by Audiophile Audition | Mar 31, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
LISZT: Mazeppa; Les Préludes; Orpheus; Prometheus (transcribed Olivier Vernet and Laurent Cabasso) – Laurent Cabasso, piano / Olivier Vernet, organ – Ligia Digital Lidi 0104146-04 [Distr. by Albany], 57:33 ****:
Even if this recording were a total bust—which it decidedly is not—you would have to give points to Ligia Digital for off-the-wall originality. Or maybe not: in his notes to the recording, organist Olivier Vernet says that he got the idea for the program from a recording of Liszt transcriptions for the same forces made by two other French musicians. I guess the idea isn’t so novel after all.
As it goes, these third-generation transcriptions of Liszt’s own two-piano reductions of his tone poems are variously successful. Least so for me is Mazeppa, which is also the most thoroughly programmatic of the bunch. It seems that in his reduction Liszt gives the lion’s share of keyboard derring-do to the first piano. In the piano-organ transcription, this means that the organ is heard mostly in a supportive role while the piano is given a lot of heavy lifting to do. (This is true to a lesser extent of Prometheus as well). Laurent Cabasso’s playing is excitingly virtuosic throughout; at certain points he seems to get carried away, rushing the tempo much more than you typically hear in the orchestral original. This emphasis on the piano—sounding especially percussive against the plush background of organ tones—unbalances the work, plus the fact that you really end up missing the orchestra at points, such as in the grand climax at the end of Mazeppa’s wild ride, before his rescue by the Cossacks. The approach of the Cossack band, announced by the distant trumpets in the orchestral version, is more or less effectively handled by a flute stop on the organ, but I miss the cavalry-to-the-rescue associations of the original.
With the first grand bombastic opening gestures of Les Préludes, you know the organ is going to have more to do, and this is a more successfully balanced transcription. The big tutti passages in the original are given orchestral weight and amplitude here, thanks to the organ pedal notes, which the engineers capture with authentic oomph. (My venetian blinds rattled appreciatively at certain points in Les Préludes and the next two tone poems.)
Orpheus, although Liszt’s most subdued and lyrical tone poem, is effective as well. The organ is called on to lend a sweet songfulness to the proceedings that seems especially right given Liszt’s heady description of the songs of Orpheus: “their sound nobly voluptuous to the soul, their sweet undulation like breezes from the Elysian field.”
More bombastic posturing in Liszt’s portrayal of Prometheus, the titan who brought fire to mortals. This isn’t one of my favorites among the tone poems. Despite (or maybe because) the organ tends to emphasize the corny silent-movie theatrics of Liszt’s musical program, I find this an entertaining if over-the-top rendering of Liszt’s original and I’d just as soon hear it this way as in Liszt’s orchestral trappings.
The recording posed problems for both performers and engineers. Olivier Laurent explains, “we were separated by a distance of some fifteen metres: the organ was up in the loft (the instrument in the Cathedral of Angers, borne by splendid atlantes [columns in the shape of a man] and is rather impressive) and the piano on a podium erected beneath the organ, making it impossible for us to see each other! Everything was able to be carried out thanks to audio and video relays, the only efficient means for making possible the cohesion required by the diabolical precision of certain vivace passages, as well as the charm and poetry of various andantes.” Indeed. Points again for overcoming these difficulties so successfully.
This disc won’t be for everybody, but for those who are already in Liszt’s camp, and especially for those who know and like the two-piano transcriptions, this will be a fascinating appendix to the Liszt tone poem discography. For others, the sheer virtuosity of the performances and the thrilling sounds emanating from the grand space of Cathédral Saint-Maurice should be enough to ensure an entertaining experience. [It’s too bad it’s not a surround SACD…Ed.]
— Lee Passarella
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 31, 2011 | Pop/Rock/World CD Reviews
Led Bib – Bring Your Own – Cuneiform Records Rune 314, 51:42 ***:
(Mark Holub – drums; Liran Donin – bass; Toby McLaren – Fender Rhodes; Pete Grogan & Chris Williams – alto saxophone)
British prog/jazz/fusion quintet Led Bib is a noisy outfit. Think progressive rock welded to John Zorn-ish skronk jazz and hard rock influences – the band’s moniker is an allusion to Led Zeppelin – mixed with an animated Ornette Coleman-esque post-bop. There are scarcely any delicate moments to be found on Bring Your Own, Led Bib’s fifth excursion – and second for the Cuneiform label – but there is plenty of decibel-shattering modern jazz-rock.
Drummer Mark Holub’s opening barrage, “Moth Dilemma,” is anything but subtle. Toby McLaren sets layered electronics and fuzzy keyboards beneath Chris Williams and Pete Grogan’s honking alto saxes while Holub and bassist Liran Donin push the beefy rhythmic drive to a nearly heavy metal fanfare a few rumbles thicker than Larry Coryell’s Eleventh House every accomplished. From there, Led Bib scrambles together a compressed, blazing 51-minute attack complete with forceful beats, swelling electric keyboards and aggressive and sometimes dueling alto saxophones. “Is That a Woodblock?” – interested parties should seek out the surrealist video online – has an arrangement similar to “Moth Dilemma,” with Fender Rhodes sodden in distortion, relentless power chords and splashed percussion. While there are some intricate sax interludes, overall the tune seems oversaturated and in need of dousing.
McLaren occasionally brings noteworthy dynamics to his performances. He can be a harmonically and exploratory improviser but too often his work is relegated to brashness rather than sympathetic support. For example, his soloing on the overwhelming “Little x” echoes Jan Hammer’s stronger 1970s efforts. But on other pieces McLaren’s science-fiction effects add negligible originality. On the other hand, Grogan and Williams are frequently at the forefront and provide vibrant solos which exhibit agility and attitude to burn. The doubled saxes furnish McLaren’s ominous “Service Stop Saviour” a nocturnal intimidation matched by jagged meters and Holub’s tense cymbals. Listening to this is like riding a toboggan down a hill in the dark with unseen stumps in the path.
Two numbers give some respite to the record’s brusque rush. Holub’s slowly eddying and far too brief “Hollow Ponds” is highlighted by Donin’s loping bass and Holub’s heightened cymbals. Unfortunately the cut fades out before the central narrative can be fully developed. Far better is the appropriately titled closer, “Winter,” where Donin starts with creditable bowed bass and Holub employs discreet brushes. The sensitive intro, however, is eventually replaced by much more attention-grabbing sax solos, squalling electronics and raucous riffing which negate the initial gracefulness.
Led Bib could be as good as Soft Machine, The Bad Plus or other groups which meld jazz, rock and other styles, but habitually the arrangements crash headlong without restraints and melodic themes are lost underneath the instrumental foment, while harmonics are recurrently buried below the chugging rhythm section. Bring Your Own is a steady primer for anyone not familiar with Led Bib but long-term fans have probably heard comparable material on previous releases and may not discover anything unique.
TrackList:
1. Moth Dilemma
2. Is That a Woodblock?
3. Little x
4. Hollow Ponds
5. Power Walking
6. Service Stop Saviour
7. Engine Room
8. Shapes & Sizes
9. Walnuts
10. Winter
— Doug Simpson
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 31, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Umbrellas & Sunshine – The Music of Michel Legrand – Soundbrush SR1019, 52:31 [Distr. by Allegro] ****:
(Roger Davidson, piano; David Finck, doublebass)
France’s Michel Legrand has been creating extravagant music for many years now. His lush scores have won three Oscars and his songs have been done by many different vocal and instrumental artists. His mix of modern jazz, Hollywood scoring, Ravel and Debussy, and the Parisian musette style has contribute highly to our musical culture. One some albums, such as his superb l958 Legrand Jazz, he arranged a nearly 100% modern jazz experience.
This collection of 13 Legrand tunes are given a more jazz treatment than usual by French American pianist Roger Davidson. On most of the tracks he is accompanied by bassist David Finck, best known for his classical chamber music work. He also came up with the idea for the album. Sometimes Davidson just sticks to the lovely melodies that Legrand is able to spin out, such as on “Once Upon a Summertime.” Other times, such as on the jazz standard “What What Happens,” a more developed jazz treatment is given the tune. The tempi are generally upbeat. The sounds of the piano and doublebass are beautifully balanced. This is a fine album either for background listening or deeper discovery.
TrackList:
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, La Valse des Lilas, Les Enfants qui Pleurent, The Summer Knows, What What Happens, His Eyes Her Eyes, The Easy Way / What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?, The First Time, You Must Believe in Spring, Look, Je Vivrai sans toi, How do You Keep the Music Playing?, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (piano solo)
— John Henry
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 30, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Golovanov Vol. 3 = BALAKIREV: Tamar; MUSSORGSKY: Khovanschina Prelude; GLINKA: Valse-Fantasie; GLAZUNOV: Concerto Waltz No. 2, Op. 51; Serenade in A, Op. 7; TCHAIKOVSKY: Marche Slav, Op. 31 – Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Nicolai Golovanov – Historic-Recordings HRCD 00070, 57:05 [www.historic-recordings.co.uk] ****:
I must assume Neal Kurz to be the source for these fine transfers of inscriptions, 1944-1952, from the Soviet conductor Nicolai Golovanov (1891-1953) whose full-blooded style resounds in every bar. The opening Tamar (1952) literally combats the more famous EMI account from Sir Thomas Beecham, projecting a coarser, rougher edge – an earthiness that revels in its own depictions of sensuality and violence. The piece consumed composer Balakirev for fifteen years, 1867-1882, based on a Lermontov ballad of a warlike princess who lures then destroys travelers to her enchanted castle in the Caucasus. The English horn, woodwinds and harp surge and rustle, sway and explode, as required to illustrate Tamara’s wily and bloodthirsty vengeance.
