Consonance: Live at the Jazz Showcase is the first ever release of saxophone titan Joe Henderson and his quartet featuring pianist Joanne Brackeen, bassist Steve Rodby and drummer Danny Spencer captured live at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago, IL in February of 1978. The 2-CD set was mastered from the original tapes by George Klabin and John Koenig.

Tetragon is tenor saxophone virtuoso Joe Henderson's second album on the Milestone label, where he continued to develop his sound in the post-bop realm before venturing further into the spiritual jazz realm later in his career, joined by a world-class ensemble featuring Ron Carter, Jack DeJohnette, Kenny Barron, Louis Hayes, and Don Friedman. This Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf reissue of Tetragon was cut from the original analog tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing, and comes packaged in a gatefold tip-on jacket.

Joe Henderson's second Blue Note album, Our Thing, once again showcased the saxophonist's deep connection with his frequent collaborator Kenny Dorham on trumpet. As both frontline foils and composers of all the tunes on this swinging set, the duo set the tone accompanied by an extraordinary rhythm section with Andrew Hill, Eddie Khan and Pete La Roca. This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is stereo, all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

Eddie Henderson - "Heritage (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition)". Trumpeter Eddie Henderson came to prominence as a member of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi in the early '70s, after which he recorded a pair of seminal jazz/funk fusion classics for Blue Note - Sunburst (1975) & Heritage (1976) - the latter, featuring a forward-looking crew with Julian Priester, Patrice Rushen, Paul Jackson, Mike Clark, Billy Hart, Mtume and others. This stereo Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Multiple finds saxophone virtuoso Joe Henderson operating in the sonic space between fusion and free jazz, joined by a world-class ensemble featuring Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette, Larry Willis, and James "Blood" Ulmer, who all heavily contribute to the momentum that makes the album a meeting of giants. This Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf reissue of Multiple was cut from the original analog tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI, and comes packaged in a tip-on jacket.

Joe Henderson - "Power To The People (Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf Series)" / Originally released on Milestone in 1969, the hard-bop cult classic Power to the People finds legendary saxophone virtuoso Joe Henderson soaring in the intersection of thematic development and ecstatically pure sound, joined by a titanic rhythm section featuring Mike Lawrence, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Jack DeJohnette. This Jazz Dispensary reissue was mastered from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at RTI, and comes packaged in a gatefold tip-on jacket.

Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson capped off his run of five sublime 1960s Blue Note leader dates with his 1966 classic Mode for Joe, an album bursting with vigor and vitality that found Henderson expanding his palette with a septet of colorful figures including Lee Morgan on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone, Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, Cedar Walton on piano, Ron Carter on bass, and Joe Chambers on drums. The band delivers six powerful performances, playing with white-hot intensity on Henderson's originals "A Shade of Jade," Caribbean Fire Dance," and "Granted," as well as Morgan's swinger "Free Wheelin'." But it's the remarkable title track by Walton that emerges as the standout of the set, a modal masterpiece where the leader summons one of his most transcendent and visceral solo statements.

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. While Joe Henderson seemed to arrive fully formed on his auspicious 1963 debut Page One, the album was really a showcase for the transcendent collaboration between the tenor saxophonist and trumpeter Kenny Dorham who would form a potent frontline team on numerous classics. Opens with a pair of indelible Dorham compositions (Blue Bossa/La Mesha), the 6-song set penned by Henderson includes "Recorda-Me."

Limited 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Joe Henderson on tenor saxophone, Ron Carter on bass, and Al Foster on drums captured live in 1985 playing at the peak of their respective powers at NYC's historic jazz shrine, The Village Vanguard. Alfred Lion, founder of Blue Note Records and it's sole producer until 1967, said upon hearing these sessions: "I think this is truly a classic album. What Joe plays is unbelievable. This is one of the most important albums that I have ever heard. It is definitely one of the best ever made on Blue Note. And I don't mean the new Blue Note. It's one of the best ever, including all of the records we did in the 50s and 60s."

