Arcade
Griffith Hiltz Trio
G-B Records (gbrecords.ca)

Last week, a colleague who makes beats and electronic music sampled part of an ambient-sounding guitar piece I had shared online. During the COVID-19 pandemic I have been exploring home recording and this electronic reuse of my piece made me wonder what other sonic ideas I might probe. I am not the only musician currently investigating recording technology, nor am I alone in pondering electronic possibilities like beats and live-sound samples. A brilliantly original take on these electroacoustic explorations comes in the form of Arcade, the latest offering from the Griffith Hiltz Trio. 

Concept albums with unifying themes can, at their worst, sound cheesy or forced. Arcade avoids this trap while tackling a very unique underlying theme: the video games and movies of the 1980s. This theme is realized with a plethora of synthesizers that blend immaculately with the acoustic instruments present, making this a departure stylistically from other Griffith Hiltz Trio releases and other jazz albums in general. Nathan Hiltz’s signature employment of Hammond organ pedals alongside his guitar playing may be the most unique aspect of the group, but that is to take nothing away from the saxophone work of Johnny Griffith and drumming of Neil MacIntosh. The album was recorded remotely by the group and their ample recording/production experience gives the 13 tracks unifying quirks that never sound gimmicky. This is no easy feat and commands a listen!

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Ars Transmutatoria Rouge
Michel Lambert
Jazz from Rant n/a (nette.ca/jazzfromrant/in-production-2)

I find that multidisciplinary free music is often one of the most unfairly dismissed genres in jazz. Works like Anthony Braxton’s operatic forays certainly come to mind. They are branded impenetrable in many circles and people don’t even bother to offer them anything resembling serious consideration. I attribute this reluctance to fear. 

I’m going to be honest. This new Michel Lambert project is scary. It’s an amalgam of visual artworks (referred to as Lambert’s “visual scores”) and the band’s collective instinctual responses to them. The album is presented as an expedition of sorts, with both the band and listener travelling through 11 distinct audiovisual landscapes. Amazingly, it all works incredibly well. The improvisers not only know exactly how much space to leave for each other, but looking at the score, I was struck by how effectively the music evoked specific images on the score and vice versa with almost supernatural symbiosis. 

As I listened, it became apparent that the glue holding the affair together was the expressive poetry of vocalist Jeanette Lambert. It felt like she articulated and/or punctuated my thoughts perfectly, serving as a tour guide. What is a Transmutatoria? Not sure, but taking the journey there has been a real pleasure.

Tatouages miroir
Jean-Luc Guionnet et le GGRIL
Tour de Bras tdb90046cd (tourdebras.com)

Solo à la décollation
Jean-Luc Guionnet
Tour de Bras tdb9044cd (tourdebras.com)

French saxophonist, organist, composer and improviser Jean-Luc Guionnet has rare inventive powers. Among his activities, two bands demonstrate his range: Hubbub, a French quintet, looks like a conventional jazz group while improvising ethereal, symphony-length works of continuous sound through circular breathing on saxophones and bowing on cymbals and the strings of piano and guitar. The international trio Ames Room creates the most singularly intense, hard-bitten, minimalist expression ever developed by a stripped-down trio of saxophone, bass and drums. However, these recordings from Quebec performances show Guionnet’s inventiveness even without his saxophone.     

Tatouages miroir (“mirror tattoos”) is an orchestral composition realized by GGRIL (Grand groupe régional d’improvisation libérée), the highly exploratory improvising orchestra that has made Gaspé fertile soil for meaning-probing music. Here GGRIL is an 11-member ensemble of electric guitars and bass, strings, brass and reeds, stretching to include accordion and harp. Beginning with contrasting blasts of orchestral might and silence, the initial lead voice emerges unaccompanied, a tight metallic string sound – the harp – single notes plucked evenly with only microtonal shifts in pitch. In the background, a rich welling of winds plays a melodic pattern dominated by muted trumpet and baritone saxophone. Throughout there are contrasts between sound and silence, between small sounds magnified and rich ensembles moving from foreground to background, questioning their own status. It’s a rethinking of what orchestras traditionally do, foregrounding random incidental percussion – footsteps, perhaps – while crying-baby-trumpet and multiphonic flute and saxophone elide into silence, creating unexpectedly rich drama. During its course, the work ranges across approaches and meanings, inviting a listener’s reflection on the work’s burrowing depths and strange sonic redistributions, a seeming interrogation of its own processes. 

