Scriabin – Complete Poèmes
Garrick Ohlsson
Hyperion CDA67988

Titling a piano piece a “poem” is not mere affectation. Simon Nicholls’ disc notes are packed with examples of symbolist correspondences between the arts in Scriabin’s music. But on this recording of the complete Poèmes for piano, filled out with brief character pieces, the musical variety and originality of tonal structure, articulation and texture are to me more interesting than extra-musical associations. Garrick Ohlsson’s stylistic mastery makes it so.

A Chopinist among many other things, Ohlsson brings to the Chopin-influenced Scriabin’s early Deux poèmes, Op.32 moods of a sensuous nocturne (No.1) and an intense prelude (No.2). Ohlsson’s technique is clean and bass lines are well-organized. The exquisite Poème, Op.41 is melodically distinguished and full of pianistic colour in Ohlsson’s reading. Scriabin’s tonal explorations widened in his miniatures: the results range from caprice and wit (Scherzo, Op.46) through yearning (Quasi valse, Op.47) to languor (Rêverie, Op.49, No.3), the latter a unique take on the hoary sequence of fifths. Through attentive pedalling Ohlsson manages to balance and shape Fragility, Op.51, No.1, a favourite of mine, floating right hand chords over a left hand playing both melody (thumb) and accompaniment (fingers). Much more could be written about the remarkable late Poème-Nocturne, Op.61 and Vers la flame: poème, Op.72; it is in handling varied textures, fleeting motifs and nuanced dynamics within the overall nocturnal ambience that Ohlsson creates his magic.

Tchaikovsky – Symphony No.6 in B Minor, Pathétique
Vienna Symphony Orchestra;
Philippe Jordan
Wiener Symphoniker CD WS 006

This CD was issued late last year and has just come my way. It is rather special. Philippe Jordan is a young Swiss conductor, now 40, the son of conductor Armin Jordan. He is presently music director of the Opera National de Paris and conducts in opera houses around the world. Included in his operas on Opus Arte DVDs are the unforgettable Covent Garden Salome with Nadja Michael and the flamboyant Glyndebourne Carmen with Anne Sophie von Otter.

As the new chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Jordan turns in a meticulously prepared, articulate performance worthy of top honours among the legions of available recordings. Over the years conductors have fallen into the inherited conventions of drawing out the maximum drama and pathos at many accepted points in the score. And audiences attending concerts or at home look for and expect these.

Jordan does little more than make incremental changes in tempi which may be noted or not as we listen to the most refreshing performance around. The orchestra’s sound is easily distinguished from the Philharmonic, being not nearly as opulent but with impeccable ensemble and polish, particularly in the strings and winds. The listener may wish Jordan would let the orchestra loose at certain places but that doesn’t happen until the last movement and the climax of the entire work comes with the final outburst a few pages from the close.

In sum, all the conventional performance traditions are gone and a clearer Tchaikovsky emerges. The dynamic range of the performance is extraordinary, particularly in the first and last movements. Recorded in the Musikverein we are privy to every nuance, so well-captured in every detail.

Mahler – Symphonies 1 & 2
Camilla Tilling; Lilli Paasikivi; Frankfurt RSO; Paavo Järvi
Cmajor 718008

The genial Paavo Järvi, scion of his ubiquitous father Neeme’s musical clan, is evidently well-regarded in Frankfurt where he served as music director of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2002-2013. During his tenure there he presented a televised broadcast cycle of Mahler symphonies for Hessian Radio which is only now reaching these shores on the C major label. The First Symphony was filmed in the spa town of Wiesbaden in 2012. It is a curiously inconsistent performance, the highlight of which is a superbly paced third movement. I was quite taken aback to find Järvi’s take on the Scherzo movement stealing a move from the 2009 playbook of Gustavo Dudamel, namely broadening the first four bars of the bass ostinato in an oafish manner then gradually and elegantly leading into a lively dance tempo. Unlike Dudamel, in Järvi’s hands the gesture is merely clumsy and inconsistent. The grand finale is well enough done but suffers from incompetent video direction: a clear shot of the stunning coup de théâtre of all seven horns standing for the triumphant final peroration of the movement is totally missed! In sum this performance brings to mind the saying attributed to Samuel Johnson: “The part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”

The presentation of the Second Symphony fares far better. It was filmed at the former monastery of Kloster Eberbach over the course of two afternoons in June 2010. The extraneous studio lighting in daylight gives the unexceptional 720x480 video a decidedly washed-out look and the unfortunate Järvi sweats profusely, resembling an anxious Vladimir Putin caught under a searchlight. The performance of the first movement is solid though underwhelming, with Järvi applying an unusually broad tempo to the lyrical secondary theme and a rather too fast tempo in the coda. Matters improve considerably in the following movements, with a coyly fetching Menuetto and a Scherzo à la Bernstein being most impressive for the care taken to deal with the abbey’s long echoes. The penultimate “Urlicht” movement features the heartfelt mezzo solo of Lilli Paasikivi, who also excels in the subsequent movement. The performance catches fire in the Finale with an impressively frightening and tightly played “march of the dead” development section. Sadly, the combined NDR/Bavarian Radio choruses are set so far back in the apse of the cloister that their hushed entrance for the movement’s grand apotheosis is barely audible; furthermore the voice of the soprano soloist Camilla Tilling is intended to emerge imperceptibly from this choir but as she is placed far to the front of the orchestra the effect is ruined. Fortunately the dome above them serves as an effective resonator for the resounding passages later on. There is also an organ to be heard – though mysteriously unseen – in the closing pages. The DVD will certainly be of interest to Järvi fans and the orchestra is quite a fine one but the mundane television production values fail to approach the superb videos of Claudio Abbado from the Lucerne Festival.

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Review

If you listen to Classical 96.3FM on anything resembling a regular basis you’ve probably heard the Israeli mandolinist Avi Avital’s astonishing rendition of Monti’s Czárdas (if you haven’t, you can always watch it on YouTube). It certainly meant that I approached his latest CD, Avi Avital Vivaldi (Deutsche Grammophon B0022627-02) with keen anticipation, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The mandolin has its roots in 17th- and 18th-century Italian music, and is particularly well suited to the style of Vivaldi. The composer’s one concerto for the instrument, the Concerto in C Major RV425, is featured here along with three concertos, a sonata and a short movement all transcribed for mandolin by Avital.

Two of the concertos – the A Minor RV356 and the G Minor RV315, “Summer,” from The Four Seasons, were originally for violin, and work particularly well on the mandolin, the two instruments sharing the same tuning. The Concerto in D Major RV93 was originally for lute. These are not huge pieces – the RV356 and RV425 concertos are both three-movement works less than eight minutes in length – but the predominantly upbeat tempos and Avital’s clean, agile playing along with the lovely, light and airy accompaniment by the Venice Baroque Orchestra make for delightful listening.