Golovanov recorded the Mussorgsky Prelude to Khovanschina twice: this is the 1948 account. Despite some swishy 78s, the orchestral definition reigns supreme, the high strings vividly invoking Dawn on the Moscow scene. The oboe and rising strings create a shimmering sense of spectacle, the pizzicati and tremolos all but throwing the city gates open. Glinka’s 1839 athletic Valse-Fantasie (rec. 1949) certainly provides a model that Tchaikovsky would follow; I knew the piece prior only from an inscription from the RCA Bluebird label by Nicolai Malko. Stylized in the French manner, the piece enjoys a healthy variety of colors, especially in the horns. The two Glazunov works likewise incorporate French models in to their Russian melos: the 1948 reading of the Concert Waltz in F Major floats in the manner of an afternoon promenade; it might have served as a model for Richard Rodgers or accompanied a movie scene by Vincent Minnelli. The Serenade (rec. 1952) opens with an imitation of balalaikas, then a swaying melody over an ostinato that clearly takes its cue from Borodin. The music relishes its exotic oriental ardor, the colors easily reminiscent of the Polovtsian impulses in Prince Igor.
Tchaikovsky’s 1876 Marche Slav in B-flat Minor (rec. 1944) opens lugubriously, pesant e marcato, almost a dirge for the besieged Russia of WW II. The Serbian folk tunes come to the forefront, surviving the battlefield whirlwind the music describes. The intensity of the performance grants the inscription a special place among the great Tchaikovsky readings of the period, like Paul van Kempen’s Capriccio Italien. Dirge and triumphal paean at once, the procession achieves a grand nobility of expression in the tonic major, a valediction of the human spirit in crisis.
— Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 30, 2011 | Component Reviews
Grado GR8 Ear Buds
SRP: $299
Specs:
Moving armature drivers
1/8” (3.5mm) standard stereo mini plug
Ear coupler: IEM
Freq. Range: 20-20,000 Hz
Sensitivity: 118dB
Impedance: 120 ohms
Max. Output: 20 mW
Isolation: -20dB
Cable Length: 51” oxygen-free copper wire
Weight: 9 grams
Includes 3 pairs of tips (small, medium & large)
Also 4 ear-wax-proof filters & rings
One-year warranty
Grado Labs
Brooklyn, NY
www.gradolabs.com
jc@gradolabs.com
Everywhere one goes nowadays one sees people wearing those awful little white earbuds that come with the Apple iPods. You don’t have to be an audiophile to recognize that these earphones (worth about $4 actually) sound terrible and are ruining the hearing of many users because they turn them up loud to try to hear the music that isn’t there because most of it was thrown out by the rigorous data reduction of the MP3 audio files. Anything at all is going to be an improvement over those things.
However, larger over-the-ear or on-the-ear headphones aren’t the only way to do headphone listening. I don’t mind looking like a dork when I walk around the neighborhood wearing my Grado SR-80 headphones on my head. Of course some people do mind. A design related to ear buds are the earphones designed to fit snuggly down into the ear canal, such as those made by Etymotics and Shure. When fitted properly, the bass response of such ear canal phones cannot be bested, and they also keep out much exterior noise without resorting to noise-canceling headphones. However, after wearing the Etymotics on a plane flight, I had a clicking sound in one ear for nearly a week, so I’ve personally given up on that option.
I hadn’t regularly used earbuds before except with cell phones, so at first I found the GR8s even more difficult to get used to than the ear canal phones had been. I repeatedly tried all three of the special medical-grade silicon ear tips that Grado helpfully provides with the phones – going from small to large trying to find a comfortable fit. I think I’ve settled on the large, but I continue to be amazed that young people can dance and move around actively without these things falling out of their ears. I believe that just as a small percentage of people cannot hear binaural sound, and a small percentage cannot see images in 3D, a small percentage’s ears are simply not the best fit for ear bud-type phones.
The GR8s are Grado Labs’ first foray into ear buds, and supposedly were suggested by John Grado’s sons. I find it quite amazing that such full range sound can be had from such tiny transducers. They are also lighter to wear than some competing ear buds. The packaging is very attractive and reminded me of some expensive perfume. I tried to attach the provided ear-wax-proof discs with retaining rings but was unsuccessful in several tries. No instructions are provided, nor even a description of what the six very tiny things are for.
I first listened to talk programs on CD when walking with the GR8s. I noticed that if one of the ear buds pulled even slightly out of very snug contact with my ear canal, the voices took on an annoying sharp bleating sound – not just losing bass end. When listening to music this was of course even worse. Their literature says one of the three silicon tips should match the size of your ear canal; perhaps mine are of an unusual shape. I do know that many using the totally in-ear Etymotic or Shure phones have custom silicon or foam pieces fitted to their ears for best air seal and bass reproduction. I don’t know if that can be done with ear buds. Now that I am more used to the ear buds, I still find that a slight finger pressure on the outside of each one when in my ears improves both the bass end and clarity of the sound, and my comments will apply to them in that situation. I can achieve that sort of quality if I am careful and just sit still while listening. Also, I haven’t yet reached the approximately 100 hours of break-in time which Grado recommends on these high-end ear buds; hopefully as I do the delightful mellow and rich Grado sound I’m used to will prevail.
While not at the sonic level of the SR-80 headphones, I found the GR8s to have clear and full-bodied range in vocals and plenty of treble extension – though like all Grado phones not stressing the extreme high end. Turning up the level didn’t strain the ear buds a bit – certainly not found with cheap ear buds. The cable provided with the ear buds is of high quality and non-microphonic. It seems to avoid tangles if you keep the little adjustable slider on it in its proper position – probably due to the two wires to the phones not being of equal length. The earbuds are of course labeled left and right, but there is also a tactile indication in a raised dot on the bud for the left ear.
I found them forgiving of any sort of source you plugged the GR8s into, even trying an old Sony portable cassette player. I also tried them with my HeadRoom battery headphone amp and the sonic results were enhanced almost as much as with my Grado SR-80s. The price may keep some users away from these excellent ear buds. If so, you might want to consider the entry-level Grado iGi ear buds which are also available, and at only $90. They have also introduced a further refinement of their advanced technology in the GR8s – the GR10s – for $399. For some of us, however, ear buds may just not be an option.
— John Sunier
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 30, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Toph-E & The Pussycats – No Ordinary Day – M’Bubba Music, 72:10 ****:
(Cliff Carter – piano, keyboards; Will Lee – bass, vocals; Ralph MacDonald – percussion; David Mann – tenor, soprano saxophones, flute; Chris Parker – drums)
Toph-E and the Pussycats may have an eclectic name, but their music has become part of the mainstream. Formed in 2000, the members of this quintet have collaborated with a staggering array of musicians and singers. The credits in recording and performance span musical genres to include Frank Sinatra, Grover Washington, Steely Dan, Paul Simon, Sting, Queen Latifah, Bette Midler, James Brown, James Taylor, George Benson, Tom Scott, among many others. Covering iconic jazz legends like Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis, the group has established themselves as discerning jazz artists. Additionally, they have recorded original compositions, emphasizing the unique chemistry of the players. The omission of a guitarist has provided a platform for extended solos and different melodic interpretation. This format is similar to Horace Silver, Art Blakey and Monk.
No Ordinary Day is another manifestation of their cool mixture of jazz, funk, blues and soul. The opening track, “Pussyfoot” is an accessible tune penned by bassist Will Lee and reedist, David Mann. Following an atmospheric opening, the song coalesces with a tight groove and fluid tenor saxophone (Mann). The rhythm section is flawless, led by Lee, drummer Chris Parker and percussionist Ralph MacDonald. Clifford Carter adds an irresistible electric piano that segues into a crisp break. The following track (“It Seems To Me,” another Mann composition) is underscored with a restrained pace that showcases a shimmering piano solo by Carter. “BlackHouse” retains a straight ahead jazzy feel while recognizing change in the political landscape.
There is diversity in the musical styles throughout this album. “Tee” achieves a gospel elan with exultant driving piano chords and soulful tenor runs. A funky take on “Opus De Tophe” feels like a throwback to 70s fusion. The lone number with vocals (“Of Everything I Know/Daquilo Que Eu Sei”) pays homage to the influence of Brazilian culture with a breezy rendition of a Victor Martins/Ivan Lins piece. Lee’s vocals are assured and the soprano play by Mann is smooth and precise. Latin nuance colors Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage”. The overall cohesion of the band is achieved with nimble delicacy. The percussive breaks by Parker and Macdonald are expressive, while Carter, Mann and Lee deliver poignant solos. Even classical influences are evident on “Impromptoph”. Based on Franz Schubert’s “Impromptu Opus 142 in Ab”, the harmonic sensibility of The Pussycats is definitive.
No Ordinary Day is no ordinary recording.
TrackList: Pussyfoot; It Seems To Me; No Ordinary Day; Ostinato; Of Everything I Know (Daquilo Que Eu Sei); Tee; Blackhouse; Un Nuevo Mundo; Opus De Tophe; Tatchedogbe (Touch Wood); Impromptoph; Maiden Voyage
— Robbie Gerson
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 30, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
BACH: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin – Pavlo Beznosiuk, violin – Linn Multichannel SACD 366 (2 Discs), 148:16 [Distr. by Naxos] ***1/2:
There seems to be a run on Bach’s solo violin sonatas and partitas these days, with a new one appearing almost every month. Not that I mind, as one can never tire of these amazing pieces, the absolute pinnacle of violin perfection, never equaled in content or technique. And the approaches continue to amaze as well—recently it seems as if a retrograde philosophy has taken hold, with several artists espousing a manner of performance that is looking back to those mid-twentieth century mavens who first brought us these works. I guess what goes around comes around, and this disc in particular makes the case for such a statement.