Solo à la décollation presents Guionnet as a church organist, though his performance is as remarkable as the L’Isle-Verte location: the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist and its traditional Casavant organ, described as “in need of love.” The traditional church organ is a special site, as much monumental architecture and domicile as musical instrument, and Guionnet is here to probe it and the church’s sonic nooks and crannies in a performance that is as much meditation as query, including the incidental percussion of interaction with the instrument. Divided into four segments, the 70-minute work begins in near silence, a kind of breathing of the pipes with only the subtlest infrequent blips that lead to extended drones, shifting oscillations, overlays of tones and sharply contrasting keyboards laid over and through one another. It’s improvisation as meditation, music exploring notions of sound as symbolic site of symbolic conflict, at once resolving and extending the voyage, with the kinks, fissures and vibrations of the particular instrument and church becoming key participants.

Scintillating Beauty
Cat Toren’s Human Kind
Panoramic Recordings PAN 18 (newfocusrecordings.com)

Aiming to express her ideas of hope, Vancouverite-turned-Brooklynite pianist Cat Toren, also a practitioner of sound healing, has composed a four-track album that is both cadenced and curious by drawing on multiple musical strands. 

On Radiance in Veils, for instance, she uses the modal outpourings of Xavier Del Castillo’s tenor saxophone, multiple-string chording from Yoshie Fruchter’s oud plus the textures of chimes, tuning forks, singing bowls, rattles and bells to outline spinning and soothing 1970s-style spiritual jazz. But on Ignis Fatuus she creates a slow-burning swinger built on Jake Leckie’s walking bass line, with Del Castillo shouting in full bop-bluesy mode. In between, Toren varies the program from one signpost to the other. Added to each of the four tracks are cross pulses from drummer Matt Honor and her own playing which expresses stentorian notated music-styled glissandi and snapping jazz vamps in equal measures. 

Besides Del Castillo, whose intensity and variations move towards multiphonics and squeaking split tones, but never lose control, Fruchter’s string set is the secret weapon. Skillfully, he sometimes plucks and shapes his strings into patterns patterns that could originate in the Maghreb, while on other tracks more closely aligned to a finger-snapping pulse, he replicates sympathetic rhythm guitar chording.

It’s unsure how COVID-19, which arrived after this CD was recorded, has affected Toren’s upbeat ideas. But she and her fellow humans certainly demonstrate resilience and adaptability in musical form on this disc.

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How to Turn the Moon
Angelica Sanchez; Marilyn Crispell
Pyroclastic Records PR 10 (angelicasanchez.com)

Currently residing in the Big Apple, famed composer, pianist and educator, Angelica Sanchez, has continuously left a resounding impression on the jazz community for the past 20 years with her unique sound. This latest release, from her and fellow pianist Marilyn Crispell, is a definite culmination of her innovative works that blur the lines between improvisation and composition. All tracks are penned either by Sanchez herself or along with Crispell and showcase both of their compositional talents superbly. It should be noted that what truly makes the auditory experience whole is the fact that each pianist is heard through separate channels, Sanchez through the left and Crispell in the right, allowing the listener to appreciate both melodies separately and together. 

The record begins with a whirlwind track Lobe of the Fly, within which the image of the flying insect is called to mind with the tinkling, expeditious riffs that both musicians coax forth effortlessly from the keys. It’s interesting to hear how both random and uniform aspects of composition exist within each piece, the interplay between structure and free expression is fabulous. Windfall Light is a piece which gives the listener a moment to appreciate just how in tune both pianists are with each other; it almost sounds at times as if one knows just what the other will play next. For those looking for a complete musical experience, this album would make a very worthy addition to your collection. 

