This CD documents a ten-year productive friendship between a composer and a performer. Many of Matthews’ quartets were written for the Kreutzer Quartet, and they’ve recorded two previous CDs of his complete cycle of music. This release features all world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Finally, there comes Hopeful Monsters of 2011 for string orchestra (the orchestra includes the members of the Quartet). Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street (a day in 1936 when, in East London, crowds gathered to protest against fascism), it is a fascinating canvas that includes references to Jewish music in its faster section. The title is borrowed from Nicholas Mosley and refers to biological mutations that hover on extinction. Lee Hallman’s exemplary booklet notes suggest this is reflected in Rose’s use of harmony, with its clear tonal references that it just as often seeks to negate—or at least toy with.

All pieces here receive their first recordings, and the disc was made in the presence of the composer. Unhesitatingly recommended.

-- Fanfare

Jazz trombonist Joseph Bowie was 22 years young when this live album was recorded. It was his second album and he was establishing his own name, his brother Lester Bowie was already internationally renowned. Shortly after Joseph would form Defunkt. Co-leader Oliver Lake also heralded from BAG, the St. Louis music collective. The extraordinary flutist/saxophonist would co-found The World Saxophone Quartet the year following this Toronto concert. "What Bowie and Lake played was an impassioned and demanding music of the moment that responded as much to what was written on their lead sheets or to their spontaneous concepts as it did to the ambiance of the moment." - Coda Magazine, June 1976

The album 'To Roy' dedicated to trumpeter Roy Campbell, who died in 2014, is the first collaboration between saxophonist Oliver Lake and double bass player William Parker - two important pioneers of contemporary jazz, two great musicians of the USA and two masters of composition and improvisation. After playing a concert in "The Stone" in New York, part of Intakt's festival in January 2012, Lake and Parker took up the label's invitation to record their first album together in Pater Karl's studio in Brooklyn. Both musicians contributed compositions of rare beauty. Shaped by their long experience, their intimacy created spaces for interaction and exciting improvisations. The instruments of these two mature players mingled to create a single unique sound.