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Benjamin Britten
DEATH IN VENICE

Gustav von Aschenbach - John Graham Hall
Traveller / Elderly Fop / Gondolier / Barber / Hotel Manger / Player / Dionysus - Andrew Shore
Apollo - Tim Mead
Tadzio - Sam Zaldivar
The Polish Mother - Laura Caldow
Two Daughters - Mia Angelina Mather / Xhuliana Shehu
The Governess - Joyce Henderson
Jaschiu - Marcio Teixeira

English National Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor
Deborah Warner, stage director

Recorded live at the London Coliseum, June 2013

Picture format:1080i High Definition
Sound format: LPCM 2.0 / DTS 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, French, German, Korean
Running time: 153 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (Blu-ray)

BRITTEN Death in Venice • Edward Gardner, cond; John Graham-Hall (Aschenbach); Andrew Shore (Traveler, Elderly Fop, Old Gondolier, Hotel Manager, Hotel Barber, Leader of Players, Voice of Dionysus); Tim Mead (Voice of Apollo); English Natl Op O & Ch • OPUS ARTE 1130 (DVD: 153:00) Live: London 6/18, 21, 24/2013

Benjamin Britten’s last opera, Death in Venice, has never really caught on, except perhaps in England itself. It has appeared twice at the New York Met, but the last appearance was some 20 years ago. I don’t believe it ever sold out the house. Based on a rather pretentious novella by Thomas Mann, the story seemingly does not adapt well to the operatic stage. The main conflict is an internal one for the aged main character, Gustav von Aschenbach, between powerful homoerotic lust for a young boy and the desperate desire to maintain his dignity and moral rectitude. Scene changes are so numerous the opera requires 17 short tableaus, a stage director’s nightmare. Britten’s score is also rather quirky and austere as befits the story, and lacks much melody. There are really only three singing roles, although the chorus is quite busy in several of the tableaus. Most of the heavy lifting (or singing) is done by the old man and a deus ex machina who appears in several roles and seems to be propelling Aschenbach relentlessly to his fate (the title perhaps might reveal a clue as to that). Still in all, it is quite an engrossing drama to see once, and this English National Opera (ENO) production provides quite a good representation of it.

Accolades should go to stage director Deborah Warner, set designer Tom Pye, and costume designer Chloe Obolensky for the rapid, efficient scene changes and the eye-catching look of the staging. Most of the action occurs in and around Venice: on the beach, in the hotel, and in the city itself. The evocative perception of these settings is conveyed cleverly yet opulently with only the judicious use of a few props and curtains. Aschenbach’s erotic interest, the young boy Tadzio, and his chums on the beach are portrayed by dancers, so that Britten has ample opportunity to employ the orchestra without bothering the singers. Aschenbach surreptitiously follows the boy’s Polish family around: the mother with her parasol, two daughters, the boy, and a governess, all mute roles. They reminded me of a family of ducks parading constantly back and forth across the stage. If one’s attention sometimes flags, it is due more to the story itself than ENO’s creative staging.

None of the singers is vocally challenged by Britten’s score, though perhaps taxed for stamina, so consummate actors are the order of the day. The difficult role of Aschenbach, with all his internal struggles, is rendered powerfully here by John Graham-Hall. If Graham-Hall is not always completely successful in communicating the heat of his obsessive passion for the boy (they never talk) or his internal agonizing, it is at least partly due to what he is given to sing. Although Britten always claimed his declamation was based on natural inflections of speech, much of it doesn’t sound very natural, at least to these non-Brit ears. The multiple roles of the rather enigmatic propeller of Aschenbach’s fate are a bit reminiscent of the multiple, but singularly sung, villains in Tales of Hoffman. The role(s) is taken here by baritone Andrew Shore. Shore sings well and seems just creepy enough to give the story the proper feel of existential angst and ambiguity it requires. The third major singing role is that of the Voice of Apollo, the personification of Aschenbach’s rational and moral side, opposed to Shore’s Dionysus of licentious appetite. Sung here quite well by countertenor Tim Mead in one of the opera’s few arioso passages, the rather trite and overused convention of arguing inner voices at least retains some interest. As with many modern operas, Britten gives the orchestra a major role, and the ENO forces under Edward Gardner respond admirably (as do the choristers). Special mention also needs to be made of young dancer Sam Zaldivar, who portrays the boy Tadzio seductively, but with an athletic grace of movement. I watched with English subtitles, but they certainly weren’t necessary, diction is very clear and Britten never overpowers the singing with dense orchestration. Subtitles are also available in French, German, and Korean.