New Life
Peter Leitch New Life Orchestra
Jazz House 7006/7007 (peterleitch.com)

Montreal-born, eminent NYC jazz guitarist Peter Leitch wears several sizeable hats on his new recording:  composer, arranger, conductor and co-producer. All compositions on this magnificent project (co-produced with Jed Levy) were written by Leitch, with the exception of Thelonious Monk’s Round Midnight, Rogers and Hart’s immortal balled of longing and loneliness Spring is Here, and The Minister’s Son by Levy (an outstanding track, written in honour of Leitch’s dear friend, pianist and musical collaborator, the late John Hicks). In the framework of this arrangement, Hicks’ and Leitch’s unique, soulful, rhythmic style is palpable throughout, and the heady sax solo from Levy calls to mind the potency of a snifter of cognac!

Following a heroic victory over cancer, Leitch could no longer physically play guitar, so he chose to reinvent himself, and express his new musical vision through a medium-sized ensemble that would still have the flexibility to embrace free soloing by the gifted, NYC A-list members who define the sound. These include trumpeter Duane Eubanks, Bill Mobley on trumpet/flugelhorn, Tim Harrison on flute, Steve Wilson and Dave Pietro on alto/soprano sax, Levy on tenor sax/flute/alto flute, Carl Maraghi on baritone sax/bass clarinet, Matt Haviland on trombone, Max Seigel on bass trombone, Phil Robson on electric guitar, Chad Coe on acoustic guitar, Peter Zak on piano, Dennis James on arco bass, Yoshi Waki on bass and Joe Strasser in the drum chair (whose skill, dexterity and taste are the ultimate ingredient).

Leitch explains: “The title New Life refers not only to my personal odyssey, but also to the music itself – to the act of breathing ‘new life’ into the ‘raw materials’…”. Every track on this 17-piece, two-disc recording is a pinnacle of jazz expression. A few of the many highlights include the opener, Mood for Max (for Dr. Maxim Kreditor), a snappy, up-tempo, joyous arrangement featuring a fluid and thrilling trumpet solo from Mobley and equally fine alto and piano solos by Wilson and Zak; Portrait of Sylvia – a lovely tune for the ever-lovely Sylvia Levine Leitch – an exotic and ephemeral piece, featuring guitar work by Robson – and Fulton Street Suite, a masterpiece in three movements that paints an evocative, jazzy portrait of lower Manhattan, replete with all of its artsy, manic energy. Without question, this is one of the top jazz recordings of the past year.

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The Art of the Quartet
Benjamin Koppel; Kenny Werner; Scott Colley; Jack Dejohnette
Cowbell/Unit UTR 4958 (unitrecords.com/releases)

We’ve heard of the art of the duo and trio often enough, but perhaps not enough of the quartet. Certainly there has been very little musical exploration as significant as this, The Art of the Quartet, freewheeling explorations by the wizened majesty of drummer Jack DeJohnette and pianist Kenny Werner together with the derring-do of younger experimentalist, bassist Scott Colley; all of whom have been brought together at the behest of the superb Danish alto saxophonist Benjamin Koppel. 

Koppel is possessed of an expressionistic wail and he uses it with tremendous effect throughout the repertoire of this album. His wild excursions flow like a river in flood and the yowling vibrato with which he often ends his phrases evokes restless northern spirits sweeping across space in powerful gusts of wind. Colley secures the roving melodies and harmonies like a singing sheet anchor; his evocative arco performance on Night Seeing is a testament to his virtuosity and his ability to bend time.

Werner is a master of atmospheric pianism. He plays with ceaselessly soft dynamics throughout the exquisite prosody of this music. The rippling excursions of his right hand are masterfully complemented by the architectural balance provided by his rock-steady left hand. DeJohnette, as ever, is the glue that holds everything rhythmic together. But every so often, putting his pianist’s hat on, he adds delicate or thunderous harmonic inventions to this wondrous music.

Clear Line
Jacob Garchik
Yestereve Records 06 (jacobgarchik.com)

Drawing on big band jazz section work, European village marching bands and notated music for winds, composer/conductor Jacob Garchik has composed nine POMO interludes for four trumpets, four trombones and five saxophones. Eschewing a rhythm section and string sweetening, he endows the compositions with coordinated horn work for rhythmic impetus and savory harmonies, while leaving space for creative soloing.

