He played on several of her later albums after locating in New York. In fact it was Ms. Lincoln who took it upon herself, as she did so many times to showcase anew musician: in this case the deeply spiritual and rhythmic pianist, Marc Cary. Here too Mr. Cary plays with a profound intensity that captures the mighty soul of Abbey Lincoln. Mr. Cary’s playing is majestic, especially on “Music is the Magic” and “Down Here Below”. On the latter chart the pianist develops a musical magisterium from which the whole album unfolds and is broadcast to the world.
As a pianist Mr. Cary is a musician through whom the whole history of jazz seems to flow. He converts this extraordinary charge into something of rhythmic electricity. His notes and burgeoning lines seem to follow the wild undulations that Ms. Lincoln brought to her own music. Rising and falling in volume, the music also meanders as it is touched by various idiosyncrasies that develop as the characters in the various narrations are revealed. As songs such as “Melancholia” develop—and Mr. Cary uses forceful touch combined by the sustaining pedal—the gravitas of the music develops not just dramatic tension, but also comes alive with the rich and gleaming beauty of Pan-Africanism. Mr. Cary’s intense melody on “For Moseka” captures the complex nature of Ms. Lincoln’s being. There are times when the music here, with its dazzling arpeggios and rhythmic cadences, comes so close to the spirit of Abbey Lincoln that it recalls all of her music, all at once. That song and the near violence of the melodic and harmonic attack of “Transmutate” recall to mind the wordless vocalastics that Abbey Lincoln created for two great Max Roach albums: Percussion Bitter Sweet (Impulse, 1961) and the earlier, equally iconic 1960 album Freedom Now, We Insist.
Throughout her life as a musician and a vocalist, Abbey Lincoln practiced studied modulation as she sang some of the greatest torch songs in the history of jazz. The militancy in her voice was so palpable that her songs such as “Driva Man” and “Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace”—both from the 1960 record Freedom Now: We Insist the pain of the songs affected true listeners as if the vocalist was putting a twist in their hearts. As she grew older, however, Ms. Lincoln’s penchant for incorporating primal elements in her music became tempered by the deeply felt emotion of love. The dramatic conflict between these two conflicting emotions is one of the high-points of Marc Cary’s playing throughout the record. On songs such as “My Love is You” and the extremely complex emotions of “Love Evolves” Mr. Cary pokes and probes notes, often repeating them as he searches for the exact nature of Ms. Lincoln’s conflict that leads to the mellowing in the dénouement of both classic charts. Abbey Lincoln nerve really strayed very far from deep irony in displaying her love for all things—from those that could be felt and held to those that existed only in the heart and the mind—attributing the frailty of human nature to lovers falling from grace. And she did so in a colossal, almost Grecian manner that included extreme pathos in her tragic songs. Marc Cary appears to also read these feelings well and brings this elementally beautiful “deep song” to “Throw It Away” as well as in the fundamental melancholia of “Another World”. The latter song is captured by Mr. Cary with intensity and grandeur through deliberate repetition of notes and phrases and in towards the end, by arpeggios made more dramatic by his sustained use of the hard pedal. All of the gravity of the song resounds as it comes to rest on a single note.
- See more at: http://latinjazznet.com/2013/06/11/features/jazz-report/marc-cary-for-the-love-of-abbey/#sthash.6tnNNRf5.dpuf
This diverse blend of encore provides something for everyone who enjoys the sound of Hahn's precise sound. It is fun to see how she expands her repertoire in ways that most classical musicians would shun-this is something to praise.
The event, which took place at the Greenwich House Music School in Greenwich Village, heralded the arrival of Ms. Hahn’s new album, “In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores.” Due on Monday from Deutsche Grammophon, the two-CD set includes 27 brief pieces she commissioned from 27 composers, which have been a part of her recital repertory for the last few seasons. She has also arranged to have the scores published together, in physical and digital formats.
Here, in four sets spread across two sessions — noon to 3 and 4 to 7 p.m. — the encores were the main event. Ms. Hahn and her recital partner, the pianist Cory Smythe, played all 27 encores in the order in which they appear on her album.
Individually, the pieces represent an admirable span of ages, nationalities and styles, with veteran creators like Einojuhani Rautavaara and Valentin Silvestrov placed alongside contemporary concert-world stars — Jennifer Higdon, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Nico Muhly — and emerging artists. What impressed most on Sunday was how well the package coheres — a matter of Ms. Hahn’s smart pacing — and how deftly Ms. Hahn negotiated constant shifts among disparate techniques and moods.
Instead of simply showcasing the encores, Ms. Hahn acknowledged the fortuitous connections involved in her signature project with a community-minded event. Before and between her sets, in Greenwich House’s cozy concert hall, you heard other works by the “27 Pieces” composers.