Pavlo Beznosiuk is well known in period instrument circles, working intensively with the Academy of Ancient Music, and also spending much time in contemporary repertory as well. The AAM once had a reputation as one of the “scratchier” period bands around, and I hear a little of that in Beznosiuk’s tone—not offensive, and certainly not unmusical, but there is a bit of the razor’s edge surrounding it. Many people will actually like this sound. Interpretatively though he goes against what we have come to accept as “modern” in these readings—there are no blazing tempos, mechanistic phrasing, or cookie-cutter interpretative stances offered. Pavlo Beznosiuk goes his own way in this music, no questions asked.
But overall I have the feeling that these readings are just too planned, too cautious, and too regulated to allow the spiritual essence of much of the music to come through. He takes the “dance” tempos seriously—these are among the slowest readings I have heard and even in pieces like the Fugue from the G-minor sonata, the tempo is far too sluggish for my taste, rendering the piece imbued with torpor.
I compared this with Rachel Podger’s release on Channel Classics, not SA but espousing a similar amount of resonance around the instrument, and also done on a period instrument. Podger’s tempos are much more the “new mainline” than what Beznosiuk gives us, but I think more lively and spiritual as well. Beznosiuk demands his way or the highway, and for many that will be an acceptable agreement, but others will want something a little less lethargic and structured. Nevertheless, this is one of the cleanest recordings of this music you will find, and the Super Audio is well-spread and effective even though, as with the Podger, I think the ambiance too resonant. Your call…
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 30, 2011 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
The Original Tron / Tron: Legacy 3D, 5-Disc 2-Movie Collection (1982/2011)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Olivia Wilde
Directors: Steven Lisberger (Tron); Joe Kosinkski (Tron: Legacy)
Studio: Walt Disney Pictures 106534 [4/5/11]
Video: 2.35:1 & 1.78:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 1080p HD color
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, DD 2.0
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean
Contents = Disc 1: 3D Tron: Legacy; Disc 2: 2D Tron: Legacy; Disc 3: Blu-ray Special Edition of original Tron Classic; Disc 4 standard DVD of Tron: Legacy; Disc 5: Digital File Copy of Tron: Legacy on data DVD.
Extras: 3D Cover on album; “The Next Day: Flynn Lives Revealed” featurette; “Disney Second Screen: Tron Legacy;" "First look at TRON: Uprising" – animated series; “Derezzed” music video; “Launching the Legacy;” Disc Roars at Comic Con; "Visualizing Tron; "Garrett Hedlund;" "Installing the Cast;" “The Tron Phenomenon” – its effect on pop culture; plus five hours of bonus features from TRON: The Original Classic Special Edition
Length: Tron – 96 min.; Tron: Legacy – 125 min.
Rating: ****(*) for gaming fans
Frankly I didn’t expect to like either the original or the sequel of these since I’m not a computer gamer and already knew that the basic plot idea of both is at heart really silly. However, I found them both great fun and just as involving as the Star Wars series. They are both visually spectacular – especially the latest film. The art and design is the biggest star here, with jaw-dropping scenes and special effects of the sort that should have obsessive gaming enthusiasts leaping for joy. And especially with the added superb resolution of Blu-ray. Tron: Legacy was actually shot in 3D, so when I’m set up for 3D (and a few other good movies aside from kiddie animation are available in 3D) it should be even more visually involving in 3D – maybe as good as Avatar.
Bridges is Kevin Flynn in the original, who hacks into the computer system of his ex-employer ENCOM to prove that the baddie stole his programming work. While trying to get into the system, he is unknowingly scanned by some sort of super-scanner that digitizes any physical object and suddenly he is really in the system – as a digital version of himself, joining computer gladiators in deadly high-speed games. They fight ultimate battles against the Master Control Program and in the end Kevin is able to beat the MCP, his ruthless boss (David Warner), and return to the real world as a normal human, and take over the software company himself.
Tron: Legacy stars Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the 27-year-old computer genius son of Kevin, who looks into his father’s disappearance 20 years before. Soon he is somehow pulled into the same computerized future world of deadly programs and games with gladiators – finding eventually this is where his father (Jeff Bridges) has been living since he disappeared. (No explanation for why he looks so old, since he is supposedly a digital avatar of himself, which wouldn’t age at all.) Clu – one of the “programs” – characters which Kevin took with him to handle security in the near-perfect cyber Grid – turned against Kevin and is now the ruthless leader in this world. On top of that, with his army of digital soldiers he plans to invade the real world outside and take it over. Father and son, together with a female warrior program named Quorra, go on a life and death expedition across the futuristic world to try to best its ruling baddie and return to real life. There’s no explanation of how Quorra – an all-digital program to begin with – can return to “real life,” but no matter. In both films there’s a lot of deadly game action throwing powerful lit-up discuses around and racing around on “light-cycles.”
Tron: Legacy cost around $170 million and looks like it. The art design is amazing, putting the viewer in a giant city of light that is really spectacular – especially in the second film, although the first is not bad either. The costumes now are slicker and fit better – like going from the original Star Trek series to the later spin-offs or the feature films. The acting is not as good in the sequel but the visuals are so compelling that one hardly notices. The digital Grid seems to become more like real life in the sequel. The programs now eat food, some dress differently and go to nightclubs, etc.
Both of the films have unusual electronic-leaning musical scores. The original Tron has a fun score by Wendy Carlos, of Switched-On Bach fame, and would you believe the supervisor of the whole music and sounds portion of the feature was fellow high-end writer and vinyl guru Michael Fremer? The sequel has an orchestra/electronic score by Daft Punk that is probably better than the Carlos keyboard score. What’s most unusual about it is that instead of fitting the music score to the already-set-in-stone visuals, cutting and moving around as needed, much of the film was actually cut to the music score – the way most animation is done. Although it may not be the greatest film music in the world, its very close synchronization to the gladitorial battles and other action on the screen makes it often phenomenally effective. Daft Punk is a duo and both of them appear as robot DJs in the club scene in the film, where actor Michael Sheen does an imitation of glam-era David Bowie. I didn’t even begin to sample the over five hours of bonus features, but if you’re an inveterate gamer or fan of this series, have at them.
— John Sunier
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
“Rare Chamber Music Vol. II” = HEINRICH ANTON HOFFMANN: Grands Duos Concertants in A Major, Op. 5 No. 2; G Major, Op. 5 No. 3; E-flat Major, Op. 5 No. 6; F Major, Op. 6 No. 1 – Jansa Duo – Ars Produktion multichannel SACD ARS 38 071, 54:24 [Distr. by Qualiton] ***1/2:
Rare indeed. As a busy violinist and later music director serving with the theater orchestra of Frankfurt, Heinrich Anton Hoffmann found little time to compose and wrote precious little other than chamber music, mostly for strings. While he wrote two collections of string quartets, he seems to have lavished much of his time on producing duos, a total of fifteen in all. As far as I can tell, the current recording featuring four of those duos is the only recording of Hoffman’s music of any type available.
Born a few months before Beethoven, Hoffman outlived that master by a good fifteen years, long enough for his late music to shade into early Romanticism. However, the duets on offer here all come from the early nineteenth century, the Op. 5 Grands Duos Concertants appearing in 1803, the year of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. They’re not that earthshaking, of course, but they’re not reactionary either. While they don’t have the patented Beethoven drive and intensity, Hoffmann compensates for that with a fine strain of lyricism and a string player’s intimate knowledge of the instruments he’s writing for. This is music that makes virtuoso demands on the instrumentalists. As the “Concertant” designation implies, the two instruments almost compete with one another for the thematic material, in the manner of soloist and orchestra. As the Frenchified title also implies, this kind of piece was more popular in France than in the German-speaking countries, and Hoffman’s works show the influence of the French violin school, which would include composer-practitioners such as Pierre Rode and Rodolphe Kreutzer. Since these composers are getting a second listen now thanks to recordings, perhaps it’s Hoffman’s time to be heard as well.
Even if this is far from indispensable music, there’s certainly appeal in the fact that the lyrical and virtuosic strains in Hoffman’s writing are wedded to a full mastery of sonata form. Jansa Duo (Christine Rox, violin, and Klaus-Dieter Brandt, cello) have chosen duos that show off that mastery as well as a bit of variety in structure. The first two works are in the standard three movements; the last two are structured rather like Beethoven’s first two cello sonatas, with a long opening sonata-allegro followed by a contrasting movement: a rondo in the case of Op. 5 No. 6, a lengthy theme-and-variations movement for Op. 6 No. 1. This latter makes the strongest case of all for a mini-Hoffmann revival, if there are string duos out there who want to take the challenge.
It’s good that Jansa Duo took the challenge. The Duo was founded in 2006 to specialize in music from the Baroque to the early Romantic eras, with a special emphasis on worthy out-of-the-way music such as that of its namesake, nineteenth-century composer and violinist Leopold Jansa. The members of the Duo have sterling credentials—Christine Rox studied with a chamber music master, William Preucil, and Klaus-Dieter Brandt co-founded the important original-instruments group Musica Antiqua Köln—and significantly, they play this music not as if it were a museum piece but as if it has absolute currency. Their technical skill, which Hoffman often puts to the test, is never in question.
If I have any objection, it’s to Ars Produktion’s overly resonant recording, made at Kirche Honrath. This is a much-used venue (the Auryn Quartet records there) though it must be a hard place for engineers to tame. I think the Hoffmann pieces would have benefited by a cleaner recording in which the instrumental strands have more definition. But I guess you can’t have everything, and this recording does have a lot going for it otherwise, so it gets my recommendation.