At the same time, with blustery brass and popping reeds often emphasized to create contrapuntal backing, individual features are short but to the point. Besides brief mood-setting sequences, extended tracks highlight different strategies from fusion-referencing brassy horn expositions to others that add enough saxophone overblowing to suggest tremolo airs from a collection of Scottish bagpipes. Moebius and Mucha is the most overt swinger with bugle-bright trumpet work cutting across sliding connections from the other horns. Meanwhile, Sixth is a quasi-rondo that subverts its mellow form with colourful upward movements that encompass brass and reed call-and-response before textures meld into a stop-time climax.

Garchik draws on the skills of some of New York’s top younger talents like saxophonist Anna Webber and Kevin Sun and trumpeters Jonathan Finlayson and Adam O’Farrill. But with frequently displayed gorgeous harmonies, as highlighted on the concluding Clear Line, this is a suite of well-paced originals that stroll rather than gallop. This is also profound group music that makes its points through subtlety not showiness.

Yellowbird
Aaron Tindall; Shelly Berg; Chuck Bergeron; Svet Stoyanov; Brian Russell
Bridge Records 9536 (bridgerecords.com/products/9536)

I have been fortunate to have been in a position to observe the meteoric rise in the abilities of tuba players in the last 50 years and it has been a bit like watching the Olympics for the same length of time: Just when you think that no one will ever run faster, jump higher or throw further, someone comes along and does just that.

So it is with this new release – called Yellowbird – from American tubist Aaron Tindall. This CD would best be described as “easy listening,” not a term I’m fond of, but considering that there are very few solo tuba CDs with music of this nature, the usage seems apt in this case. 

The inspiration for the recording comes from one of the pieces, The Yellow Bird, for tuba and rhythm section by LA composer and studio guitarist, Fred Tackett. It was suggested to Tindall by tuba legend Roger Bobo, the original performer of the piece, that another take on the work was warranted since the original Bobo recording was from the 1970s. Time indeed – I had Bobo’s LP in my formative years and wore it out!

A beautiful jazz ballad called The Peacocks by Jimmy Rowles starts things off, but the centrepiece of the CD is a tuba version of Claude Bolling’s Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio. At over 45 minutes long, it is the most substantial work on the CD, and it is here that Tindall really demonstrates his considerable artistry and mind-blowing technique. Highly recommended.

Potion Shop
A. Hutchie
Cosmic Resonance Records CR-006 (ahutchie.bandcamp.com)

In another time and place A. Hutchie – short for Aaron Hutchinson – might easily have been a medieval apothecary, wandering the forests in search of herbs and roots with which to create all things magical. However, in today’s world, he has been incarnated as a peripatetic musician, author and creator of this suite of atmospheric music, appropriately titled Potion Shop.

This repertoire has been developed into an individualistic, difficult-to-classify personal genre. Here, as is customary for Hutchie, roots in, and branches from, jazz often surface, but there is so much else going on: Hutchie skilfully, imaginatively and (by and large) subtly mixes elements of electronic music, rock and contemporary composition together, all of which also nods to noise music, rap and hip-hop rhythms. Although most pieces develop from beguiling, elegant melodies, what makes them so special is Hutchie’s way with arresting textures and colours. 

These sonic creations simulate mental pictures of mysterious narratives evoking the work of such chroniclers and visionaries as the painter Edward Hopper or film director David Lynch, yet they are always distinctively part of Hutchie’s own soundworld. Everything comes together to add a very special grace to this music. Yet, somehow, none of it would sound quite so special if not for the vocals added on top of everything else. In this regard Unconditional Love with Blankie, I Fell for the Moon with Sarah Good and Villain with Benita Whyte make for absolutely memorable listening.

Fermi’s Paradox
Carolyn Surrick; Ronn McFarlane
Sono Luminus DSL-92244 (sonoluminus.com/store/fermis-paradox)

When the Beatles’ original bassist, Stu Sutcliffe, decided to leave the group in 1961 to attend the Hamburg College of Art, the band suddenly found themselves without a bassist. Guitarist and vocalist Paul McCartney stepped up, and in short order established himself as one of the most iconic and original bassists in the history of popular music. Necessity truly is the mother of invention! 

