Recorded in: Mosfilm Studio, Moscow April 1999 Producer(s) Vadim Ivanov Sound Engineer(s) Vladimir Schuster

Includes work(s) by Larry Austin. Soloists: F. Gerard Errante, Stephen Duke, Robert Black (doublebass), Michael Lowenstern, Jacqueline Martelle.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

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.

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.

MALAMUTE

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.

Classical Music