Ms. Hahn and Mr. Smythe’s extraordinary performances in the Corelli, Bach and Faure withstanding, the 8 pieces chosen from Hahn’s 27 Encores project were the true highlights of the evening. The violinist who had chosen 4 pieces off the project for their world premiere this evening, kept the scores nearby just in case, but hardly ever needed them.
James Newton Howard’s ‘133… at Least’, the first of the encores, with its restless structure built around falling chromatic scales is a world apart from the film soundtracks he is generally known for. The two minute piece demands perfect synchronization, particularly in its coda, which was duly executed. Next up was Antón García Abril, a composer also known for his film and TV projects in his own right. His ‘Three Sighs’, based on lyrical themes interspersed with sharp piano arpeggios often runs on two voices from the violin. Ms. Hahn calibrated her sound to a soft and breathy timbre, contrasting Mr. Smythe’s harsh dynamics. As the melody got more restless as it progressed, the diffused violin sounded more and more out of place, and we were left as if we were looking at a pastoral painting with hints of sinister placed here and there.
Mason Bates’ contribution to the Hilary Hahn project was the one I was looking forward to hearing the most. Being one of the most interesting, creative and genre-b(l)ending composers alive, I was curious to hear what influences he would bring in to the mix. ‘Ford’s Farm’ started with a gentle caress from Ms. Hahn playing the pizzicato opening alternating with a fiddle melody in two and three lines. With the introduction of the piano, the music morphed into something like contemporary baroque dance music accented with sharp beats that revealed the composer’s DJ Masonic persona. Bates’ short but fast virtuosic passages for each instrument, and call for rhythmic unison was easily handled by the soloists. Kala Ramnath’s ‘Aalap and Tarana’, another world premiere, is an ethnic piece that presents plenty of challenges for the violinist, both technical and artistic. Although the melody is of Indian descent in feel, Ramnath has used progressive scales in its construction. Mr. Smythe provided the base of the music in intervals of fifth and octaves in the bass register, while Ms. Hahn performed the byzantine melody in all its aspects, which included plenty of portamentos to accommodate the microtones.
Jeff Myers’ ‘The Angry Birds of Kauai’ (no relation to the popular computer game), the winner among the more than 400 works that were submitted for the project, is built upon a wide range of influences from Filipino kulintang music to overtone music. Mostly dodecaphonic in style, this high strung music gives equal weight to both instruments where the violin mimics the sound of exotic birds while the piano provides the sound of nature in the background. Franghiz Ali-Zadeh’s ‘Impulse’ another 12-tone work with heavy Schonberg influences came next. With piano stabs working against Ms. Hahn’s melody lines covering multiple octaves with lots of jetes and tremolos was a truly excitable piece. Michiru Oshima’s ‘Memories’ with its rush romanticism against an unnervingly dissonant backdrop provided some antidote to the nervous atmosphere. The work resembled the soundtracks of Yasujirō Ozu films not only in its unassuming qualities, but also in its ethereal ending disappearing into thin air. The final piece of the evening, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s ‘Hilary’s Hoedown’ true to its namesake, was a fast moving, swirling dance in which Ms. Hahn seemed to have the most fun playing where she jumped at the opportunity to do some fiddling.
From Musical Toronto:
Every bit of that intense focus and enthusiasm — coupled with Hahn’s remarkable technique — come through in the 27 pieces here (the last was chosen via a special contest at the end of Hahn’s process).
The collection comes from a who’s who of contemporary composers — including Torontonian Christos Hatzis, whose Coming To opens the second CD.
Encores are not meant to be deep or architecturally complex. Rather, they are meant to convey mood or an image while allowing the soloist to either show off one more time, or to show a more intimate side of their musical personality.
Each piece is different, yet they all reflect Hahn’s personality because she chose their creators. What I hear reflected is a desire to communicate rather than a desire to showcase technique. Our only response can be to sit back and want to listen to many of these pieces over and over again.
It helps that Hahn has found a golden partner in pianist Cory Smythe, who is never far away with a bit of extra sparkle from his grand piano.
My great hope, in this post-atonal world, is that great artists like Hahn and Smythe will help shatter long-held fears people have about finding enjoyment in new music.
That would be the start of a true revolution, not just a passing fancy.
I feel like I need to express preference for a favourite piece or two. I can’t, because every time I’ve listened to these discs, something new has caught my attention. Today? It’s Aalap and Tarana, a mesmerising dialogue between violin and piano by Kala Ramnath, an Indian classical violinist.
Eliptical, progressive music with superb collaboration among this stellar quintet of what sounds both familiar and new in today's music context. Always exploratory this fresh approach to jazz works because of the high musicianship of each of the players. A beautiful set of music.