The Trio Sonata in C Major RV82, originally for violin and lute, features a beautifully full continuo sound contributed by harpsichord, lute and cello. The short movement is the Largo from the Concerto in C Major RV443, originally for flautino.

Avital is joined by tenor Juan Diego Flórez in a beautiful rendition of the traditional Venetian song La biondina in gondoleta, which provides a lovely end to an extremely pleasant and entertaining CD.

Listen

Vivaldi; Concerto in D Major RV 93: Allegro
https://play.spotify.com/track/2OsO19kCeXjCrJqitlq2as

Vivaldi: Concerto in D Major: Largo
https://play.spotify.com/track/6G377DZPKd693H0PVBkOPt

Vivaldi: Concerto in D Major: Allegro
https://play.spotify.com/track/5hvUGrBw6VlITon2yniLdE

Buy

https://grigorian.com/webstore/view.php?iid=2124527

Permutations is the third CD from the American violist Eliesha Nelson, with pianist James Howsmon (Sono Luminus DSL-92186). The theme of the CD is American Classical Music and the Viola, although the earliest work on the disc only dates from 1953.

At first sight the opening work seems out of place, but the contemporary Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin has been greatly influenced by American jazz. His Sonata for Viola and Piano Op.69 doesn’t have quite the frenetic quality of his astonishing piano études, but is a spiky, jazzy work with a Gershwinesque middle movement.

The Two Pieces for Solo Viola by John McLaughlin Williams are a real tour de force, and Nelson is particularly outstanding in the technically demanding Toccata, with its echoes of the Dies Irae.

The Second Sonata for Viola and Piano by Ross Lee Finney (1906-97) is a 12-tone work, but this is serialism clearly influenced by the Romanticism of Alban Berg, and an extremely effective composition.

Wending, by Jeffrey Mumford (b.1955) is another challenging but very interesting solo work that draws another terrific performance from Nelson.

The Sonata for Viola and Piano by George Walker (b.1922) is an atonal – but quite accessible – work written in 1989. Another excellent performance by both artists rounds out a really interesting CD.

As with her previous CD of Russian Viola Sonatas, I find Nelson’s viola sound a bit nasal and tight at times, but her playing here really makes the most of the instrument’s full tonal range and colour. In addition to the standard CD, the package comes with a Pure Audio Blu-ray CD equipped with the mShuttle application, enabling you to access portable copies of the tracks on the disc.

Homages – A Musical Dedication is the latest CD from Swiss guitarist Christoph Denoth, and presents a fairly traditional recital of predominantly Spanish compositions spanning more than four centuries (Signum Classics SIGCD404).

There are short pieces here by Joaquín Malats y Miarons, Luis de Narváez, Miguel Llobet, Fernando Sor, Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Turina, Isaac Albéniz and Joaquín Rodrigo, but the centrepiece of the CD is music by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. His Schottish-Chôro is the second movement of his Suite popular brasileira, but the real gem here is Denoth’s performance of the five Preludes, four of them written as a specific homage to aspects of Brazilian life and one reflecting the influence of Bach’s music on the composer. The CD’s title connection is quite clear here, although with some of the other works on the disc it’s somewhat tenuous at best.

Still, no matter, for this is a lovely and substantial (over 70 minutes) program, beautifully played, and with a clear, resonant and not-too-close recording quality.

It’s been a while since I’ve received anything featuring the terrific French cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand, but she’s back with her regular partner, pianist Pascal Amoyel, on Chopin: 1846, dernière année à Nohant (harmonia mundi HMC 902199). The CD celebrates Chopin’s last summer on his lover George Sand’s estate, where he had spent seven years composing the majority of his works; the two would finally separate the following year. The beautiful Cello Sonata in G Minor Op.65, the last work published during Chopin’s lifetime, is at the heart of the CD, while Amoyel takes the spotlight for performances of the Barcarolle Op.60, the three Mazurkas Op.63, the three Valses Op.64, the Mazurka Op.67, No. 4 and the two Nocturnes Op.62.

The Cello Sonata wasn’t completed until the time of Chopin’s separation from Sand in July 1847. It’s a strong, turbulent work that is given a passionate and nuanced performance by Bertrand and Amoyel, who clearly have an innate understanding of how each other plays. Amoyel’s sensitive interpretations of the solo piano pieces, beautifully recorded, are a pure delight.

The music of the Polish Soviet composer Mieczysław Weinberg, 3 friend and colleague of Dmitri Shostakovich, certainly seems to be turning up on CD more frequently these days. The Swedish conductor Thord Svedlund has already directed four Chandos Super Audio CDs of Weinberg’s concertos and symphonies, and now conducts the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra in excellent performances of Weinberg’s Chamber Symphonies Nos.3 and 4 (Chandos CHSA 5146).

Both works, from 1990 and 1992 respectively, were written late in the composer’s life, although three of the four movements of the Chamber Symphony No.3 Op.151 for string orchestra recycle material from his 1945 String Quartet No.5.

The Chamber Symphony No.4 Op.153 was the last work Weinberg completed, and is scored for string orchestra with obbligato clarinet and triangle, the latter having just four notes in the entire piece. It incorporates quotes from some of Weinberg’s earlier works, but apparently was never intended as a summation of his life and work.

It’s difficult to know exactly what to say about Ludovico Einaudi – Portrait, the new CD from Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà (Analekta AN 2 8738). It’s very similar in content to some of her previous CDs, which will be good or not so good news depending on your point of view.

The Portrait series presents contemporary composers who write with what Dubeau calls a unique musical signature, although Glimpse might be a more accurate title. Einaudi is a classically trained composer and pianist who has achieved great commercial success in what is generally termed the World Music field, and is represented here by 13 short pieces with titles like Life, Experience, Run, Time Lapse and Giorni dispari.

Eleven of the pieces, though, are arrangements by François Vallière and Angèle Dubeau – what Dubeau calls “rethinking its character while bringing a new sonic dimension;” moreover, they are nearly all essentially the same length, hovering around the five-minute mark – a cynic might think with radio playlists clearly in mind.

They also tend to sound much the same: there is very little harmonic, rhythmic or melodic variation or adventure, and while they are clearly well-crafted, attractive and communicative on a certain level there is very little change of mood.

The booklet notes again highlight Dubeau’s career album sales figures, which are in excess of an astonishing 500,000; it’s easy to hear why. Dubeau’s CDs in this particular vein may well be aimed at a specific commercial market, but with excellent arrangements of pleasant, undemanding popular music, beautifully played and recorded, they nevertheless unfailingly provide high quality performances of music that clearly continues to appeal to many.

It’s probably a bit too simplistic to say that if you hear a string work that sounds like some Dvořák that you haven’t heard before, then it’s probably by his son-in-law Josef Suk (although that certainly works for the Serenade for Strings) but there’s no getting away from the huge similarities in their music.