For a rather obscure opera, Death in Venice seems to have been served well on video. First came a 1981 Tony Palmer film that was supposed to give Britten’s life companion, tenor Peter Pears, his chance to record the role. In the event, Pears was invalided by a stroke and was replaced, apparently most admirably, by Robert Gard. Baritone John Shirley-Quirk is also mentioned as being very fine in the role of the Traveler, et al. There is also a 1990 Glyndebourne production, and a 2008 production from La Fenice in Venice itself, both of which received good reviews and both still available. I must confess I have seen none of these competitors. The La Fenice set is available in high definition Blu-ray, just as this Opus Arte disc. I may only have the inclination or opportunity to see Death in Venice once, and this handsome and well-performed ENO production certainly proves a fine way to do so. Recommended.

FANFARE: Bill White   

* The "must-have" 1959 stereo recording of the studio cast.
* Features unseen photos & in-depth liner notes.
* Bonus tracks (listed below)

"For all the extraordinary textures that are in it, it plays more like a musical comedy than any of the other successful Rodgers and Hammerstein shows." - Ted Chapin, The Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization

When Oscar Hammerstein visited his friend Joseph Fields during the filming of South Pacific for 20th Century-Fox, Fields mentioned he was in the process of acquiring the rights to The Flower Drum Song, a novel by C. Y. Lee. Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, it told the story of a young Chinese-American man torn between his own leanings and his desire to comply with his father’s rigorous, traditional teachings. Intrigued, Hammerstein read the book and immediately saw in it the gem for a new musical. Richard Rodgers also warmed to the idea and the two soon joined Fields as co-librettist and began work on it. The music Rodgers wrote reflected some of the traditions of old China, mixed with the brasher aspects of American culture; his approach found an echo in Hammerstein’s lyrics, which were modeled after Asian poetry on the one hand and contemporary American lingo on the other. As a result, Flower Drum Song emerged as perhaps the team's best-integrated work.

Flower Drum Song
Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, directed by Gene Kelly, orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett.

The noted cast includes:

Miyoshi Umeki as Mei Li the Mail-Order Bride
Pat Suzuki, already famous for her popular song releases, as Linda Low, a nightclub singer
Arabella Hong as Helen Chao, a seamstress and best friend of Linda Low
Jack Soo, who later appeared in the ABC sitcom Barney Miller, portrayed Frankie Wing, Nightclub Emcee
Ed Kennedy as Wang Ta, the young man torn between love and tradition.
Juanita Hall, who earlier sang the role of Bloody Mary in the film South Pacific, portrayed Madam Liang
Larry Storch, who later appeared on TV’s F Troop, portrayed Sammy Fong
Keye Luke, a veteran Hollywood film actor famous as Charlie Chan's rambunctious "Number One Son" portrayed conservative Mr. Wang, the family patriarch.

This entire 1959 production was directed by Gene Kelly with choreography by Carol Haney.

Bonus tracks (listed below) feature arrangements of songs from Flower Drum Song sung by Florence Henderson, Pat Suzuki and Sandra Church recorded just after the premiere in 1958 and 1959.

A priceless document.

“Vaughan Williams may not have been a great technical conductor, but he knew how his music should sound”. The words are those of RVW’s friend and biographer, the distinguished critic, Michael Kennedy. I suggest that anyone hearing this revelatory CD would be bound to agree with that verdict.

