a kaleidoscopic view of music
This is where I will post my thoughts about my favorite classical or jazz CDs and sometimes survey the various recordings of a specific piece.
Folk music is a funny term these days. We refer to folk music as almost anything a singer/songwriter does with an acoustic instrument. Record stores in the 1970s, would put Simon and Garfunkel in the folk section, as was Dylan and Joan Baez, James Taylor. But the musicians who inspired those musicians were Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, … Continue reading New from Anna & Elizabeth : “The Invisible Comes to Us”
When The Hilliard Ensemble collaborated with Norwegian Jan Garbarek on Officium (ECM, 1994) and the follow-up Mnemosyne (ECM, 1999), who knew that the combination of vocal music, ranging from pre-AD Greece to contemporary times, would mesh so beautifully with the legendary saxophonist's soaring improvisations? With Being Dufay, released in 2009 on ECM's classical New Series imprint, the label has taken … Continue reading Dufay Re-Imagined by John Potter and Ambrose Field
Nothing Ever Was, Anyway: Music of Annette Peacock is an album by pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Paul Motian recorded in 1996 and released on the ECM label. Annette Peacock (born 1941) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, producer, arranger, and musician. She is a pioneer in electronic music who combined her voice with one of the first Moog synthesizers … Continue reading Nothing Ever Was, Anyway: Music of Annette Peacock
Stefano Battaglia (1965 , Milan) is an Italian classical and jazz pianist. He has played extensively on the international circuit, performing as a soloist with the European Youth Orchestra in Barcelona (1981), and winning the "J.S. Bach Festival" award in Düsseldorf as the best new pianist of the year (1986) and the Brussels National Radio Award as the best young European pianist … Continue reading Stefano Battaglia Trio : Interprets Alec Wilder
Tomasz Stańko is a Polish trumpeter, composer and improviser. Often recording for ECM Records, Stańko is strongly associated with free jazz and the avant-garde. Coming to prominence in the early 1960s alongside pianist Adam Makowicz in the Jazz Darings, Stańko later collaborated with pianist Krzysztof Komeda, notably on Komeda's pivotal 1966 album Astigmatic. In 1968, Stańko formed an acclaimed quintet that included Zbigniew Seifert on … Continue reading The Tomasz Stanko Quartets : Polish and New York
"If I don’t feel too good,” writes Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga, “I go to my studio and play one or two suites – it’s a mental cleansing process.” Plenty of musicians turn to Bach for solace or recalibration; the question is, who can translate that personal connection into something usefully meaningful to other people? Swiss … Continue reading Thomas Demenga : Bach Suites for Cello, summary of critical reviews
“I believe that the music belongs to the true interpreter, the true artist,” said 20th century Spanish composer and pianist Federico Mompou. “Here is the music. What does it suggest to you?” German cellist Anja Lechner and French pianist François Couturier took that challenge head-on in their album, Moderato cantabile. Though Moderato cantabile is Lechner and … Continue reading François Couturier : French pianist + Tarkovsky Quartet make genre-defying music
