Drummer and bandleader Jim Black has been one of the most influential figures in progressive jazz since the nineties. In this new formation, Black brings together the young musicians Asger Nissen, Julius Gawlik, Felix Henkelhausen, who are among the most original and articulate voices of European jazz innovation, with the same basic instrumentation as two of the greatest bands Black has propelled and helped shape from behind the kit: Tim Berne's Bloodcount and the collective Endangered Blood. The music of this energetic quartet has a feverish intensity and from the first note the quartet's music goes straight for the jugular. Many influences and ideas come together without ever resorting to genre-hopping. "The music thrives on immediacy, and in some ways it's a visceral rejection of any kind of passivity", writes Peter Margasak in the liner notes.
Acclaimed Chinese/American composer Bright Sheng has been fascinated by folk music for his entire career and Northern Lights is his first work to use Scandinavian folk music, exploring its kinship with American sources such as Appalachian and Bluegrass music. Inspired by ancient Chinese poetry, Melodies of a Flute captures deep and sensuous moods of love and longing, while Hot Pepper refers to the spicy cuisine of Si Chuan province. Bright Sheng combines Chinese and Western musical ideas to create luminous, deeply expressive and rhythmic scores, giving new meaning to the idea of music as a universal language.
Big Beautiful Dark And Scary / Bang On A Can All Stars
Cantaloupe Music
CD
$21.99Feb 28, 2012
The Bang on a Can All-Stars have recorded their first studio album in five years; the first to include the All-Stars' current line-up: Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, electric guitar; and Evan Ziporyn, clarinets.
With Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, the Bang on a Can All-Stars show off their blazing speed, polyrhythmic virtuosity and all-world versatility in a return to the core Bang on a Can sound - an uncategorizable supermix of classical and electric instruments that is part classical ensemble, part rock band, and part jazz sextet. The album is the first in a decade that features the All-Stars exclusively, rather than as part of a collaborative project. Each of the pieces on the double-CD calls upon a different kind of virtuosity, demonstrating the range of musical abilities and experiences arguably unique to this ensemble. Recorded in New York City, all of the music on Big Beautiful Dark and Scary (including the arrangements of the works by Conlon Nancarrow) were written for and premiered by the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
Almost twenty years after his death it is still difficult to properly evaluate the work of Russian composer Alexander Lokshin (1920-1987). His uncompromising stance led to numerous conflicts with the Soviet regime, resulting in him being banned from the Moscow Conservatory twice - first as a student and later as a teacher. Many of his works were suppressed either before or immediately after their first performances, and most of his eleven symphonies, symphonic poems and chamber music remained confined to his desk drawer, and are only now gradually coming to light. One reason for the almost systematic persecution was the fact that Lokshin often included vocal parts in his orchestral works. In several cases it was the text rather than the music which caused the work to be banned. One such instance is Symphony No. 9, where the poems by Leonid Martynov, in turns harrowing and sarcastic, form a veiled indictment of the Soviet system. At the première in 1976 baritone Yuri Grigoriev was choked by emotion. 'I didn't know if I was going to be arrested the following day', he later admitted. He wasn't - but the symphony was blacklisted. (Reportedly, Dmitri Shostakovich, who was present at the première, acquired the score and avidly studied the work, which he greatly admired.) This is the second disc of Lokshin's music on BIS, the first being BIS-CD-1156, with the composer's only purely instrumental symphony (No. 4, 'Sinfonia Stretta') and his Three Scenes from Goethe's Faust. Two of the present performers, conductor Michel Swierczewski and soprano Vanda Tabery, also participated on that disc, which received praise both for the performances ('outstandingly vibrant') and for the music, which one reviewer described as 'challenging late romantic modernism'. These two are joined by baritone Jeffrey Black and 'recreation - GROSSES ORCHESTER GRAZ', both of whom are appearing on BIS for the first time.