Because Vaughan Williams was not thought to be a great conductor he was rarely invited to record his own music. This is in stark contrast to, say, Elgar, Walton or Britten, all of whom recorded their own music extensively. Yet the evidence of that boiling, incandescent recording of his Fourth Symphony that RVW set down with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 11 October 1937 shows that he was a vivid communicator of his own works (Dutton CDAX 8011). That’s long been a prized part of my own collection, as has the recording of Dona Nobis Pacem, in an earlier transfer, but I never thought we’d uncover a recording of him conducting what is perhaps his finest symphony.

This performance of the Fifth comes from the 1952 Henry Wood Promenade concerts at which all six of the symphonies that RVW had written to date were played in honour of his forthcoming eightieth birthday. It’s worth remembering that the symphony had been premièred at the Proms just nine years earlier, also under the composer’s baton. According to Alan Sanders’ very interesting note the broadcast was recorded off-air onto a long-playing acetate disc by an engineer named Eric Spain. The results are quite remarkable. To be sure, there is some surface noise but it is never intrusive and a remarkable amount of detail and perspective has been captured. There seems to have been no attempt made to edit out the audience noise between movements and this adds to the sense that we are eavesdropping on an event. However, no applause is retained at the end and while I usually like to hear some applause at the end of a live recording – a minority view, I suspect – on this occasion I don’t mind.

As to the performance, well it’s a very fine one. There are a few orchestral fluffs but nothing too serious. Vaughan Williams gives a reading that is direct and unfussy but one that also conveys admirably the wonderful poetry of this radiant symphony. The first movement proceeds serenely yet it has a quiet inner strength. When the music quickens (at 5:11) RVW obtains lightness from the strings but the melody in the wind and brass has a hint of darkness. When the climax of the movement arrives (8:10) it has an unforced majesty.

Much of the music of the second movement is characterised by what I’d term a rugged, rustic lightness. In places it suggests to me the ‘Rude Mechanicals’ of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are some occasional frailties in the playing but generally speaking the BBCSO responds well, giving a delightful account of the piece. At the very end the music dissolves up into the ether.

How moving it is to hear Vaughan Williams direct the glorious slow movement, containing as it does so much music from Pilgrim’s Progress, the visionary work that had occupied him for so many years. He achieves a real hushed intensity at the very start and there’s a lovely cor anglais solo. This ravishing movement shows Vaughan Williams’s lyrical gifts at their peak. Everything about this reading seems so right and he builds up to a glowing climax before allowing the music to die away in peaceful tranquillity.

The finale is a joyful movement and it comes across as such in its creator’s hands. There’s a real sense of hope in this music, despite its genesis in the dark days of war and RVW puts that across effortlessly. The gentle benediction of the coda is handled sensitively and with satisfying simplicity. The composer said of his Fourth symphony that it was what he “meant” and I think that’s true also of this deeply satisfying performance of the Fifth.

It used to be thought by some commentators, mistakenly but understandably, that the Fourth symphony was a depiction of the gathering political storms in Europe in the 1930s. In fact the cantata Dona Nobis Pacem is, surely, a much more direct artistic response to those menacing times and it’s amazing to find that Vaughan Williams, having produced such a searing work in the run-up to the Second World War, then penned a pacific work like the Fifth symphony while the conflict was at its height.

The performance of Dona Nobis Pacem presented here was given just a month after the work received its first performance from the Huddersfield Choral Society under Albert Coates. When Vaughan Williams came to broadcast it for the BBC he had the services of the same two soloists who had taken part in the première. This performance has appeared on CD before (Pearl GEMM CD9342) but this present release is claimed as its first authorised release. Presumably the source for this Somm issue is the BBC itself for Alan Sanders comments that this “is one of the Corporation’s few pre-war music recordings to have survived”. The Pearl booklet states that the source for their issue is “a private acetate transcription”.