Josef Suk Complete Works for String Quartet is a new 2-CD set featuring the Minguet Quartett (cpo/Deutschlandfunk cpo 777 652-2). CD1 has the two String Quartets, while CD2 has a selection of short single movements as well as the Piano Quintet Op.8, in which the Minguet is joined by pianist Matthias Kirschnereit.

The String Quartet No.1 in B-Flat Major Op.11 is an early work from 1896, when Suk was 22, and is a lovely work with a particularly beautiful slow movement. Not surprisingly, there’s a good deal of Smetana influence here as well. Some 20 years later Suk revisited the work and re-wrote the final movement, although the resulting Quartet movement in B-Flat Major, also included here, never established itself as part of the complete work.

In the String Quartet No.2 Op.31 from 1910-11 we are in a quite different world; the Bohemian feel of Dvořák and Smetana is still there, but there is a heightened chromaticism – particularly in the second movement – and an almost Impressionistic character to the writing.

The Piano Quintet in G Minor Op.8 is another early work, from 1888, but was revised by Suk in 1915; it is again redolent of Dvořák, but the combination of its purely Romantic themes with Suk’s more modern later style makes for some interesting moments.

Two of the four short pieces that complete CD2 had their origins in early works: the Minuet in G Major from 1911 first appeared in two piano works a dozen years earlier; and the Barcarolle is a 1923 re-working of a middle movement from an early 1888 string quartet that Suk did not include in his list of recognized works.

The Ballade in D Minor was one of three Ballades the teenage Suk wrote in 1890, and the Meditation on the Old Bohemian Hymn “St. Wenceslas” Op.35a is a patriotic piece written in 1914. All four short pieces are quite delightful.

Performance and recording standards are fine throughout.

It’s always gratifying when you have no idea what to expect from a CD and it turns out to be an absolute delight. That’s exactly what happened with Northern Lights, a new Super Audio Hybrid CD that covers a period of more than 150 years of Scandinavian music and features violinist Kathrin Ten Hagen and the Folkwang Kammerorchester under Johannes Klumpp (ARS 38 157).

Solitude sur la Montagne is composer Johan Svendsen’s string orchestra arrangement of the lovely Herd-Girl’s Sunday by the 19th-century Norwegian violin virtuoso Ole Bull. It’s a short, wistful melody with more than a touch of Grieg (Bull’s brother was Grieg’s uncle).

The Latvian Peteris Vasks (b. 1946) is one of three composers on this CD whose work I didn’t know. His Vox amoris: Fantasy for violin and string orchestra is a quite lovely tonal work that draws some simply beautiful playing from Ten Hagen.

Sweden’s Kurt Atterberg (1887-1974) wrote his Suite No.3 Op.19, 1 for violin, viola and string orchestra in 1917. It’s a short, accessible work in three movements in which Ten Hagen is joined by violist Itamar Ringel.

Anders Eliasson (1947-2013) was also Swedish, and is represented here by his Concerto for violin and string orchestra from 1992. It’s quite different to anything else on the CD – very rhythmic, energetic and complex, and tonally quite challenging.

Sibelius’ Suite for violin and string orchestra Op.117 from 1929 was written at the prompting of Carl Fischer, his American publisher, who then decided that the work wouldn’t be profitable and did not publish it. It remained unpublished during Sibelius’ lifetime, and wasn’t performed until 1990. Its three short movements – Country Scenery, Evening in Spring and In the Summer – are everything you would expect them to be, and bring an entertaining and highly satisfying CD to a close.

Nordic Concertos
Martin Fröst; Various Orchestras
Bis BIS-2123 CD

This disc is a repackaging of previous recordings, made between 1996 and 2003. The four performances feature four different orchestras and conductors. Three of the works are from modern or contemporary Nordic composers, the last from the early Romantic. They all demonstrate Fröst’s mastery of the clarinet.

Fröst plays his strongest card at the outset. Peacock Tales by Anders Hillborg is an exciting work tailored to Fröst’s outrageous abilities (which include dance). After an unaccompanied prologue the orchestra enters to provide the frame and backdrop for the peacock’s haunted cries. A Turkish March, Big Band Battle and Gallop Macabre follow in harrowing sequence. A return to the opening material is accompanied this time by Copland-sweetened harmonies, and after some super-fast pointillist boogie-woogie, the piano and clarinet join in a last melancholic duet.

Concerto No.3, Op.21 by neo-classicist Vagn Holmboe opens with a fanfare followed by a mournful solo (must be a Nordic thing). The exceedingly prolific Holmboe produced over 400 works, including 13 symphonies and 21 string quartets along with more than a dozen concertos for varying instrumental combinations. Op.21 is listenable and satisfying, a clean spare aesthetic. It’s suit and tie music, comfortable and finely cut.

Karin Rehnqvist’s tone poem On A Distant Shore is the dourest of them all. Its five sections are The Dark (another brooding soliloquy!); The Light (blinding rather than illuminating); The Wild  (ferocious, carnivorous music); The Singing (more pavane than song); and The Call (a call for…to…of… siren or seagull?). Understated and masterful writing.

Barging in on the solemn proceedings, like a jolly elder relative drunk at a funeral, Bernard Henrik Crusell’s Introduction, Theme and Variations on a Swedish Air qualifies on account of its Nordic provenance. Why not include Nielsen’s wonderful concerto instead? Perhaps it would have been one too many melancholic flights through madness.

Stravinsky – Concerto for Piano and Winds; Capriccio; Movements; Petrouchka
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet; São Paulo Symphony Orchestra; Yan Pascal Tortelier
Chandos CHSA 5147

In addition to his frequent appearances as a conductor of his own music, the illustrious genius known as Igor Stravinsky composed a number of concertos for his exclusive use as a pianist, ready alternatives to the all-too-familiar requests for yet another performance of the Firebird Suite. A stunning new Stravinsky recording by the esteemed pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet brings together these concertos and then some.

Stravinsky’s 1924 Concerto for piano and wind instruments opens this excellent disc, followed by the Capriccio for piano and orchestra from 1929. Both works are delightful concoctions from the composer’s carefree French epoch, teeming with bonhomie and sparkling wit and recorded in flatteringly crystalline sound. Movements for piano and orchestra (1959) is late Stravinsky and represents the culmination of a growing interest in the serial techniques advocated by his arch-nemesis Arnold Schoenberg after the latter’s death in 1951. This is an intentionally esoteric work that may puzzle some listeners though connoisseurs will recognize here a very fine and scrupulous reading. The disc concludes with a fiery performance of the 1947 version of the ballet score Pétrouchka, a work that was originally conceived as a piano concerto. An audibly grunting Yan Pascal Tortelier elicits an electric response from the excellent São Paulo musicians while Bavouzet delights in playing the prominent piano part from inside the orchestra. The recording of this densely orchestrated work suffers at times from congested orchestral balances (notably so in The Shrove Tide Fair section) that pale in comparison with Stravinsky’s own 1960 recording, brilliantly mixed by the late John McClure and still my personal favourite.