I was reminded of this bit of history when listening to, and researching, the beautiful new recording, Fermi’s Paradox by Carolyn Surrick (viola da gamba) and Ronn McFarlane (lute). Gearing up for a scheduled 2020 performance tour the duo’s concertizing plans were furloughed as COVID cancellations came in fast and furious. Undeterred, Surrick and McFarlane continued to rehearse and embraced the process of playing their instruments for the sake of the music. Once again, necessity begets (re)invention. 

This wonderful album is a success on multiple fronts. First and foremost, it offers a gorgeously recorded, sonically supreme capture of two (and sometimes three with Jackie Moran joining in on bodhrán) of the finest traditional instrumentalists playing an exhilaratingly rich and diverse repertoire that binds together traditional Irish, English and Swedish music with pieces by J.S. Bach, Duane Allman and the performers themselves. Secondly, the recording is a wonderful and inspirational testament to the importance of music. 

While we increasingly read about a dependence on the creature comforts of food, alcohol and Netflix to stave off pandemic-induced existential dread, it is aspirational to read Surrick’s inspiring words: She, McFarlane and Moran make music not because there is a current audience or concert tour pending but “because we can. We make music because the world needs music, our hearts need music. This is what we do in the face of isolation and despair. We are not alone.” 

Important words, I think, and a much-needed 2021 optimistic counterpoint to Milton Babbitt’s oft-repeated line, “Who Cares if You Listen?” I’m sure Surrick, McFarlane, Moran and the Sono Luminus label will indeed find a caring and listening audience for Fermi’s Paradox.

Blues Bash!
Duke Robillard & Friends
Stony Plain SPCD 1423 (stonyplainrecords.com)

Timelessness and veritas are the special building blocks of good art – especially the blues – because the blues is a form of music where the very nakedness of the soul is bared. It is also upon this foundation, somewhat contrarily, that a certain joyfulness is often achieved. The music of Duke Robillard has espoused these virtues for half a century and it continues to have these qualities in spades. It’s why when you’re invited to this Blues Bash with Robillard and friends, it’s an invitation you must not refuse, or else you’ll regret it. 

This music is dappled everywhere with Robillard’s poetic mellow, luminous – and sometimes weeping – guitar lines swinging in tandem with a magnificently rehearsed band, complete with mellifluous piano, sanctified organ, howling saxophones and topped off with two rumbling basses and a drummer playing rippling percussive grooves. The blues would be nothing if not for vocals that are cried (not sung) and there is plenty of that to cheer about here.

Vocalists Chris Cote on What Can I Do and Michelle Willson on You Played On My Piano are absolutely superb and that is only a sample of the electric charge in this music. But even without the vocals, this music sings. In this regard, and apart from Robillard’s glorious guitar, it would be a travesty not to call attention (especially, though not exclusively) to Rich Lataille’s smouldering saxophone performance on Just Chillin’.

Although seemingly limited in expressive textures by the trumpet’s size and construction, composers and players have steadily expanded the brass instrument’s range and adaptability during the past half century. As more have investigated the possibilities in improvised and aleatoric music, the definition of brass tone has modified. Concurrently the makeup of an acceptable ensemble connected with trumpet tones has evolved as well and each of these out-of the-ordinary outings demonstrates how musical definition can shift from session to session.

Longtime partners, Japanese trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii have played in many configurations from duo to big band, but Mantle (NotTwo MW 10003-2 nottwo.com) is unique in that they collaborate with Spanish drummer Ramon Lopez in a trio featuring the trumpeter in the role usually taken by a reed player. Throughout the nine tracks as well, it’s Tamura’s choked or splayed capillary discursions which are most aggressive, with the pianist and drummer equally complementary. Brassy flutter tonguing, open horn accelerations, half-valve effects, kazoo-like blats and inner body tube excavations are Tamura’s common strategies. Meanwhile, as on Metaphors, the pianist’s careful arpeggios and the drummer’s contrapuntal shuffles preserve linear output. An equal line of this triangular creation, Lopez often sets up narratives with pops, ruffs or clanging cymbal work. As for Fujii, as demonstrated on Straw Coat, she skillfully creates a gentle impressionistic exposition with soundboard echoes and then turns to broken-chord power to counter Tamura’s freylekhs-like brassy interjection. Other times, as on Encounter, her dynamic vibrations give impetus to a narrative dominated by Lopez’s resounding rolls and fluid paradiddles plus Tamura’s brassy screeches. Still it’s the penultimate Autumn Sky which puts the trio’s skills in boldest relief. Beginning in a balladic mode with metronomic keyboard patterns and a brass part that is muted and moderated it subsequently creates andante excitement via grainy distended brass work and kinetic piano crunches and clusters from Fujii.

