Cyrille Dubois is unstoppable: after two albums dedicated to Liszt and the Boulanger sisters, both acclaimed by the critics, and a flamboyant complete set of Faure songs, the tenor is back to his preferred repertoire, the French art-song. He reunites with his accomplice, pianist Tristan Raes, to bring the Bordeaux composer Louis Beydts (1895-1953) out of oblivion, as most of his pieces are recorded here for the first time. From these miniatures, Cyrille Dubois draws the sap of the musician's art. A pure product of French hedonism, it is refined and elegant, with a generous vocality but also daring, for Beydts forbids himself nothing. Echoes of jazz and light music, of Hahn or Faure, polymodality and polytonality, his melodies traverse everything between fantasy, humor and contemplation with supreme freedom. By transporting us into this singular universe, Cyrille Dubois establishes himself as an invaluable performer of the repertoire and a pioneer of French music, with an uncommon mastery of the combination of word and music.
Andrew Cyrille's longtime companion Oliver Lake praises the master of African-American rhythms in his poem The Real Cyrille: "making the real magic... The real rhythms... The real sounds... expanding his African/Haitian roots... surfing the drums for masterful lyrical snippets... a master of color... painting coloring riffing always stretchin' searchin' lookin' for that next sound color sound!" Lake's words astutely describe the artistry of Andrew Cyrille and the music that he makes on this record. Unlike his solo albums from the 70's and 80's, he has broadened the approach on this remarkable solo statement. Cyrille asserts, "I wanted to have a variety percussion instruments in the compositions. So I was thinking of melodies that could be played with tambourines, bells, cymbals, crotales, gongs, and mallets."
For "Jouissons de nos beaux ans!" the French tenor Cyrille Dubois returns to his favourite period in music: Baroque. Pursuing his mission as a trailblazer, he has teamed up with the Hungarian conductor Gyorgy Vashegyi and the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles to create a recital aimed at reviving little-known treasures of the eighteenth-century French operatic repertoire - several of the pieces are recorded here for the first time. Focussing on haute-contre roles - the haute-contre voice being the ancestor of the leggero tenor, or tenor leger - the program includes some fine excerpts from operas by Rameau, together with some equally beautiful arias and choruses by composers such as Dauvergne, Mondonville, but also Iso, Royer, Berton, and others. Cyrille Dubois is magnificent as Tarsis (in Tarsis et Zelie by Francoeur and Rebel), flamboyant as Agenor (in Les Caracteres de la Folie by Bernard de Bury) and extremely moving as Cephale (in L'Aurore et Cephale by Francoeur). This recital provides a full picture of the Baroque hero - sometimes tender and amorous, sometimes fiery or triumphant - who receives here one of the finest interpretations.
Andrew Cyrille Quartet -"The News" The new album from the quartet led by innovative jazz drummer, Andrew Cyrille, carries the story forward from the 2016 release, The Declaration of Musical Independence. Each of the players (Bill Frisell, Ben Street and David Virelles) has space for improvisational expression, but it is Cyrille's communicative sensibility and what the New York Times called his "watchful, flowing pulse" that guides the band.
Aruan Ortiz has long dreamt of making an album that would evoke "a cascade of rhythms going over me, almost dragging me to fall." This feeling of being overtaken by rhythm is one he knows well, having spent his first 23 years in Cuba. Born in 1973, Ortiz grew up Santiago de Cuba - the cradle of Afro-Cuban music and a veritable "vortex of rhythm". Ortiz captures the symphony of everyday life in Oriente on his arresting new album, Inside Rhythmic Falls. "I think of myself as a storyteller," Ortiz says, "and each of the album's ten tracks tells a story about Oriente province." For this project Ortiz has chosen Cuban percussionist Mauricio Herrera and one of the best drummers of today's jazz to his side. Andrew Cyrille was born in Brooklyn, New York into a Haitian family. "Rhythm is life... The space of time danced through," and inside rhythmic falls everyone is possessed by the dance, both leading and following. The New York jazz critic Adam Schatz writes in the Liner notes: "When music is this glorious, it has the power not just to conjure spirits but to inspire belief and help us experience the marvelous. Or, as Carpentier also put it, the marvelous real."