Points of Departure
Nicholas Papador
Centrediscs CMCCD 20715

University of Windsor Associate Professor of Percussion Nicholas Papador is a powerhouse performer with wide-ranging subtleties in his playing as showcased in this new release.

Papador’s own A Very Welcome written for his wife and newborn son employs extended intervals in each hand using four mallets. Subtle dynamic and colour shifts are especially breathtaking in the sections with simultaneous very high and very low pitches. Isabelle Panneton’s Les petites reprises is a harmonically rooted marimba work exploring French and Japanese chromatic expressionism which perhaps requires more intense listening to be fully appreciated. In Nicholas Gilbert’s quasi-programmatic Ariane endormie, an exhausted dreaming Ariane’s fitful sleep is recreated with vibraphone modulating chords, motor and silent or subtle swelling phrase changes.

Inspired by South Indian drumming, François Rose’s Points d’emergence is scored for three each of metals, drums and wood instruments sharing three pitches. Papador’s rhythmic precision avoids a counting train wreck in the tricky opening three minutes where Rose gradually shortens each of the section’s seven phrases to create an impressive accelerando feel. Back to more vibraphone with Linda C. Smith’s lyrical and calming Invisible Cities. Smith’s exploration of the instrument’s sonic textures and capabilities results in a work of lush sonorities and splashes of shifting moods performed with virtuosic attention. Night Chill for marimba and electronics has composer Christien Ledroit drawing on punk and world music influences to evoke the rustling and bareness of autumn.

Papador’s commitment and passion for Canadian solo percussion repertoire drives this exemplary recording. Enjoy!

Tundra Songs – Music by Derek Charke
Kronos Quartet; Tanya Tagaq
Centrediscs CMCCD 21015

The story of the music on this extraordinary album is multi-faceted and interwoven with transcultural skeins. Allow me to tease out a few threads.

On one hand all the music is composed by the JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Derek Charke (b. 1974). He is also a flutist and a composition and theory professor at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. On the other hand the gifted young storyteller Laakkuluk Willamson Bathory is the only presence on track 7, reciting a gripping Green-landic version of the creation story that exists all across Inuit lands, the Sassuma Arnaa. She remarks that “we don’t so much own this story as we belong to it,” keeping it alive through retelling it today, “despite intensive colonization and religious conversion…”

That story is retold in Clarke’s exhilarating 30-minute opus Tundra Songs (2007) by the third presence on the CD, the Polaris Music Prize-winning Inuk avant-garde vocalist Tanya Tagaq. Her masterful virtuoso vocal presence, at times taking on the multilayered quality of two Inuit women throat gamers and at others the innocence of childhood, domi-nates this work of vast scope.

The fourth element on the album is perhaps the best known to music lovers: the renowned Kronos Quartet. In over four decades, specializing in modernist, post-modernist and wide-ranging world music collaborations, they have been astonishingly productive, commissioning more than 800 works and arrangements. I have seen them several times live and they never fail to engage their audience musically, and also often inter-culturally. They do both in this album.

In Tundra Songs the most substantial work here, the story being told is of the Arctic, its soundscape, animals and peo-ple. The telling accumulates several layers including Charke’s Nunavut field recordings and his polished string quartet score brought to life by Kronos’ brilliant string playing. Also featured in the sweeping mix are studio-produced sounds, a regional origin myth, and a star turn vocal performance by Tagaq who just won a 2015 JUNO Award for her album Animism. As the North becomes more readily accessible – I did my first Arctic Skype sessions last year – so too the world is slowly learning to open its ears and hearts to its remarkable music and musicians.

Swingin’ on the Korner
Red Garland Trio
Elemental Records 5990426
(elemental-music.com)

Red Garland brought an electric brightness to the piano, whether playing block chords or scintillating runs; Philly Joe Jones, a polyrhythmic master, was perhaps the most explosive drummer in jazz history. They were key parts of one of the greatest bands in that history, Miles Davis’ mid-50s quintet, until Davis fired them in 1958 for unreliability. This two-CD set catches the two of them nearly 20 years later during a week in December 1977 at San Francisco’s Keystone Korner, anchored by the fine bassist Leroy Vinnegar, a worthy partner. Garland had gone through stretches of retirement by then, and Jones was less prominent than when he propelled many of hard bop’s greatest records, but if they were supposed to go gently into that good night, the two hadn’t gotten the message. The genre never burned more brightly.

The music is almost entirely standards, drawn from Garland’s vast repertoire, including a sweetly balladic rendition of the obscure If I’m Lucky, a signature swinging arrangement of Billy Boy and a soulful version of Bags’ Groove that celebrates Garland’s mastery of blues. Familiarity feeds the trio’s fervour: this is joyous, raw music, touching, even reckless. Sometimes subtle, Garland can match Jones for sheer ferocious energy; Jones creates wild oblique patterns with thundering drums, building complex, melodic solos against a beat that’s only implied.

The set includes extensive interviews and memories of Garland from some noted critics and musicians: it’s the first such tribute to a pianist who deserves far more attention.

Reflective Drime
Subtle Lip Can
Drip Audio DA01030 (dripaudio.com)

Featuring music as off-centre as its name, Subtle Lip Can has created a fascinating CD of heavy metal, as if instead of headbanging, that term described subtly abrasive instrumental techniques expanded by electronics. Consisting of vio-linist Josh Zubot, guitarist Bernard Falaise and drummer Isaiah Ceccarelli, the members of the Montreal-based trio add jazz-like improv and suspended minimalism to ten tracks which otherwise are rife with industrial clamors and the blaring drones found in rock music.

Improvisers above all, the trio members’ skillfully abrasive textures are unique and frequently unattributable. Ceccarelli’s beats relate as often to tuned gamelan orchestra resonations or intermittent percussion pulses as to unyielding steady timekeeping. Meanwhile the preparation and processes appended by the string players mask their instruments’ imme-diate identity as well as appending reed-like vibratos and electronic oscillations to the program.

To get an idea of the trio’s range compare Shuffle Stomp and Fliver Shame which follow one another on the disc. With a sound midway between a gas explosion and a runaway train, the first soars as it cunningly utilizes guitar reverb and flanges to animate the drummers’ named shuffle beat. The latter tune builds its microtonal narrative from wetted-finger slides across drum tops meeting spiccato plinks and scrubs from the strings. Spacey sideband delays presage a movie soundtrack-like theme on a track like Toss Filler Here, climaxing with a pleasant melody that eventually erupts from sluicing fiddle jumps, popping vibes-like reverberations and clacking percussion accents. As machine-processed abrasions and acoustic calmness echo through Reflective Drime, the trio reaches a gripping conclusion with the final Too Pins Over. Consisting of Lyricon-like peeps and processed tremolo lines, no particular instrument predominates so that the opaque spellbinding drone appears unyielding and infinite until without warning it halts.
Overall, the improvisers who make up Subtle Lip Can create music that’s as inimitable as the band’s name.