Mark Dresser has risen to the very upper echelon of the double-bass world in the most impressive fashion: by choosing the road less traveled. His path of virtuosity has eschewed the conventional metrics of velocity over changes in favor of the development of a highly personal improvising language that includes timbre gradients, two-handed tapping, use of hammered bi-tones, and the amplification of subtle overtones of striking aural properties.
He returns to explore ensemble music under his own leadership with this new recording of his long-standing East Coast Quintet featuring Denman Maroney on "hyper-piano" ( a variant on the prepared piano—extended to the highest degree), Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto saxophone, Michael Dessen on trombone, with either Tom Rainey or Michael Sarin filling the drum chair.
Exploding with intensity, "Not Withstanding," lurches forward on the wings of Dresser's "metric-modulation" concept, which uses shifting meters while maintaining a pulse of 1- 2-3-4 to affect the illusion of a constantly speeding and slowing tempo. Mahanthappa attacks the form with palpable glee as Dresser power walks from here to eternity. Dessen rips, roars, and brays before yielding to the remarkable "slide-piano" of Maroney which challenges sonic expectations. Rainey is all over this with cycling waves of kinetic energy and supreme dynamic control. Finally, Dresser emerges—dueting with the sound of his own voice hissing for a solo that toggles between multi-glissandi and thunderous thwacking.
There are contemplative moments as well, such as the pensive 12 tone "Canales Rose," where Maroney's otherworldly piano melds with Dessen's wounded lion trombone, or the gorgeous ballad "Para Waltz," with its lush horn melody that gives birth to a yearning exposition by Dessen and a heartbreaking Dresser feature with the bow.
The slinky, odd-metered groove of the title track features layered melodic flourishes by Dessen and Mahanthappa and showcases another quality of this music—the blurring of what is written and improvised. The drums of Sarin balance explosive motion with shimmering colors before Dresser's bow signals a sudden shift in direction into a theme reminiscent of Monk's "Misterioso."
"Aperitivo," is a blues stood on its head with metric-modulation, where horn unisons and a piano counter-melody set the stage for Mahanthappa's shredding effervescence, Dessen's warbled, bluesy vibrato, and Maroney's multifaceted spin at the "standard- piano." Dresser follows with an undulating update on the "Detroit," solo, using time itself as source material.
A singularly accomplished bass innovator in the fields of jazz, free improvisation and new music, Mark Dresser has devoted himself in recent years to pushing the capacities of solo bass performance even further. In “Nourishments,” his first quintet recording in almost two decades, he shifts his attention back to another longtime creative commitment, ensemble exploration with a team of master improvisers possessing unmistakable sounds. Featuring Rudresh Mahanthappa, Michael Dessen, Denman Maroney, and, in turns, Tom Rainey or Michael Sarin--all leaders in their own right and players deeply versed in Dresser’s music--the quintet delves headlong into his richly suggestive compositions. More than anything, Dresser creates vehicles for beautifully modulated interaction via counterpoint, cyclical organization, timbre sculpting, and all the unexpected combinations of pitch and noise or meter and texture. He developed several pieces with trombonist Michael Dessen while they were in different cities through telematics, fiber optic-facilitated remote performances that have opened up new astounding new possibilities for international collaborations. By whatever means, “Nourishments” is the work of artists who connect musically, emotionally and intellectually with unusual power and grace. This is it!
Mark Dresser is a bass innovator, perhaps the best that you may not have heard much out of and this would be due to his talents stretching from free improvisational jazz to new music. While his most recent recordings celebrate his prolific ability as a soloist, the aptly titled Nourishments heralds his return to the quintet format for the first time in two decades.
If a carpenter is only as good as his tools analogy holds true in music then Mark Dresser has an eye for talent as well. From alto saxophone rising star Rudresh Mahanthappa to trombonist Michael Dressen, this quintet boasts five legitimate leaders yet their performance is based on counterpoint and the careful manipulation of tone while never losing an intriguing lyrical accessibility. One particular highlight that is the wonderfully crafted use of telematic which is essentially riding the wave of digital technology by utilizing fiber optic remote performances for performances being carried out miles apart. The title track "Nourishments" is a telematic performance between San Diego and New York with changing tonalities and fiery rhythmic counterpoint. "Para Waltz" is an amazing and incredibly daring offering that creates a hybrid of sorts revolving around traditional poly rhythms and the non traditional exploration of microtonal shadings.
While the layers of texture and melodic sense of forward motion is dramatic, Nourishments has a deceptively subtle quality of tunes that are deconstructed and reinvented as the performance continues. This melodic masterpiece is brilliantly conceived and a triumphant marriage of simplicity and complexity at the same time.