Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves during the Civil War, jazz giant Duke Ellington began work on a special suite of music commemorating the struggles, triumphs and ongoing battle for the civil rights of blacks in America. This jazz masterpiece debuted in Chicago in the summer of 1963. Legends such as pianist and composer Billy Strayhorn and drummer Louie Bellson were a big part of the performance. And while portions of this master suite have been available for years, this is the very first time the complete piece has been available in it's entirety.

Classical Music

Misha Mengelberg came to Chicago for two days, made some music with a host of musicians, and went home. Which leaves us with memories. Fortunately there's this gem left behind, these two albums, containing a timeless message. Sounds that do not express, they signify, they exist. Misha Mengelberg was a Dutch jazz pianist and composer. A prominent figure in post-WWII European Jazz, Mengelberg is known for his forays into free improvisation, for bringing humor into his music, and as a leading interpreter of songs by fellow pianists Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols. He also wrote music for others to perform (generally leaving some room for improvisation) and oversaw a number of music theatre productions, which usually included a large element of absurdist humor.

This newly remastered reissue of multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton’s (Willisau) 1991 Studio was recorded with his quartet at the Hotel Mohren in Willisau, Switzerland in June 1991. These works feature what many consider Braxton's finest ensemble at their creative apex, consisting of pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser, and percussionist Gerry Hemingway.

Classical Music

Green Moss Black sands explores the rough, overwhelming and stark beauty of Scandinavian nature and its dark sensibilities. It is jazz with a special bluesy and folksy Nordic sound and a characteristic mix of grandeur and minimalism. Sigurdur Flosason plays the alto saxophone and he says the following about the new record “The music on this CD is inspired by the highlands of the country that raised me, my native Iceland. The desert-like wasteland holds a singular kind of beauty. Perhaps not pretty in the usual sense of the word, it is beautiful in its stark and rough contrasts. There, beauty lies in the small, in the slow-growing moss with its endless hues of colour, in the black sand stretching as far as the eye can see, in the fragile highland growth and the fresh spring water quietly streaming forth from beneath majestic lava fields. The music is my dedication to the heart of my country and the people who brought me there, my parents.” Icelandic beauty is the weather capable of changing in the blink of an eye; it is in the stillness and in the storm; in the rain falling at a slant, sometimes almost horizontally; in the sky that has colours you see nowhere else; green when visited by the Aurora Borealis. And then there is the ever present moon, there at the end of the world. This hushed yet ferocious type of beauty is explored on Green Moss Black Sand. Along with the Lars Jansson Trio, Flosason captures the Nordic nuances with fervour and precision. Lars Jansson is a Swedish jazz pianist and a composer, and the Lars Jansson Trio counts Jansson as well as the Dane Thomas Fonnesbæk on double bass, and the Swede Paul Svanberg on drums. Flosason is from Iceland and is trained as a classical alto saxophonist. Although he primarily plays jazz, he has worked extensively with various Scandinavian musicians such as Cathrine Legardh, Kjeld Lauritsen, and Kristian Leth, and has composed both jazz music and classical pieces. The musicianship, generosity and friendship of the group make the musical images of rural Iceland come to life.

To begin a CD with an unaccompanied intro to a ballad indicates some confidence from the main soloist on this excellent double CD with the young talented American pianist Christian Sands in the company of the two Danes bass player Thomas Fonnesbæk who is said to be the next NHØP and a Montmartre legend the drummer Alex Riel. The music is recorded live in Jazzhus Montmartre, Copenhagen in October 2014. The three musicians had never met before, but already on the first evening they found their common beat and developed it through the next two concerts, which naturally led to the best takes being collected for this double CD.