Major improvisers from elsewhere frequently play Toronto, but not as often do they appear with an all-star lineup. That’s what happens on April 29 when alto saxophonist Tim Berne’s Snakeoil is in concert at the Music Gallery. Berne, who has been on the cutting edge of advanced jazz for 30-odd years, arrives with three younger players who have distinguished themselves on the New York scene: fellow reedist Oscar Noriega, pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Ches Smith. This being the 21st century and past the age of consistently working groups, each – including Berne – is involved in many other projects.

As one instance of sampling skills in another context, consider T-Duality (Auand Records AU 9041 auand.com). Although leader, erudite Italian drummer Ananda Gari wrote all seven tracks, he’s backed by three Americans: bassist Michael Formanek, guitarist Rez Abbasi and Berne. Confident enough of his skills that he confines his solo fireworks to Fields – which include no drum bludgeoning but many ratamacue slaps plus refined cymbal clatter – Gari frames the others’ playing with supportive beats. Additionally egged on by Formanek’s buzzing bass line, frontliners Abbasi and Berne carve unique geometric patterns out of the drummer’s compositions. Capable of harsh double-stopping runs, the guitarist’s ringing lines are more often fully developed harmonically such as on Last Drops, where when twinned with Berne’s glissandi they could be setting up I Cover the Waterfront. However, Gari’s Mylar pressure plus the saxman’s twittering slides confirm that this isn’t the familiar ballad. Berne’s cascading puffs also colour the stop-time Never Late when his lowing brightness pulls out the theme atop Formanek’s strummed bass lines. Clattering drum ruffs plus walking bass clobbers set up Don’t Forget to Pet Your Cat, as a blues, until Berne’s plush mellowness knifes upwards to poignant screech tones, with the theme tossed back and forth between reed bites and linear horn-like motions from the guitarist. Then on the extended Are You Kidding Me the alto man distends and deconstructs the theme with riffing melismatic slurs and tonal sky rockets, urged on by Gari’s hard thumps and crying string bends.

Berne isn’t Snakeoil’s only attraction however. Drummer Smith is at home in genres from ProgRock to melodic jazz. One facet of his talent is aptly demonstrated on Orphic Machine (BAG Productions BAG 007 bagproductionrecords.com), where his subtle yet driving rhythms underline the music clarinetist Ben Goldberg composed to interpret ten of Allen Grossman’s poems. With a driving nine-piece band amplifying violinist Carla Kihlstedt’s verbalization of the poetry, Smith’s responses are generic to mood maintenance. His heavy beat matched with Greg Cohen’s bass on the title tune casts into bolder relief pianist Myra Melford’s gorgeously constructed piano intro which provokes the harmonic melding of lyrical clarinet breaths and the words’ skewed imagery. Meanwhile, his slide from the opening martial beat which confirms the solipsistic words of Immortality (“the function of poetry is to obtain for everyone one kind of success”) to repetitive judicious taps, provides a contrast to the violin’s and piano’s vocal backing and a framework within which Rob Sudduth’s tough tenor saxophone and Goldberg’s melancholy clarinet echo one another’s lines. In the meantime Smith’s crackling cymbal rhythms on one hand and suggestions of conga resonation on the other during What Was That, confirm the cool jazz mood otherwise expressed by Ron Miles’ lyrical muted trumpet and the clarinetist’s reed slides. Of course Goldberg’s arrangements and the others’ contributions are as responsible for the CD’s achievement as Smith. How else to explain the exhilaration that results from a piece like Care? Mixing Kihlstedt’s high-pitched vocalization with rugged twangs from guitarist Nels Cline plus matching vibes resonation with Goldberg’s swing era-like trills expands the piece to such an extent that the exposition splits into parallel lines. Cascading horn pumps provide the rhythm; connective strings the melody; and additional shading comes from Kenny Wollesen’s chime ringing. Nonetheless, cementing the parts together is Smith’s unforced beat.

With Berne and Noriega, pianist Mitchell demonstrates his skill working with two powerful reed voices and he fulfills a similar function on Sonic Halo (Challenge Records CR 73370 challengerecords.com). Here though it’s Tineke Postma from the Netherlands and American Greg Osby, both playing alto and soprano saxophones, with bassist Linda Oh and drummer Dan Weiss completing the quintet. Modern mainstream, the compositions are divided between the two horn players who likewise have similar tones. With perceptive intensity and moderated timbres, the pianist seconds both saxophonists, feeding them peppy phrases or comping decisively to extend the dynamic flow. The pattern is set on tunes such as Source Code where Mitchell’s outpouring of measured timbres underlines the initial duple-metre expansion from the soprano saxophone, and keeps the theme grounded as the alto saxophone adds an edgy slant. Operating from his instrument’s lowest register, the pianist’s perceptive swing reintroduces and reinforces the head even as reeds double tongue and drums crash. His polished harmonies don’t stand in the way of Mitchell contributing a hard-hitting pulse that locks in with Weiss’ roughest ruffs on Nine Times a Night. His heightened cross chords and the drummer’s hard rolls put into starker relief how the upfront horns vibrate the high-pitched theme in unison, moving chromatically a half step apart. Other tracks such as Melo are pleasant interludes with walking bass, rattling drums and swelling piano tones introducing an effervescent tune eventually toughened by sharp soprano bites. Glissandi and note torrents characterize Pleasant Affliction, the concluding piece which gives Mitchell the most scope to range over the keyboard with sparkling intensity, but never to the extent that Postma or Osby are overshadowed or outplayed. The ending links one altoist’s warm flutter tonguing with the piano’s key-clicking echoes.