–Lee Passarella
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36; The Nutcracker Ballet, Op. 71: Scenes from Act I – Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra/William Steinberg/Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Artur Rodzinski (Nutcracker) – HDTT HDCD 221, 58:40 [avail. in various formats incl. hi-res at www.highdeftapetransfers.com] ****:
William Steinberg (1898-1978) does not often rate high among the cognoscenti of orchestral conductors, except to those connoisseurs who know consistently high standards when they hear them. A conductor trained under Hermann Abendroth and well-versed in piano and violin repertory, Steinberg not only helped evolve the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, but he raised the standards for the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in the United States, eventually assuming the post in Boston, but unfortunately at a late date when Steinberg’s health had already been compromised.
The 1878 Tchaikovsky F Minor Symphony (from a 1961 Command Classic LP) imbibes both breadth and lyricism under Steinberg, on a par with those fleetly moving performances from Cantelli and Beecham. The “fate ” motif in A-flat unison octaves in horns and bassoons receives ample space as it makes its various permutations of form and dynamics. The waltz figure in 9/8 offers adequate consolation, but Steinberg keeps the dire tread in taut relief, finally letting it reach a fiery apotheosis in the Koussevitzky tradition. The vocal qualities of the B-flat Minor Andantino are well documented, and Steinberg’s oboe solo, followed by impassioned strings, achieves a girth resonant with Russian doxology emanating from the Russian soil. The militant middle section enjoys that quasi-fierce “wind-sound” from the cellos and middle strings that utters as much resignation as national pride. The da capo adds a distinct flute’s voice to the procession, but it brings little mirth, only a benevolent melancholy.
String virtuosity at its highest appears in the extended pizzicato motif for the third movement, complemented by an equally demonic part for the piccolo. The A Major Trio seems both balletic and martial, the winds, strings, and brass coordinated in distinctly blazing fashion. A direct attack into the Finale, whose main theme derives from a folk song again rooted in the soil: “In the Field stood a Birch Tree.” Here, the battery–especially cymbals and triangle–add to the festive colors, the crescendi taking their cue from a combination of Rossini and Beethoven. Two groups of five variations appear, connected by a kind of invocation and response. The folkish whirlwind mounts ineluctably, only to advance the Fate motif from the first movement in full fury, with its resultant melancholy. At last, the tympani and horns reawaken us for the gripping coda, whose upward scales and horn and wind stretti propel us to an abyss which is at once a maelstrom and a consummation, a peroration in which Steinberg has total control.
Artur Rodzinski (1892-1958) inscribed the Nutcracker for Westminster Records in 1956, leading Beecham’s Royal Philharmonic who, for contractual reasons, took on a pseudonym. Although Beecham himself gave us excerpts for CBS (ML 5171), Rodzinski here tours the First Act, from the ingenuous Overture through the arrival of Herr Drosselmeyer and the Distribution of the Christmas Gifts. The wonderful woodwind pedal points and harp runs for the Christmas Tree quite secure the ritual in the Good Earth, while the strings and bouncing woodwinds ensure the suspenseful magic of the occasion. The Children’s March moves as though the youngsters themselves were part crusaders. The rushing figures adumbrate the later Battle with the Mouse King. The spirit of Robert Schuman seems no less nigh, as the various dances incorporate and embellish a few select motifs of that master that culminate in a blazing trepak. The RPO bassoon work proves exemplary, the characterization obviously inspiring Prokofiev when it came to scoring Peter and the Wolf.
NB: The HDTT banding mistakenly accounts for only 5 tracks, but the Symphony and Nutcracker excerpts indeed register 9 tracks: 5-3:24; 6-4:04; 7-2:08; 8-2:29; 9-5:31
— Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
Bob Dylan Revealed (2011)
Director: Joel Gilbert
Interviews: Jerry Wexler, Scarlett Rivera, Rob Stoner, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Joel Selvin, Mickey Jones Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Winston Watson and many others
Chapters: 1962 – Times Are A – Changin’, 1966 – Electric World Tour, 1967 – Drug Rehab, 1974 – The Comeback, 1975 – Rolling Thunder Revue, 1978 – The Entertainer, 1979 – Busy Being Born…Again!, 1992 – Never Ending Tour
Studio: Highway 61 Entertainment/ MVD Visual MVD51360 [5/1/11]
Video: 16×9 Color
Audio: English PCM Stereo
Region: Region 1
Length: 110 minutes
Rating: ***1/2
For the last fifty years, the mystique of Bob Dylan has permeated the fabric of American culture. His reclusive aura enhanced his legendary cult status. Raised in Hibbing, Minnesota (on the Mesabi Iron Range), he was transformed by the emerging rock and roll phenomenon, and the spirituality and consciousness of the folk movement. After changing his name (from Zimmerman), he moved to New York to become the next Woody Guthrie. After a meteoric rise as a Greenwich Village folk singer (early sixties), he was signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond. Despite modest commercial success, the label stuck with him (after considerable advocacy by Hammond). Once Dylan began writing original material, his career would shift to another gear. Fellow musicians (including the most celebrated group of this era, The Beatles) and the country’s brooding youth movement adopted the cryptic, Ray-ban clad troubadour as the reluctant spokesman for political and social issues of this incendiary decade.
The subsequent odyssey of Bob Dylan has been chronicled over and over. The “electric mutiny’ at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, a near-death motorcycle accident, and the controversial “born again” metamorphosis accentuate a unique musical journey. More importantly, his prolific, brilliant discography dominated the popular landscape.
Bob Dylan Revealed is a fascinating observation of the evolution of an artistic chameleon. Director Joel Gilbert has arranged the various interviews with eyewitnesses in a linear chronology. Starting with the early sixties account of “Hammond’s Folly”, the independence and intellectual ambiguity of Dylan is captured. He rejects the prospect of becoming the next teen idol, but is uncomfortable with the mantle of “protest singer”. Thus a pattern of dichotomy is established. Drummer Mickey Jones chronicles the cataclysmic electric tour that alienated the acoustic fans. He recounts an amusing anecdote detailing how the band (which included most of the self-named group) didn’t realize they were being booed until they heard a tape of the performance. Dylan is portrayed as a communal leader and innovator. His disdain for reporters is evident as he manipulates the pretentious questions. The 1967 motorcycle accident takes on the conspiratorial narrative of a drug rehab coverup. The famous 1974 Comeback Tour chapter includes a surprising photograph of Dylan with Governor Jimmy Carter.
Scarlett Rivera (violinist on the Desire album) offers a plethora of musical insight into the Rolling Thunder segment. Her account of the random meeting with Dylan on the streets of New York is humorous and affectionate. Two additional interviewees (Rubin Carter and Rob Stoner) elucidate the charismatic nature of this complex personality. Carter remembers his admiration for the organized effort that exonerated him. Stoner delivers incisive analysis of Dylan’s recording discipline (no overdubs…ever). Renowned producer Jerry Wexler brings perspective to the sessions for the divisive Slow Train Coming. The exploration of Jesus by the Jewish songwriter is expressed as a secular philosophical quest. Wexler’s commentary is both hilarious and revelatory. Winston Watson (longtime drummer) analyzes the present day enigmatic performer as he continues the improbable two decade, “Never Ending Tour”.
It is unrealistic to expect a definitive synopsis of a mercurial career like this one. Bob Dylan Revealed does integrate first hand scrutiny into a sequential context. The archival photographs are impressive and support the imagery associated with Dylan. The interviews are relaxed and candid. However, the lack of performance footage and recorded music reduces the visceral impact here of possibly the most influential musician of the twentieth century.
— Robbie Gerson
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Nordic Connect – Spirals – ArtistShare AS0097, 59:53 ****:
(Ingrid Jensen – trumpet, Flugelhorn, electronics; Christine Jensen – alto and soprano saxophone; Maggi Olin – piano, Fender Rhodes; Mattias Welin – acoustic bass; Jon Wikan – drums, cajón, percussion)
Nordic Connect is a global quintet which shares two commonalties: the musicians all have Viking ancestry and they create music which has an organic core related to nature which also has links to modern, electric jazz and acoustic post-bop.
Spirals is Nordic Connect’s sophomore release and displays compositional and improvisational advancement which is leaps and bounds more advanced than the band’s previous output. Leader Ingrid Jensen – who plays trumpet, Flugelhorn and adds electronics – only wrote one of the nine originals but her presence is front and center throughout the hour-long program. She is joined by fellow Canadian and sister Christine Jensen on alto and tenor saxophone (who contributes two tunes); Ingrid’s Seattle-raised husband Jon Wikan (a noted Pacific Northwest drummer who also penned one of the compositions presented here); Ingrid’s former school friend, the Swedish pianist Maggi Olin (a prolific composer who brings five pieces to the album); and Swedish bassist Mattias Welin.
Ingrid’s spiritually-inclined liner notes talk of the confluence of nature and the soul, of the interior world and its correlations to the external universe. That context is expressed on Olin’s lively album opener, “Travel Fever,” highlighted by Olin’s coolly penetrating Fender Rhodes, Christine’s ample soprano, Ingrid’s strikingly focused trumpet and Wikan’s eddying breakbeat which is reminiscent of what is typically heard in the drum ‘n’ bass genre. Along the same thematic line is Ingrid’s contemplative “Earth Sighs,” which has a jazz/rock shading akin to 1970s Miles Davis but without the funk undercurrent. Especially noteworthy are the dynamics between trumpet and sax alongside the haunting electronics and expressive keyboards. “Earth Sighs” calmly transitions to another discerning fusion track, Christine’s “Castle Mountain,” which is slightly more forceful, particularly because of Wikan’s brisk Tony Williams-esque drumming and Welin’s ignited bass lines. A counterpoint to the same environmental subject matter comes during Olin’s quietly affecting “Ballad North,” which is nearer in disposition to Scandinavian Terje Rypdal’s lyrical aesthetic. The cut features Olin’s understated acoustic piano which rides comfortably beneath soaring trumpet/sax interaction.