Classical Music

Viento Zonda is Eric Vloeimans' new adventure that exudes the warmth of the Argentine breeze along the Andes. The gentle, even tickling sensation surprises as Eric and his musical brother, the virtuoso pianist Juan Pablo Dobal take the listener to new aural delight. Eric Vloeimans has been active in a wide variety of ensembles all over the years. He has toured the US twice with his acoustic 'chamber/jazz' 'Fugimundi' trio, featuring the surprising Anton Goudsmit on guitar and rising star Harmen Fraanje on piano. Their broad repertoire ranges from contemporary jazz, hymns, world music to occasional standards, all of which is presented with warmth and wit. His other band is Eric Vloeimans' Gatecrash, which features soundscape master Jeroen van Vliet on Fender Rhodes and keyboards, the inventive Gulli Gudmundsson on bass, electric basses and effects, and the up and coming Jasper van Hulten on drums.

Classical Music

The Polwechsel project has been exponential in defining new approaches to the composition/improvisation paradigm and in doing so have created a music that defined, examined and radically reassessed it's own genre. Each phase of Polwechsel has been marked by a defining document and the releases of their recordings have frequently book-ended trends and movements in improvisational and experimental music-Polwechsel has had a direct and profound influence on the agenda of a genre coined electro acoustic improvisation, for example On Archives of the North, Polwechsel has switched again. The unit has transformed itself by adding the two percussionists, and these works all deal the application of percussion as centrifuge. This is a generative music which stems and blooms from a controlled and deliberate structural center. This work ascends from common notions of musicality and sound production, where obliteration, feedback and the extraneous are emancipated into a fully blown dialect which could be defined as expanded technique. -Dean M. Roberts. Hatology. 2006.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This album is rooted in the personal. Mike Westbrook's enduring creative partnership with his wife, the singer, lyricist and painter Kate Westbrook is represented by two songs they wrote together. Starcross is a rail station nearby the Westbrook home in Devon, near Plymouth where his creative life began all those years ago. His title track is dedicated to the tenor saxophonist Lou Gare, whose death in 2017 was a particular wrench. Starcross Bridge is an intricately woven network of musical and personal references. Born in High Wycombe in 1936, Mike Westbrook grew up in Torquay and was educated at Kelly College, Tavistock. He formed his first band while studying painting in Plymouth in 1958, moving to London in the early 1960s. He has led and composed for a succession of groups, notably his 1960s Sextet and Concert Band, his Brass Band, formed in the mid 70s, the jazz rock group Solid Gold Cadillac and the Mike Westbrook Orchestra. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, and as far afield as Australia and the Far East, Canada and New York. He has directed performances of his work with big bands in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland and Australia. He has broadcast on radio and TV in many countries, and made over 50 albums.

Classical Music

Sammy Nestico, the composer-arranger known for his contributions to the Count Basie Orchestra library and whose name is familiar to anyone who’s played in a big band since the 1960s, recently has gone through a highly creative and productive phase. The rise of Nestico’s international profile has been sparked by a period of collaboration with the SWR Big Band of Germany that has produced several masterful albums, including No Time Like The Present (2004), Basie-Cally Sammy (2005), Fun Time (2009) and Fun Time And More (2011). The productive streak continues with this year’s A Cool Breeze, which finds the perpetually developing, 93-year-old orchestrator combining swing, soul, funk, fusion and symphonic expressions in a stylistic manner that’s distinctly modern yet undeniably Nestico. Unlike his previous SWR collaborations, Nestico (who’s based in San Diego) wasn’t able to travel to Germany for these recording sessions, but digital technology allowed him to participate via Skype and high-speed audio file transfer. His signature syncopations, volleying counterpoint passages, tensely stacked fourths, dramatic dynamics and tasteful manner of combining instrumental timbres are all manifest in the SWR Big Band’s impeccable, inspired performance. These dedicated musicians have become so adept at finessing and interpreting Nestico’s work that they actually transcend what’s on the printed page. They turn his carefully crafted charts into memorable works of art that will have toes tappin’ and fingers snappin’ for decades to come. - DownBeat Magazine Editors' Pick

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music