Besides seconding Berne as clarinetist in Snakeoil, Noriega has distinguished himself in larger bands such as pianist Satoko Fujii’s Orchestra New York. On Shiki (Libra Records 215-036), his lead alto saxophone work helps direct the ever-shifting background that the pianist has arranged for her sophisticated compositions. It’s he who likely participates in the reed slurs and brass mouthpiece kisses that characterize Gen Himmel, a melancholy tune Fujii wrote honouring a deceased bassist, which is otherwise driven by quasi-military pacing from drummer Aaron Alexander and funeral cries from trumpeter Natsuki Tamura, who, along with Fujii, was the bassist’s band mate. Although no soloists are listed, it’s likely Tamura, playing an open horn, fellow trumpeter Herb Robertson, muted, and the modern gutbucket style of trombonist Joe Fiedler who are the soloists on the title tune, a multi-part, 36-minute opus. Weaving among swelling reed buzzes and brass whimpers, the soloists, including tough snorts from tenor saxophonists Tony Malaby and Ellery Eskelin echo and compound passing tones until place-marking crescendos are reached. With Alexander’s chunky and hard-hitting beats and Stomu Takeishi’s sometime slap-bass accents providing unvarnished swing beneath them, space is left for almost-vocalized trombone slur, plunger trumpet blasts and corkscrew vibrations from one of the saxophonists. With the sequences knit into undulating whole cloth by Fujii’s talents, the track finally subsides into a balladic mode led by Andy Laster’s baritone saxophone plus tremolo grace notes from the seven brass players. Warming and downshifting textures finally usher in a finale of balanced grace notes.

Each member of Snakeoil has been proven to be a distinct stylist in different circumstances. Seeing them interact should be fascinating and instructive.

Concert Note: Tim Berne’s Snakeoil with Oscar Noriega, Matt Mitchell and Ches Smith appear at the Music Galley April 29. Trevor Watts and Veryan Weston are at the same venue April 24.

Perfection isn’t usually in the equation for jazz recordings, but guitarist Reg Schwager’sDelphinus (Rant 1447, nette.ca/jazzfromrant) comes very close, with a balance of polish, spontaneity and depth of expression. Schwager draws much of his inspiration from Northern climes (the same that feed the aesthetic of ECM records), evident on the opening Resolute (named for the Nunavut town) and the title track (named for a Northern constellation) and reaching its apotheosis on The Lonesome Scenes of Winter, a stunning treatment of a strongly modal folk ballad. Schwager’s music is filled with the crystalline clarity and bright highs of sunlight glancing off ice and starlight far from cities, and it extends to the rest of his quartet, pianist Don Thompson, bassist Neil Swainson and drummer Michel Lambert, a group that can move comfortably from Jerome Kern’s They Didn’t Believe Me to the free jazz of Schwager’s Four Eyes.

Bassist Rob Clutton stands out for the breadth of his affiliations, working regularly from the mainstream (pianist Steve Koven’s trio) through free jazz (Drumheller) to experimental electronica (Lina Allemano’s Titanium Riot). He’s also a highly creative bandleader when he assumes the role, amalgamating elements of free improvisation, electronica and folk music. They’re all evident on The Cluttertones’ Ordinary Joy (Healing Power Records HPR#30 healingpowertoronto.bandcamp.com), sometimes on a single track. Working with longtime associates Allemano on trumpet; Ryan Driver on analog synthesizer, piano and voice (a reedy high tenor reminiscent of Robert Wyatt’s); and Tim Posgate on guitar and banjo, Clutton composes pieces that begin with the improbable and sometimes approach the uncanny, strange states of musical mind in which the heterodox elements seem to tune calmly to a new standard. The nine-minute Agosto is a fine example, Clutton’s warm, springy, lyrical pizzicato blending through and linking the divergent impulses of banjo, trumpet and synth.

Kirk MacDonald is a powerhouse tenor saxophonist whose mature style matches fierce rhythmic drive with focussed emotion and the sound of controlled aggression. His latest CD, Vista Obscura (Addo Records AJR025, addorecords.com), is a career high, winner of the 2015 JUNO award for Jazz Album of the Year, Solo. It presents MacDonald with the stellar rhythm section of bassist Neil Swainson and drummer André White, veteran American pianist Harold Mabern adding a special drive to the proceedings as well as his own animated solos. The CD is largely focused around MacDonald’s effective originals, but there’s also a special dimension to the set. Every September, MacDonald and fellow tenor saxophonist Pat LaBarbera pay homage to John Coltrane’s genius at Toronto’s Rex Jazz and Blues Bar. Here MacDonald opens with an intense, faster-than-usual trip through Trane’s Lonnie’s Lament; LaBarbera joins him for three tunes here: one is a brilliant extended version of Naima, Coltrane’s best-known ballad, entirely worthy of the Coltrane legacy.

MacDonald and LaBarbera (along with Mike Murley and Perry White) have long set a standard for mainstream Toronto tenor saxophonists – as educators as well as performers – and the legacy is evident in two very different players who have recently emerged. Dave Neill and Johnny Griffith are both graduates of the Master of Jazz Performance program at the University of Toronto (where Murley teaches), and both teach at Toronto’s Humber College.

Z [zee] 
Zeynep Ozbilen
Independent (zeynepozbilen.com)

Where would the 1969 Blood Sweat and Tears’ jazz fusion hit Spinning Wheel by Canadian singer David Clayton-Thomas receive a caliente Latin-inflected remake by Toronto bandleader and arranger Roberto Linares Brown (leaning heavily on the original influential Grammy Award-winning arrangement by Fred Lipsius), but infused with Turkish lyrics by the singer Zeynep Ozbilen? In Toronto, that’s where. Titled Donme Dolap, the song is among the delights of Z [zee].

While the individual tracks were recorded in cities emblematic of the music genres represented – Istanbul, Miami, NYC and Toronto – the album was produced, mixed and mastered in Toronto. I mention the geography and its implied cultural shifts because it accurately reflects the hybrid musical aesthetics and artistic ambitions of Ozbilen, aided by her producer and band leader Brown.

This album with the single consonant title (given the American pronunciation), is the newest project of Turkish-born, now Toronto-based singer and songsmith Zeynep Ozbilen. For over a decade she was the lead vocalist for the Latin All Stars, the first and best-known Latin group in Turkey. Her warm throaty alto is equally at home in jazz and musical standards as in Anatolian, Balkan and Ladino songs. The lyrics on Z [zee] underscore this multiculturalism, smoothly negotiating between Turkish, English and Spanish.

The skillful fingerprints of Roberto Linares Brown are all over the album too, infusing his knowledge of multiple Latin styles into skillful horn-rich arrangements and delivering understated keyboard performances. While not every song here will make it into my personal heavy rotation, the album as a whole encourages my hybrid musical heart to sing – and to kick off those winter boots and dance.

Pierre Boulez turns 90 this year and DG honors the milestone in two limited edition sets, one of which is Pierre Boulez – 20th Century (DG 4794282, 44 CDs). Packaged in the familiar cube, the set contains every recording that Boulez made with DG of music composed during the last century. There are 13 composers represented, some of them familiar and some that are not exactly household names.