The most beautiful piece is Christine’s placid ballad, “Yew,” where her warm likeable tone is suggestive of Jane Ira Bloom’s indicative use of space. Christine shows a light and appealing sonority, while never abandoning an absorbing mix of flourished notes which flow from her imagination. Near the end, Ingrid also demonstrates her equal facility with the use of extended tonality.
Fusion also influences Olin’s closer, the wittily-titled “Brejk ä Leg,” which evokes Weather Report with its outward bound electronics which are conspicuous, but do not get in the band’s way as they maintain a tightly controlled structure. The Weather Report parallel is also brought to the forefront with the musical exchanges between Olin on Fender Rhodes and the horn section, which alludes to Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter’s vaunted communication.
Nordic Connect is going to be a group to pay attention to. This quintet is only two releases into their career and already they are crafting music which compares favorably to their antecedents.
TrackList:
1. Travel Fever
2. Song for Inga
3. Earth Sighs
4. Castle Mountain
5. M-oving
6. Yew
7. 66 Mike
8. Ballad North
9. Brejk ä Leg
— Doug Simpson
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Ezra Weiss – The Shirley Horn Suite – Roark Records, 58:39 **** ½:
(Ezra Weiss – composer, piano; Shirley Nanette – vocals; Corcoran Holt – bass; Steve Williams – drums)
Ezra Weiss was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. Ezra was active in community theater as an actor and musical director. He graduated from high school and moved to Ohio to attend Oberlin Conservatory of Music. He studied composition with Wendell Logan and piano with Neal Creque. Ezra formed the jazz sextet Blues Connotation in 2001. He received a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition and moved to Portland, Oregon. In Portland he continued to lead Blues Connotation that later changed names to the Ezra Weiss Sextet. Ezra taught at Beaverton Arts and Communication Magnet Academy, Self Enhancement Inc., Western Oregon Jazz Camp and Northwest Children’s Theater. 2002 he recorded and later released his debut CD “The Five A.M. Strut” featuring Michael Philip Mossman, Antonio Hart, Kelly Roberge, Leon Lee Dorsey and Billy Hart. He has since released four more CDs including this one, The Shirley Horn Suite. Ezra has composed and/or arranged music for Billy Hart, Thara Memory, Rob Scheps Big Band, Leon Lee Dorsey, Stan Bock and Renato Caranto among others. He has taught at the Northwest Children’s Theater and Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.
Shirley Nanette is a Northwest diva well known to the Portland, Oregon jazz scene. She has sung at many music festivals in the Northwest and appeared at several symphony concerts in different cities in the United States as guest soloist. She has sung several times with the Oregon Symphony and it was my delight to see her perform with said symphony on a special production of “Jimmie and Friends” – a jazz and blues concert.
The Shirley Horn Suite is a tribute to the great pianist/vocalist Shirley Horn by Ezra. He started writing it after Shirley’s passing in 2005. Ezra has indicated she is one of his heroes and a major influence on how he thinks about music. When I heard the first song, “I Wish I’d Met You” composed by Ezra I was thrilled with the slow opening of the piano to be joined in a few bars by Shirley Nanette and thought “this is a real winner”. They are joined by a slow bass line from Corcoran Holt and the brushes of Steve Williams’ snare. “The Great City” is next with the piano trio and threw me for the first few bars. It sounded very much like the opening to another song “Killer Joe” but moves out into the regular piece written by Curtis Lewis. It is an easy-going moving style jazz piece I found delightful with each member talking instrumentally with each other. “Shirley Horn’s sound of Love” is a slower delight with a Latin rhythm on bass and drums punctuating the vocals of Shirley Nanette on this Ezra Weiss composition. “Blues for Shirley” is another Ezra special composition with a bluesy sound in a quiet way that gives a feeling of swaying to the walking of the bass and piano together. “I Love You Porgy” by George Gershwin has a very quiet nice slow moving sound by Ezra. It definitely makes it sound like the love song in spite of no vocals.
Shirley Nanette sings “Now That You Mention It”, an Ezra tune very handily composed. It is another of those steady moderate walk-along-the-avenue type songs reminiscent of the sound of Shirley Horn. “Estate” brought tears to my eyes as I remembered hearing Shirley Horn play this, and in my mind I could hear her voice singing in a soft way “Estate” (eh-stah-tey) in spite of it only being the trio with no vocal. “Something Happens To Me” is a Jack Segal/Marvin Fisher composition. Ezra picks up the tempo on this nice little tune that breaks loose into that wonderful walking piano/bass tempo accented by drummer Steve Williams on cymbal and snare with sticks. “May the Most You Wish For” another Ezra Weiss composition is the closer of the album. It starts very quietly with solo piano then joined by Shirley Nanette. It is a quiet sort of a benediction to what you have heard and kind of a pastel painting of life of the past and a wish for the future.
This album is a splendid uniting of four great musicians. Shirley Nanette does not sing just like Shirley Horn. She has her style but at times I hear the soft singing of Horn which is I am sure what was sought for by Nanette.
TrackList: I Wish I’d Met You; The Great City; Shirley Horn’s Sound of Love; Blues for Shirley; I Love You Porgy; Now That You Mention It; Estate; Something Happens to Me; May the Most You Wish For.
– – Tim Taylor
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
SCHULHOFF: Violin Sonatas – Suite for violin and piano; Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano; Sonata for solo violin; Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano – Tanja Becker-Bender, violin/ Markus Becker, piano – Hyperion CDA67833, 67:10 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] *****:
Erwin Schulhoff’s (1894-1942) roots as a Czech of Jewish-German origin is reminiscent of Mahler, who once famously said “I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout all the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.” Schulhoff’s ability to integrate the different musical and political cultures that seethed in the decades between the two Great Wars, is one reason that his music has been recovered and performed after his premature death in 1942. At age eight, as a child prodigy, Schulhoff was admitted to the Prague Conservatory to study piano at the recommendation of Dvorak, who had little interest in prodigies. He was rewarded with a piece of chocolate. The works on this disc cover the early and middle periods of Schulhoff’s composing life.
The Suite for violin and piano (1911) is a student work that expresses the composer’s love for the dance – three of the movements are dance forms (Gavotte, Minuet and Waltz). It’s a deliciously tart late Romantic work that ends with an especially beautiful and clever Scherzo. The Sonata No. 1, written two years later, is more harmonically sophisticated and shows the influence of Debussy, with whom he briefly studied. It’s dreamy, wanders at times, and is less rhythmically precise. Yet, it’s emotionally effective because of its long lyrical lines. In both of these works, the Becker-Bender duo’s collaboration is richly romantic and the full clear sound is most appealing.
In his middle period (after World War I), Schulhoff was a brilliant pianist who championed the avant garde, performing Berg, Scriabin, Schoenberg, and Webern, among others. The Sonata for solo violin (1927) reflects these contemporary artists. It makes use of the solo violin’s musical possibilities from rhythmic fireworks to chromatic lyricism. Later, his music veered towards jazz, Dadaism, French neoclassicism and Slavonic folk music. At one time, he had one of the largest jazz record collections in Europe. The Violin Sonata No. 2 begins in a rhythmically exuberant manner that suggests a jazz influence, but it’s more akin to Bartok with its acerbic chromaticism and motivic spikiness. The intense and slow-burning Andante sticks in the memory. The composer’s final years saw him compose music in the style of Social Realism, motivated by his passion for communism. Unfortunately, it led to his imprisonment and death in a Nazi concentration camp at the age of 48.
Violinist Tanja Becker-Bender and pianist Markus Becker demonstrate an astonishing ability to perform the diverse musical and stylistic demands of these engrossing works. Erwin Schulhoff is a composer who is deservedly becoming better known and this superbly performed and recorded CD is an excellent place to make his acquaintance.
— Robert Moon
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
BARTOK: Violin Concerto No. 2; Deux Portraits, Op. 5; Cantata Profana; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta; Tanzsuite; Divertimento; Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 1; Piano Concerto No. 2; Piano Concerto No. 3 – Tibor Varga, violin/Rudolf Schulz, violin/Geza Anda, piano (Concerto No. 2)/ Louis Kentner, piano (Concerto No. 3) /Andor Foldes, piano (Rhapsody)/ Helmut Krebs, tenor/Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone/ RIAS-Kammmerchor /St. Hedwig’s Cathedral chorale/RIAS-Symphony Orchestra/Ferenc Fricsay
Audite 21.407, (3 CDs) 69:44; 74:11; 69:47 [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
The powerful affinity between Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963) and countryman Bela Bartok shines through this assemblage of live and studio RIAS inscriptions, 1950-1953, in which the lingua franca of music speaks most eloquently through a host of sympathetic collaborators. Many of the artists who congregate to conductor Fricsay are themselves alumnae of the Budapest Academy and imbibed the Bartok style directly from the composer or compatriots Kodaly, Weiner, and Dohnanyi.
The set opens with Bartok’s potent Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938), originally performed by Zoltan Szekely and Willem Mengelberg but here intoned by Tibor Varga (1921-2003), Fricsay’s preferred violinist. The Concerto performance (13 September 1951) emanates magisterial lyricism, passionate and melancholy. The refined expressiveness of Debussy merges with Bartok’s “apocalyptic” style as he spiritually bids Europe adieu. The riffs from the harp and tympani, along with the plaintive B Minor affect, create a dirge-like litany for a fallen world. As in the Beethoven Concerto, the Andante is set as a theme and variations in G Major, an urge to a simpler life, with rhapsodic arias from Varga and Fricsay‘s harp principal. Following Liszt in his Faust-Symphony, Bartok utilizes the first movement themes in lyrically demonic parody for the finale. In the 1911 Deux Portraits (11 September 1951, studio) we come close to an inscription of the First Violin Concerto, withdrawn by the composer in 1907. The notes of a D Major seventh chord represent Bartok’s infatuation with violinist Stefi Geyer. The exquisite anguish of the first “Ideal” portrait finds grotesque “relief” in the Presto–a savagely ironic Valse–each performed with noble devotion by Rudolf Schulz and Fricsay.