I can state unequivocally that an A/B comparison shows that this Somm transfer completely supersedes the Pearl effort. The Somm disc is brighter, clearer and has an almost visceral impact compared with the Pearl. Not only that, the new transfer reports much more detail in both the loud and soft passages. Indeed, following with a vocal score I was amazed at how much inner detail is revealed – for example in the third section where the choir divides into eight parts, singing quietly and unaccompanied (cue 14 in the vocal score). It is simply staggering how vividly this recording speaks to us more than seventy years after it was made.

And the performance is vivid too. In the first movement Renée Flynn’s voice is caught with real presence – as is the case throughout the performance – and she sings marvellously. When the orchestra and chorus enter Vaughan Williams obtains some impassioned results. The second movement is a setting of RVW’s beloved Walt Whitman, as are the third and fourth movements. “Beat! beat! drums!” the choir sings. It’s a frenzied movement and Vaughan Williams whips up a real storm. The brass and percussion sound really vivid. The chorus parts are not easy, as I know from personal experience, but the BBC Chorus acquits itself valiantly. They’re rhythmically accurate – no mean feat in itself, especially in unfamiliar music - and the composer inspires them to singing of genuine fervour.

The third movement, ‘Reconciliation’, is at the centre of the work in more ways than one. Roy Henderson is a most dignified and moving soloist. Here there’s further evidence of Vaughan Williams’s conducting skill, for examples of subtle rubato abounds in his account of this movement and this could not have been achieved by someone who didn’t know what they were doing on the podium. It’s a most beautiful movement and the performers rise to great eloquence, none more so than Henderson, especially as he sings of the soldier finding his enemy’s corpse in its coffin. Whitman is, for my taste, somewhat mawkish here but Vaughan Williams in his music and Henderson in his singing transcend that.

The third and final Whitman setting is the celebrated ‘Dirge for Two Veterans’. There’s great cumulative power in the march that forms the basis of much of this movement. Vaughan Williams builds the tension purposefully and with skill and patience. The huge climax at “I hear the great drums pounding” is powerfully achieved as is the potent passage for orchestra alone a few pages later (5:09). The text is portentous at times, as Whitman so often is, but Vaughan Williams’s music has strength and conviction and this enables him to avoid sentimentality.

The fifth movement opens with a masterstroke. Over the sparest of accompaniments the baritone soloist sings lines from the celebrated speech made in the House of Commons by the radical MP, John Bright (1811-1889), in opposition to the Crimean War on 23 February 1855: “The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land.” Here Henderson’s hushed singing is hypnotically powerful. He’s quite chilling without any theatricality and he generates a tremendous atmosphere before the choral outburst, “Dona nobis pacem”. The movement ends on a more hopeful note with a chorus that, to me, anticipates the concluding pages of the Christmas work, Hodie (1954). Despite all the trials and tribulations of the 1930s Vaughan Williams could retain a sense of hope, if not optimism.

Dona Nobis Pacem is in many ways a work of its time but, in the sentiments that it expresses, it’s surely a work for our times also. It’s sincere and impassioned and a very fine piece. I’m surprised and disappointed that it’s not heard more often. It’s both moving and exciting to hear it under the composer’s own direction at a time when it was so new and also at a time when it was so relevant to the events that had moved him to write it. In this excellent new transfer the performance comes vividly to life. As I listened I found myself wondering how many of the performers may subsequently have become victims of the war that was not then far off.

In this year (2008) that marks the fiftieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death I hope there will be many fine performances, broadcasts and recordings to celebrate his life and music. The year has started auspiciously with Tony Palmer’s wonderful new film biography, O Thou Transcendent. However, this superb release from Somm may turn out to be the most invaluable of all the anniversary tributes. It’s a mandatory purchase for all lovers of Vaughan Williams’s music and, frankly, a priceless document.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

INNER URGE was Henderson's fourth date as a leader for Blue Note Records, and the first time he set out to record without his trusted friend, trumpeter Kenny Dorham. This release features "Isotope," now a well-known Henderson tune, and a lively version of the standard "Night and Day." Clearly the record's most memorable track, however, is the explorative "El Barrio," a droning piece that offers listeners a plethora of rich musical textures, modal detours, and percussive explosions.