Born in Loire, France, Boulez early showed an aptitude for music and mathematics. He studied mathematics in Loire but music led him to the Paris Conservatoire and Olivier Messiaen whose analysis classes introduced him to the 12-tone technique of composition. Today he is regarded by his peers as composer, conductor, teacher and essayist, in that order. Simon Rattle stated that “There is a whole generation of us who were completely educated by Boulez.” As a composer, his output remains strange to the ears of many music lovers but Boulez the teacher states that to prepare a performance, an analysis of the score must be the first step. “True spontaneity comes only after analysis.” This works very well for much of the music by 20th-century composers, his performances being regarded as definitive and his recordings lauded far and wide. I recall having my high expectations exceeded attendinf a concert on May 22, 1969 in the Royal Festival Hall’s 20th Century Concerts with Boulez conducting the London Symphony Orchestra with soloist Isaac Stern. The depth of their Berg Violin Concerto still lingers in my ears.

The discs are sorted by composer starting with Bartók through to Webern on disc 44. Bartók is well represented on eight discs with Four Orchestral Pieces, Op.12; the Concerto for Orchestra; the Dance Suite Op.10; the Hungarian Sketches; Divertimento; The Miraculous Mandarin; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the Cantata Profana all played by The Chicago Symphony… and there’s more including The Wooden Prince; the three piano concertos (Chicago/Zimerman, Berlin/Andsnes, LSO/Grimaud) and finally Bluebeard’s Castle with Jessye Norman from Chicago. Bought singly a few years ago these eight CDs alone would have cost about the same as this 44-CD box. 

Berg has three works here: The Chamber Concerto, Lulu Suite and, on three CDs, a complete Lulu with Teresa Stratas, Yvonne Minton, et.al. and the orchestra of the Paris Opera. Harrison Birtwistle has three CDs; Boulez the composer has four including Le Marteau sans Maître and Debussy has three all with the Cleveland Orchestra including a longtime favourite, the Première rapsodie for clarinet. Ligeti, who enjoyed a burst of interest after the film 2001 where his music was heard, has two discs as does Messiaen. Ravel has five and Schoenberg has four including Pelleas und Melisande, Pierrot Lunaire and a complete Moses und Aron. Stravinsky’s five discs include all the big ballets and other works with the Cleveland and Chicago orchestras. A disc each for Szymanowski and Varèse and three for Webern conclude this most interesting and important set. One can only muse… what if Boulez had not been interested in mathematics but architecture? Think about it.

EuroArts has issued a Blu-Ray disc of different Boulez performances of three pieces included in the above compendium. In a concert on May 1, 2003 in the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Lisbon, Boulez conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in their yearly special concert celebrating the orchestra’s founding in May 1882. Fittingly, Maria João Pires is the soloist in the Mozart Piano Concerto No.20 that contrasts nicely with the 20th-century works: Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Fêtes from Debussy’s Trois Nocturnes (EuroArts 2053074). The very first image that strikes the viewer, long before the music starts is the monastery itself and its Gothic Portuguese architecture that “integrates architectural elements of the late Gothic and Renaissance, with associated royal symbolism, Christological and naturalist.” Construction began in 1501 or 1502 and was well-funded by trade with the East. As time passed and construction continued it became a pantheon to the monarchy with no expense spared. It is almost beyond belief and understandably Lisbon’s prime tourist attraction.

The orchestra does not employ the full complement of players in the concerto but a reduced number to balance correctly for the Mozart. Pires is always so poetic in this repertoire, a pleasure to watch and a pleasure to hear. As for the other three works, the orchestra knows them and Boulez knows them even better but they come off sounding fresh and eminently correct. The video and audio are exceptional although recording the music must have been a challenge because of the long decay time that can cause some problems but hearing it a low level contributes to the sense of occasion and location. There is a bonus of a 19-minute tourists’ tour of Lisbon and environs including several examples of fado and some historical information. The ridiculously illegible cover design notwithstanding, this disc is recommended don’t judge the contents by the cover! 

One of the first CDs I ever acquired was a 1987 solo disc with Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk performing works by Arne Nordheim, George Crumb, Ingvar Lidholm and Zoltán Kodály. In his mid-20s at the time, Mørk was playing a 1723 Montagnana cello, with a scroll made by Stradivari bought for his use by the SR Bank. I’m not sure what impressed me most at the time, the young man’s incredible technique and musicality, the breadth of style in the contemporary repertoire presented, the gorgeous sound of the instrument or the fact that a Norwegian bank was so supportive of the arts. (It is perhaps an interesting parallel to note that the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank, now with $41,000,000 in instrumental holdings, began at the initiative of cellist Denis Brott who with the help of W.I.M. Turner, then CEO of Consolidated Bathurst Inc., raised funds to acquire the 1706 Turner-Brott Tecchler cello which is currently on a career loan to Mr. Brott. Instruments acquired by the Canada Council since that initial purchase are loaned on a three-year cycle to deserving young artists as determined by competition.)

Since my first exposure to Mørk I have continued to follow his career with interest, through recordings of the Bach and Britten solo suites, Chopin, Grieg, Sibelius, Prokofiev and Shostakovich sonatas, but more particularly in a discography that includes almost the entire concertante cello canon. Having pretty much exhausted the standard orchestral repertoire, his most recent release sees him performing George Enescu’s Symphonie Concertante with the Finnish Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra under Hannu Lintu (Ondine ODE 1198-2). From the dark opening chord with its underlying kettle-drums we are assured of a rich and rewarding experience and we don’t have to wait long for confirmation as the cello enters with a warm and powerful melody that carries us on throughout the first movement. Surprisingly this slow movement is followed by another, also marked Assez lent, with the cello in lamentation over muted horns. The finale is labelled Majesteux and the performance lives up to this moniker with uplifting orchestral textures and soaring cello lines culminating with a kind of molto perpetuo cadenza once again accompanied by an undertone of timpani. Although not mentioned in the liner notes, as far as I can find out Mørk still plays the Montagnana cello. Certainly the instrument used here is a treasure, whatever its provenance.

The Romanian Enescu (1881-1955) was a prodigy, entering the Vienna Conservatory at seven and graduating at 13 after which he went on to Paris where he studied with Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. A concert of his works was held in 1897, followed in quick succession by the composition of three orchestral works, Poème Roumain and two Romanian Rhapsodies. Although acclaimed as a violinist he was also an accomplished cellist and it was with the Symphonie Concertante (1901) described above that he first came to international attention. This disc pairs the cello work with the Symphony No.1 (1905), a work which is firmly rooted in the late Romantic style of the age, framed in a traditional three-movement fast-slow-fast form. It is a fully mature work that belies the age of the composer and I find it surprising that his music is not more often performed and recorded. Ondine is doing what it can to rectify this in an ongoing series, including two recent releases with these same forces featuring subsequent symphonic works by Enescu.