The 1930 Cantata Profana or “The Nine Enchanted Stags” finds Fricsay in a less “authentic” mode for his 12 September 1951 studio inscription, using a German translation rather than the Hungarian original. Based on a Romanian legend, the piece falls into three movements, the outer sections called “Once there was an old man.” Besides the jarring punctuations from the chorus, the rhythmic propulsion and eerie scoring capture our interest, often reminiscent of the Piano Concerto No. 2. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b. 1925) and tenor Helmut Krebs (1913-2007) provide the voices of the son–the latter transformed into a stag–and his father. The stag laments to the pleas of his father that his antlers no longer fit into human habitations, and his mouth is fit only to drink from mountain streams. The epilogue proclaims the “triumph” of the natural world over the domestic world, the scoring fraught with a kind of uneasy nostalgia. Lovely but colorfully unnerving, the piece held a special place in conductor’s Fricsay’s heart.
The 1936 Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta rivals Stravinsky for its ingenuity of scoring and the contrapuntal intricacy of its forms. Fricsay’s grand studio recording (14 October 1952) aims for a virtually perfect symmetry of execution, with the greatest divergence of time the Allegro molto’s being 35 seconds shorter than the other movements. The slow, fugal opening movement maintains an obsessive focus (on A) even as its thickening textures build, swell and relent. Typically, Fricsay elicits a pained expressivity from his RIAS ensemble, a paradoxically slashing, soft yearning. In the manner of the first two piano concertos, the Allegro moves percussively and fleetly, alternating 2/4 and 3/8, with virtuoso elements for strings–especially pizzicato–in the extremes of treble and bass, the piano’s making an impressive percussion instrument along with the celesta‘s special color. The Adagio extends the notion of Bartok’s “night music,” a meditation close in spirit to the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. The rhythm forms a palindrome, a “fearful symmetry” of eerie, sliding, haunted effects, in which the xylophone adds to the danse macabre. Strummed sonorities and frenetic movement combine for a stylized folk dance finale with piano obbligato, the RIAS tympani truly in his element.
The 1923 Dance Suite originally provided less a rural celebration than a commemoration of the anniversary of the establishment of the city of Budapest. The Fricsay studio performance (10 June 1953) has the bassoon clearly laying down the ur-figure of half steps, seconds, and thirds that permeates the entire sequence of six movements. A ritornello tune in varied keys aligns the succession of movements. The Allegro molto plays on a stomping dance, adumbrating moments from The Miraculous Mandarin. The third movement, a Bulgarian rondo, centers on the key of B, with a middle section set as a music-box for piano four hands. Drone figures, harp riffs, and brilliant high woodwind work make the movement exotically alluring. Bartok called the fourth movement Molto tranquillo his “Arab” movement, and its intent is to suspend time and substitute wafting colors instead. Perfect fourths and viola sonority dominates the little Comodo movement, which serves as a moody transition to the Finale–Allegro. For a Fricsay tribute, the Dance Suite exemplifies his capacity to make stylized colors in bagpipe effects and Magyar rhythms – a splendid amalgam brilliantly performed.
The 1939 Divertimento–composed in an astonishing fifteen days–represents Bartok’s last association with conductor Paul Sacher and his Basel Chamber Orchestra, responsible for some of the great commissions in classical music. Ferenc Fricsay recorded the three movement neo-classical work 11 February 1952 in live performance. Bartok imitates a Baroque concerto grosso’s large-and-small ensemble design in the first movement, a form which Fricsay never recorded from a master from that period. Bartok’s use of mode and non-traditional scales propels this form along the evolutionary road, here rife with syntactical nuances and metric challenges. A farewell to European tonality, the Molto adagio pushes both harmony and technique to the limit, bordering on atonality in double stops and harmonics. Fricsay slows the tempo so that the harmonic crevices seem to open to chromatic worlds rife with feverish danger. Gypsy blood pulsates in the Allegro assai finale, a modal rondo into which Bartok injects polyphonic elements and violin cadenza for Rudolf Schulz to enjoy. The chamber music ensemble contrasts with the ripieno group to emphasize the play of light and dark. The writing and the playing become quite virtuosic, a playful yet dirge-like farewell to a Europe bordering on cultural dissolution and savagery.
The last disc traces Bartok’s development as a composer for piano and orchestra, beginning with his Op. 1 Rhapsody (1904) which Fricsay later recorded commercially for DGG with Geza Anda; but here (12 December 1951) he collaborates with another brilliant Hungarian virtuoso, Andor Foldes (1913-1992), who has another inscription with Roger Desormiere (for Vox; transferred on the Jecklin label). The performance with Fricsay proceeds in a linear classical manner, less fraught with the big periods and pregnant pauses we find in Anda’s version of the lassu section. The friss section moves with polished verve and potent brio, a testament to virtuosity in the Liszt tradition.
The Second Concerto (1931) receives yet another fervent account 7 September 1953) by Geza Anda (1921-1976), its most committed veteran, having performed it with Fricsay alone some sixty times. The concerto’s romantic, symmetrical style meets a sympathetic and colossally equipped devotee in Anda, who finds the interplay of winds, brass and percussion in contrapuntal forms exhilarating. The clarion, brittle textures more than point to Stravinsky of Petrouchka cross-fertilized by Bartok’s own Allegro barbaro. Somehow, for the sound and fury of the piece, the key of G manages to trump everything. Fricsay molds his strings for the ‘night music” of the Adagio, a luminous but ghostly galleon in the form of a chorale in layered fifths. The brisk Presto section tests Anda’s fingers in the manner of a percussive etude, a hint of the Prokofiev style. A convulsively percussive style marks the last movement, a variant of the first, a technique anticipating the 1938 Violin Concerto. Piano and RIAS brass light up the hemisphere, a jubilant pungent sound, Bartok riding the crest of a wave.
The Third Concerto has at the keyboard Louis (Lajos) Kentner (1905-1987), who gave the European premier of this work. The live collaboration with Fricsay dates from 16 January 1950. Kentner seems intent to divest the concerto of any “feminine” qualities, due to the piece’s association with Ditta Pasztroy, for whom Bartok composed it. The “polymodal chromatics” of the first movement appeal to Kentner’s ravishing palette, and the sheer speed plays to his naturally muscular technique. More night music–Adagio religioso in C Major–comprises the second movement, a delicate colloquy between piano and orchestra that nods to late Beethoven as a model. Its middle section twitters and purls with insects, birds, and nocturnal animation. Turbulent motor energy characterizes the Kentner Allegro vivace, which he called a danse macabre in the Liszt manner. The counterpoint has the facility and clear texture of Stravinsky, the bite of Magyar folk music, with more than a touch of Mozart irony. The explosive last pages confirm the authenticity of spirit of all principals, a sweeping conclusion to a masterful realization of a composer’s best intentions.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 29, 2011 | Audio News
Shortage of Japanese Products Expected – Analysts in Tokyo are forecasting that markets around the world could face critical shortages of products from Japanese companies late in the second or third quarter of this year, with a major supply cutback running into the key fourth quarter. Japan now accounts for 14% of the global production of computers, consumer electronics and communications gear. It is predicted that Chinese and Korean companies will start ramping up production in an effort to strip market share away from hard hit Japanese companies. Japan – which makes around a fifth of the world’s semiconductor chips – has seen many factories closed following the earthquake. The disruption of the supply chain in affected areas shows the potential for similar disruption at other companies elsewhere. Experts say reconstruction of infrastructure – from roads to rail, power and ports in affected regions – will take at least five years. Seven Sony plants and two research and development centers have stopped operations after the quake, and Sony shares have dropped 17%. One plant which makes Blu-ray disks and magnetic tape was severely damaged by the tsunami. Canon has suspended production at one of its main plants and Nikon says it may soon run out of parts. Toshiba is a leading maker of flash memory, and after it announced it would close five manufacturing and business sites, prices for flash memory jumped as much as 20%. The impact of the disaster may soon be felt in higher prices and shortages of Apple’s various popular mobile devices. The closure of Japanese car and parts plants will also affect sales thruout the world.
Musicians Raise Funds and Awareness for Japan Disaster – Musicians around the world are generously responding of time and talent to air the victims in Japan. The rock world has raised millions of dollars with arena concerts and extravaganzas, and classical musicians are dedicating their concerts and donating what they can from the box office, encouraging patrons to open their wallets by providing a list of non-profits to which they can contribute. Simon Rattle is joining forces with Daniel Barenboim today for a benefit concert featuring both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle orchestras. The New York Philharmonic is sending all the proceeds to Japan of downloads of their recording of Takemitsu’s Requiem. Violinist Hilary Hahn, whose tour of Japan had to be cancelled, has put together four concerts to benefit Japan.
Samsung Smart TV Strategy – Samsung is launching several new “Smart TVs,” allowing users to share content between multiple display devices not only in the home but also outside. It is called the Nth-Screen technology – a play on the math symbol which represents multiple, vs. the three screens some use as the ultimate in defining a TV-everywhere experience. The new sets promote connectivity and sharing with computers, computer monitors, Galaxy tablets and smartphones. A wide variety of apps will be either embedded into the new sets or available post-purchase thru Samsung’s Apps Store. In the U.S. the Apps Store has been expanded to a store-within-a-store concept. The Smart TVs also offer an integrated Smart Hub enabling users to search thru multiple content services for programs while also delivering suggestions based on user viewing patterns, and allowing for social networking as well – all on one screen.
Chesky Releases Binaural CD – The first part-binaural CD has been released by the Chesky Records label – “Explorations in Space and Time” with the All-Star Percussion Trio. This follows on the three recent past part-binaural discs of piano re-performances released by Zenph Studios, which feature recordings by Glenn Gould, Art Tatum and Rachmaninov in which you can put on headphones and experience the sounds the pianists themselves heard at the keyboard. The Chesky CD repeats the program twice: one recorded in stereo with the Soundfield mike, and then again in headphone binaural, recorded with a Neumann KU-100 binaural mike – which provides most listeners a more astonishingly accurate spatial experience than surround with speakers. Drummer Lenny White, from Return to Forever, joins world percussionist Jamey Haddad and classical percussionist Mark Sherman in the Binaural/Soundfield CD.
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 27, 2011 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
JOSEF GABRIEL RHEINBERGER: Organ Concerto No. 1 in F Major Op. 137; Organ Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 177; Three Pieces for Cello & Organ – Stefan Johannes Bleicher, organ/ Cäcilia Chmel, cello/ Musikkollegium Winterthur/ Douglas Boyd – MD&G Scene multichannel SACD (2+2+2) MDG 901 1643-6, 57:58 [Distr. by E1] *****:
In the Baroque period only a few composers such as Handel and Mozart wrote concertos for pipe organ and orchestra. The first symphonic organs designed by Cavaillé-Coll in the 19th century changed that, but there are still not that many concertos for organ and orchestra – a very natural combination since the pipe organ is the only solo instrument to approach the symphony orchestra in its rich musical abilities.
Power Biggs recorded the two organ concertos of Rheinberger, which date from 1884 and 1894 respectively. Now that there is a renewed interest in the more traditionalist composers of the 19th century, the music of Rheinberger is finding its way back into the repertory. And how fortunate these concertos come to us in such excellent hi-res surround sonics, since both the organ and orchestra on their own benefit so much from surround reproduction – and together they benefit even more.
Rheinberger departed from the usual writing of the organ part in a classical solo role, and in the First Concerto made it into an integral part of the orchestra. Both concertos are in three movements, with the first having a more majestic revelation of the themes, the second a slow Andante, and the third a more speedy Con moto. For the Second Concerto Rheinberg used a chamber orchestra consisting of strings plus three horns.
There have been sufficient pieces written for cello and pipe organ that there have been at least a couple recordings devoted to that particular duo. The Three Pieces by Rheinberg are all between four and five minutes length and are titled Abendlied, Pastorale, and Elegie. The three were originally written for violin and organ and later re-arranged by Rheinberger.
The Musikkollegium of Winterthur, Switzerland was founded in 1629 and has over the years paid for the maintenance and upgrading of the symphonic organ in the Winterthur Town Church. Among other attributes it has powerful 32-foot bass pipes. The performances by organist Bleicher and cellist Chmel plus the orchestra are full of life and beautifully rendered by MDG’s surround sound. When I have my speakers set up again for 2+2+2 playback you can be sure this will be one of the first SACDs I will try out, and from past experience it should sound even better!
— John Sunier
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 27, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
David Lopato, solo piano – Many Moons – Global Coolant 01, 64:50 ***:
New York City pianist David Lopato has performed with a number of artists from Dave Liebman to Dewey Redman; has worked in theater and music education; is an author and has studied both electronic and Javanese music. That is an eclectic background but even more eclectic is Lopato’s 64-minute piano solo release, Many Moons, which creatively shifts from stride piano to bluegrass and from bebop to African folk traditions.
Lopato explains in his liner notes his 12 original pieces are a distillation of three decades of writing and his personal life, and the tracks provide intriguing auditory snapshots of his experiences, biography and influences. Lopato begins in an upbeat manner with the double entendre-titled “Swing Trades,” which thematically alludes to both stock market machinations as well as a rolling refrain which connects swing music with a deeper New Orleans groove. Another jumped-up cut is the brief bluegrass-tinted interlude, “Fly Brook,” which would not be out of place on a country-jazz project: think Hank Garland or early George Winston. A richer statement darts through the bebop-buttressed “Reflexology,” which has a light touch similar to Dave Brubeck or Errol Garner. It is highlighted by some enthusiastic higher-key runs.
Lopato also shows a flair for quieter emotional tunes. “Inside You” has a pensive, live-in-the-studio feel and flows nicely and effortlessly, although it seems a bit dry in spots. Apparently, though, love gone sour offers Lopato further fertile thoughts, since “Unrequited Love” has greater complexity and incorporates a broader range of intensity, from dissonance to fluid time signatures.
Lopato does equally well with his personality sketches. The meditative “Brooklyn” brings to life the New York burg where Lopato grew up, while it also summarizes Lopato’s contemplations on a place in time which is now suffused with nostalgia and evaporating memories. More manic is the programmatic tune “The Big Bad Wolf Ain’t So Bad After All,” about dinner events with Lopato’s mother, and which energetically invokes Willie “The Lion” Smith’s gregarious Harlem stride. Lopato states there is a longer unedited version complete with a verbal rap. Hopefully that rendition will be issued someday. The album’s most heartfelt cut is “Wishing Willie Well,” a sensitive ballad concerning the day when Lopato and his wife had a pending adoption snatched away from them.
Lopato’s extensive inspirations can be heard throughout but are most noticeable during the modernistic “Piano Roll I,” which combines Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano concepts with John Cage’s prepared piano ideas. The result is a dazzling if difficult excursion which sits firmly in the avant-garde idiom and unfortunately stands at odds with the album’s other traditional-minded material. While this homage to two masterful musicians is accomplished, its position amongst the other 11 pieces comes as a sonic shock. Lopato ends with the aptly-inscribed “Peace March,” a positivistic hope-filled section from a lengthier suite which centers on the tragedy and the aftermath of 9/11.
TrackList:
1. Swing Trades
2. Inside You
3. Fly Brook
4. Unrequited Love
5. No Visa
6. Reflexology
7. Brooklyn
8. The Big Bad Wolf Ain’t So Bad After All
9. Wishing Willie Well
10. African Village
11. Piano Roll I
12. Peace March
— Doug Simpson
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 26, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Goossens in Cincinnati, Volume 2 = VAUGHAN WILIAMS: Symphony No. 2 in G Minor “London”; RESPIGHI: Fountains of Rome – Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Eugene Goossens – Historic-Recordings HRTCD 00071, 53:20 [www.historic-recordings.co.uk] ****:
Between 1931 and 1946 Eugene Goossens (1893-1962) led the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, having succeeded Fritz Reiner. Among the several fine achievements Goossens realized in the recording studio–along with his Tchaikovsky “Little Russian” Symphony–stands his 19-20 February 1941 inscription of the London Symphony of Vaughan Williams (1913), a kind of affective musical portrait of a great city from one of its admirers. In the opening movement, we hear an evocation of the Westminster chimes. After a vigorously moody opening movement, the second movement Lento–supposedly an evocation of Bloomsbury Square on a November afternoon set as variations on three themes–employs effective scoring among the woodwinds and viola to convey a briskly cool day in environs one loves.
The Scherzo presumably serves as a fluttery nocturne, the figures urging forward in gusts, at first fugato and then in a decisively folkish style. The sheer transparency of the Cincinnati strings and brass impress us as the equal of anything the orchestras in Philadelphia or New York could have produced in this era. The last two movements form a grave march and its epilogue, an homage to the passing of a lifestyle, even as Vaughan Williams utilizes cyclic principles to revivify elements from the first movement. The misty Epilogue quietly accepts Fate and the ravages of Time as inevitable. Dedicated to composer George Butterworth (1885-1916) who died by sniper fire at the Battle of the Somme, the music occasionally utters nobly tragic thoughts about mortality. The seamless account by Goossens sets a bar that few conductors could match, and side joins by H-R (from RCA DM-916) remain undetectable until a bit of swish in the final bars.
Respighi’s The Fountains of Rome (1916) is virtually contemporaneous with the Vaughan Williams symphony, although the Goossens inscription dates from 14 February 1946. This performance–and those by De Sabata and Toscanini–loom large in the pantheon of fine renditions of this pure landscape music. The Triton Fountain in the Morning episode sparkles in a most Lisztian fashion; perhaps we should recall that Respighi studied orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov. As the music mounts into a Roman frenzy, we detect elements of the Richard Strauss or Wagnerian pomp in the heady mix. A diaphanous light suffuses the Trevi Fountain at Noon. Nostalgia and mystery permeate the Villa Medici Fountain at Night, inundated with bird calls and Mediterranean forest murmurs. The soft last page places a velvet glove on the magic.
— Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 25, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
GABRIEL PROKOFIEV: “Piano Book No. 1” = Sketch; Rockaby; Glass Swing; Tough Moves; Cold Wooden Window; Key Pulses (Wind Up Scott); Side Dance; Entrance; Clock Watt; Black Sauce; Fky House – GeNIA, piano– Nonclassical Recordings nonclss006, 37:15 [Distr. by Naxos] ***:
This album automatically raises two fascinating questions before you even play it: Who is GeNIA (spelled that way) and could Gabriel Prokofiev be related to that Prokofiev?
First, a look at GeNIA’s website – which is well done – does not reveal her given or birth name, being born in the Ukraine. That really isn’t as interesting, anyway, as the fact that she is apparently very well-trained, having begun piano studies at a very early age with Regina Horowitz, sister of the great Vladimir Horowitz and completing ample prestigious training in London. She has since done an extensive amount of performing and has expanded her repertoire to the point that she really no longer participates in the big, traditional classical forms. GeNIA has gotten deeply into jazz, rock, new music and so forth and, according to some press comments on her website, she is “an enigma to both the music and business worlds (and has) become an unstoppable entity constantly seeking to reinvent tradition and stir up conversation.” All right, then. Potential hyperbole aside, this really is a pretty interesting collection.