With the exception of the Enescu, my listening has been more “pot pourri” than usual in the past month, with offerings running the gamut of musical styles and a time frame beginning in the Middle Ages, if liner notes are to be believed. I’ll begin with the most eclectic of all, Widdershins (pipistrellemusic.com), a project conceived by multi-instrumentalist Kirk Elliott which purports to explore “The Legend of Tristan Shoute,” a mythical composer, or at least one of mythical proportions. Puns abound in the extensive album notes which include a quotation from “musicologist Winchurch Stonhill” describing Shoute as “a fiddle, inside a misery, wrapped in an echidna.” This latter it seems is an Australian mammal also known as a spiny anteater… I learn something new every day!

We are told that although there is no factual evidence for the existence of Tristan Shoute, “stories have persisted throughout the ages of a talented, yet dissolute musician who curiously pops up time and again, in different locations, even different time periods, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, colonial America…” If the repertoire included here is any indication his influence (and influences) stretch even further, reflecting a plethora of musickes and instruments including those of the present day (vibraphone, electric bass and electric guitar). A virtual one-man band, Elliott performs here on lute, vielles, citern, assorted bagpipes, rebek, bouzouki, Celtic harp and much, much more, but is also abetted in his mischief by the Orchestra of Unmitigated Gaul comprised of such familiar baroque specialists as Alison Melville, Colin Savage, Margaret Gay and Ben Grossman plus vocalists including Rebecca Campbell, David Fallis and John Pepper to name but a few.

The disc opens with Elliott’s arrangement – almost all the tracks are Elliott originals or arrangements – of the anonymous 14th century In Vino Blabitas familiar from the original Carmina Burana collection. Widdershins is a 17th-century gavotte featuring bagpipes, a rhythm section of bass and drum kit and nasal vocalise by Katherine Hill. This is followed by Stone Cold Pilgrims, a roots-style instrumental ballad introduced by a wolf call and featuring slide guitar, harmonica and bird sounds among other folksy turns. Venus Transit with its bagpipe, nyckleharpa, hurdy-gurdy and dumbek is particularly effective in depicting a time long gone, and the medley of a 16th-century ronde/salterelle by T. Susato and the traditional fiddle-tune Cripple Creek is a standout, as is Yolanda Marrakesh with its haunting sitar melody.

Elliott’s clever parody (in all senses of the word) offers wonderful entertainment and suggests that Peter Schickele’s PDQ Bach has a long-lost brother in arms, now found in a character fondly known as Widdershins.

En Trois Couleurs (ATMA ACD2 2709) is another eclectic disc, although one more firmly rooted in the 20th and 21st centuries, featuring music for two pianos and percussion performed, and in many cases composed by, François Bourassa, Yves Léveillé and Marie-Josée Simard. The overall feel of the disc is jazz-ish, with the opening Pantomime reminiscent of the French chamber-jazz style of Claude Bolling, but Alberto Ginastera’s In the First Pentatonic Major Mode, Keiko, the group’s collective tribute to Japanese marimba virtuoso Keiko Abé and Léveillé’s Zone Indigène provide contrast with their explorations of other sonic worlds. Diapasons (tuning forks) is a contemplative group composition with a variety of chime and bell-like sounds complemented by sparse piano textures whereas Mike Mainieri’s Self Portrait for vibes and pianos is quite straight-ahead mainstream, almost smooth, jazz. The disc concludes with the title track, perhaps the most adventurous in its sparseness while combining a wide range of timbres, juxtaposing the myriad textures available through the vast array of percussion instruments and extended piano techniques employed. In some ways this is a surprising disc for what is not present. With piano and percussion we might well have expected forays into minimalist ostinati and/or wall of sound banging. Instead we are treated to a thoughtful and often delicate performance offering another side of “struck” instruments.

Tintomara (Channel Classics CCS SA 36315) is an eclectic disc involving trumpet and trombone in various combinations; trumpeter Wim Van Hasselt and trombonist Jörgen van Rijen are featured in solos and duets, accompanied by basso continuo, piano and even a brass choir. The disc opens with three Baroque works by Henry Purcell including the famous Sound the Trumpet. My initial reaction was surprise at how mellow these brass instruments sound in the context, especially in Hark, how the songsters of the grove where they manage to blend into the texture of an ensemble that includes two recorders. The title track, by Swede Folke Rabe (b. 1935), is a duet where once again, except for an occasional raucous blat from the trombone, the overall impression is subdued; not a mood I normally relate to the trumpet. Jean-Michel Damase (1928-2013) was a composer rooted in the music of Debussy and Ravel, although he includes the complex rhythms and harmonies we’ve come to associate with the French school of the mid-20th century. His Trio for trumpet, trombone and piano reflects this in its lushness and integration of contrasting voices, with idiomatic and at times playful writing for the two horns. Martijn Padding’s One Trumpet and Florian Magnus Maier’s Slipstream for trombone solo and “loop station” are showpieces that allow each soloist to shine, albeit in very different ways. The concluding Eastwind by Jean-François Michel pits the soloists against an ensemble of four trumpets and four trombones and provides a rousing, at times Flight of the Bumblebee-like conclusion to this disc. Concert note: Jörgen van Rijen gives trombone masterclasses on March 9 and 11 at the Royal Conservatory and a free public recital at 7pm on March 10 in Mazzoleni Hall. 

The final disc I will mention this month is one that takes me back to the music of my formative years when I first discovered acoustic blues. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that Michael Jerome Browne, who has evidently been a fixture on the blues circuit for something like three decades, is a new name to me, but in my defense it’s been almost half a century since I had my own aspirations in that regard. Indiana-born Browne was raised in Montreal where from the age of nine he accompanied his English-professor parents to the jazz, blues and folk clubs of their adopted city. Enthralled by the roots music of Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Lightnin’ Hopkins, he took up guitar, harmonica, and later mandolin, fiddle and banjo. In his teenage years he embarked on a solo career and toured Europe and North America as a one-man band. Returning to Canada he joined the Stephen Barry Blues Band as singer and guitarist and stayed with that storied group long enough to record four albums before returning to a solo career in 1999. Since that time he has recorded six albums of which the latest, Sliding Delta (Borealis Records BCD233 borealisrecords.com), features a wealth of traditional material from such artists as Mississippi John Hurt, Memphis Minnie, Fred McDowell and Blind Lemon Jefferson performed in authentic and utterly convincing renditions. The liner notes give extensive credit and context to the origins of the songs and there is a full-page “Guitar Nerd’s Corner” which gives exhaustive details of the instruments used and tunings adopted. For the uninitiated I’ll just mention that Browne accompanies his distinctive voice and harmonica playing on various vintage 12- and 6-string acoustic and National “steel” guitars, mandolin and banjo, the pedigree of each of which is thoroughly documented for the cognoscenti. If, like me until now, you are unaware of Michael Jerome Browne and have any interest at all in acoustic roots music, I urge you to check out this disc. You can sample it at michaeljeromebrowne.com.

  We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: DISCoveries, WholeNote Media Inc., The Centre for Social Innovation, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4. 

David Olds, DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com