The second fascinating question that the package notes do not address is answered, “Yes”. The composer is the grandson of the twentieth century master, Serge Prokofiev. Gabriel has clearly inherited the creativity and the innovation of form in the Prokofiev line. The music crosses styles from the moody, to the terse, to the beautifully reflective. The pieces sound almost like improvisation and come from some of the same world as his work with the Elysian String Quartet. As for GeNIA, she has received critical acclaim for her live performances and contemporary classical releases for Black Box and Nonclassical. She has commissioned over 20 new works, particularly developing the repertoire for piano and electronics, and collaborated with an eclectic range of artists (Vex’d, The EarlyMan, Max de Wardener, kREEPA, Gabriel Prokofiev, Derailer, Trevor Goodchilde, Germ, John Richards, Roman Mints, Patrick Nunn, Mike McFerron, Jamie Telford, Brodsky Quartet, Ensemble Bash, Hayden Parsey and Ravi Deepres). Both Gabriel Prokofiev and GeNIA, like so many other younger Russian and English artists come very much from a less formal and more introspective type of playing and writing. They represent (literally) the MySpace generation and even this label – their own venture – Nonclassical is self-described as music that is “classical and not classical, taking inspiration from ‘grime’, the Baroque and the avant-garde”.
Of the pieces on the “Piano Book #1”, I personally thought some stood out more than others; “Cold Wooden Window” is almost impressionistic in its feel, as is “Entrance”. “Tough Moves” is built on blocks of repetition, not in any para-minimalist sense but with its own unique DNA. “Clock Watt” is both very metronome-like as well as possessed by a very lilting melody. This music is probably not for everyone (for anyone for example who likes to be able to predict where a piece is going) but very interesting none the less and somewhat captivating. I would like to get to know more by this Prokofiev as well as maybe hear more from performer GeNIA!
— Daniel Coombs
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 25, 2011 | Classical CD Reviews
HAYDN: Piano Trio in E Major, Hob. XV: 28; TURINA: Circulo: Fantasy for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 91; SHOSTAKOVICH: Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67 – Icicle Piano Trio – Con Brio Recordings CBR21048 [Distr. by Albany], 52:49 ****:
This is the kind of program you would often hear in concert but all too rarely on disc, producers probably supposing that it lacks programmatic integrity. Then again, a program like this makes for maximum variety and allows an ensemble to demonstrate the breadth of its interpretive skills. You won’t hear any objections from me. I was glad for the opportunity to get acquainted again with Joaquin Turina’s unusual trio and hear it as well in an unusual context. The upshot is I was able to listen to all three of these works with fresh ears.
Haydn’s Trio in E Major (No. 26) was written for his London friend, the concert pianist Thérèse Jansen. Given the skill level of the dedicatee, Haydn felt no need to scale back the piano part, which is fairly brilliant by the standards of the day. The trio’s most famous movement is the second; like the corresponding movement in Beethoven’s Ghost Trio, it has the air of a spooky, nocturnal processional. Supposedly it’s Haydn’s reaction to the Gothic novel, which made English writers such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe bestsellers in the late 1700s. The outer movements are typically spirited and extrovert. The Icicle Trio catches this spirit well, though I wish their performance would smile a bit more.
Quite a shift of gears to Turina’s 1936 fantasy Circulo, so called because of its cyclic structure in which the quiet opening gestures return at the end of the piece. Circulo portrays the round of a day in Spain, from hazy morning through exuberant midday to the gradual unwinding at evening. It’s lush, sultry, and vividly Impressionistic, something completely different after Haydn’s spare, piano-dominated writing for the same ensemble.
A different culture yet again and a very different world view inform Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio of 1944. Written at the height of the Great Patriotic War, it also reflects the sorrow Shostakovich felt over the sudden loss of his close friend, the musician Ivan Sollertinsky. The quirky Jewish dances in the fourth movement of the Second Trio may have been suggested by his acquaintance with Shostakovich’s recent introduction to the music of his admirer, Miecyslaw Weinberg. It also suggests Shostakovich’s solidarity with the Jewish victims of Nazism and may be a coded tribute to Sollertinsky as well; he was reportedly Jewish and in any event cultivated an interest in the music of Jewish composers living in the West. With its tragic overtones leavened, if that’s the right word, by the sardonic wit of its awkwardly dancing fourth movement, the Second Trio is echt Shostakovich.
All of these works are widely available on disc, of course, but as I suggest, their inclusion on a single bill of fare is an inspired bit of programming. Fortunately, the Icicle Trio brings it off with aplomb. The members of the trio (Jennifer Crane, violin; Sally Singer, cello; and Oksana Ezhokina, piano) each have advanced degrees in performance and widely concertize individually. As a collaborative, they have a strong profile, playing with unanimity and focus, as well as beauty and grace. They’re accorded a rich, full recording as well. Admittedly, there are other performances of the Haydn that I enjoy more, but otherwise I have no hesitation in recommending this disc to lovers of any (or all) of our three composers and of chamber music in general.
— Lee Passarella
by Audiophile Audition | Mar 25, 2011 | Jazz CD Reviews
Johnny Mandel – The Man and His Music, featuring Sherrie Maricle and the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola with special guest Ann Hampton Callaway – Arbors Records – ARCD 19419, 68:42 [Distr. by Allegro] *****:
(Johnny Mandel – conductor, composer, arranger; Ann Hampton Callaway – vocals; DIVA Jazz Orchestra –Rhythm Section: Sherrie Maricle – leader, drums; Tomoko Ohno – piano; Noriko Ueda – bass; Sheryl Bailey and Dida Pelled – guitar. Reeds: Sharel Cassity – lead alto sax, soprano sax, flute; Lynn Gruenwald – 2nd alto sax, flute; Janelle Reichman – 1st tenor sax, clarinet; Leigh Pilzer – 2nd tenor sax, bass clarinet; Lisa Parrott – Baritone sax, bass clarinet. Trumpets: Tanya Darby – lead trumpet, flugelhorn; Jami Dauber – 2nd trumpet, flugelhorn; Christine Fawson – 3rd trumpet, flugelhorn; Nadje Noordhuis – 4th trumpet, flugelhorn. Trombones: Deborah Weisz – lead trombone; Jennifer Krupa – 2nd trombone; Sara Jacovino – 3rd trombone; Leslie Havens –bass trombone)
Johnny Mandel started playing piano at an early age. He switched to trumpet and later to trombone. In the 40s he played with many of the big-name bands such as Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich and Chubby Jackson. He accompanied June Christy while playing with Bob Cooper’s orchestra. He composed for many artists through the 1950s such as Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Chet Baker, and Count Basie. He received many awards including the Academy Award for best song in 1965 for the hit theme song from The Sandpiper, “The Shadow of Your Smile” which he co-wrote with Paul Francis Webster. He wrote the theme music “Suicide is Painless” for the movie and TV series M*A*S*H. He has been very active in composing and arranging film scores.
Drummer Sherrie Maricle and the all woman Diva Jazz Orchestra are not new to this writer. I have given air-play to several other of their albums when I was an on-air host and music programmer for a jazz radio station. They are a tight-playing, highly professional group of musicians that are a joy to hear. The orchestra contains some really great jazz soloists that make this album top class.
Johnny Mandel: The Man and His Music is a recording of a live concert occurring at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Lincoln Center, New York City in the Spring of 2010. This was the result of an inspiration by the late Stanley Kay with the collaboration of Johnny Mandel and the Diva Jazz Orchestra. Ten of the music tracks are compositions by Johnny Mandel. The other three tracks are other compositions that Johnny arranged for the orchestra. The album leads off with “Low Life”, a song Johnny wrote and arranged for Count Basie’s recording in 1956. It is an easy-going swinger with great solos from guitar, trumpet and two tenor saxes. The sax section voicing together is a gem. “Close Enough for Love” is a beautiful mournful blues tune headed up by the clarinet playing of the amazing Janelle Reichman. “Not Really the Blues” is a burner composition-arrangement by Johnny for Woody Herman and the Four Brothers Band in the late 1940’s. “Emily” is Johnny’s famous theme song for the movie, “The Americanization of Emily”. It is a beautiful rendition of brass and sax choir voicing with great solos.
The next three music numbers are vocals by Ann Hampton Calloway. “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” is a Harry Woods composition arranged by Johnny. Ann is in good voice and form on this quick stepping romantic tune. The hauntingly beautiful “Where Do You Start” by Johnny and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman is a break up of romance song that has been covered by several artists including Sinatra. Ann gives a nice rendition. Ann’s last tune is an arrangement of Johnny’s “Ain’t Nobody’s Business”. Moving on to “The Theme From I Want to Live!” – the original recording had Gerry Mulligan starting the opening music line with his sexy baritone sax sound. This was amply done in the same manner by baritone saxist Lisa Parrott with the orchestra swinging through the song. “TNT” is the closing number. Johnny arranged Tiny Kahn’s tune giving the DIVA orchestra one last burner to remember them by.
The whole project is excellent. The liner notes contain bios on Johnny Mandel and the history of how the DIVA Jazz Orchestra came about. There is a soloist list for each song. Especially nice are photos of the people involved. It is a classy album showing all sides of great big band music which I am glad to have come across.
TrackList: tracks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, and 25 are short announcements and comments made by Todd Barkan, Johnny Mandel and Ann Hampton Calloway.
Music Tracks: 2. Low Life; 4. Close Enough for Love; 6. Not Really the Blues; 8. Emily; 10. Black Nightgown; 12. What a Little Moonlight Can Do; 14. Where Do You Start; 16. Ain’t Nobody’s Business; 18. Theme From M*A*S*H; 20. The Shadow of Your Smile; 22. Cinnamon and Clove; 24. Theme From I Want to Live!; 26. TNT
— Tim Taylor