Another variation on the theme of timbre reorientation is Zurich Concert (Intakt CD 357 intaktrec.ch), a live program where American trumpeter Jaimie Branch joins the trio of Swiss guitarist Dave Gisler for the first time. Her vigorous drive, propelled with a touch of greasy blues, easily latches onto the sensibility of the guitarist, bassist Raffaele Bossard and drummer Lionel Friedli, whose playing encompasses rock energy. The trumpeter’s foreground/background role is best illustrated on One Minute too Late. Picking up from the short, shaking and rattling track that precedes it, this tune evolves into a solid narrative of horizontal brass tones decorated with Gisler’s flanges and frails. When the guitar solo transforms into a gentling theme elaboration with both folk and jazz inflections, the timbral decorations are from Branch’s plunger tones. Meanwhile, movement is provided by a bowed bass line and cymbal crashes. Throughout the set, cadences are further informed by rock sensibility. If Gisler’s slashing frails and echoing string slides are often staccato and distorted, their origins are British hard rock atop jazz perceptions. When a groove is established coupling fretted string echoes, a double bass pulse and drum backbeats, low-pitched bass colouration joins the guitarist’s slurred fingering and the trumpeter’s brass smears to confirm this is no pop-rock CD. This maxim is further demonstrated on the smeary, scatological Better Don’t Fuck with the Drunken Sailor. A blues, it combines Gisler’s upward string shakes and stutters that could come from Led Zeppelin with Branch’s plunger mute extension which dates to Duke Ellington’s Jungle Band. The group also detours into post-modernism on Cappuccino, where the vocalized title is repeated and distorted by looping electronics and the stop-time narrative enhanced with guitar flanges and trumpet plunger growls.

If loops are one way to imaginatively add originality to trumpet-oriented jazz, Canadian-in-Brooklyn Steph Richards has come up with an even more outlandish statement. The nine tracks on Supersense (Northern Spy NS 130 northernspyrecs.com) are each named for a specific scent created for the trumpeter by fragrance artist Sean Raspet. A scratch-and-sniff card is included in the package to see if the music reflects the smells and vice versa. Olfactory connections may be up to individual debate. More compelling is the dynamic expressed between Richards’ downplayed brass undulations, the resonating drums and strewn water tones she projects with the sensitive accompaniment provided by Americans, pianist Jason Moran, bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Stroked internal strings and stopped keys from the piano, languid double bass strokes and drum-top buzzes remain atmospherically low key and purposeful, as mewling and trilling trumpet splutters create contrapuntal theme extrapolations. That makes tracks like Canopy and Metal Mouth, where Richards unexpectedly exhales strident bursts of staccato snarls, stand out. Her splayed textures, plunger asides and muted slurs are expressively bright or gritty as the situation demands. Overall, the few instances of reveille-like bugling or lively brassy buzzing are secondary to the comprehensive integration of brass, string and percussion timbres. Like quality perfume, Supersense makes its presence felt through subtlety and understatement.

In the right hands and mouth, trumpet tones also ally or contrast with experimental vocals and electronics, as well as instrumental techniques. That’s what happens on Don’t Worry Be Happy (Intrication Tri 002  thierrywaziniak.wixsite.com) as veteran Austrian brass experimenter Franz Hautzinger evokes his strained flutters alongside out-of-the-ordinary contributions from a trio of French players: percussionist Thierry Waziniak, guitarist Pascal Bréchet and the clarinet and voice of Isabelle Duthoit. There are times, as on Sables symphoniques, for instance, when Hautzinger’s growls and gurgles are the mirror image of Duthoit’s yelping shrieks and burbling trills, but that’s after his horizontal bites have established brass identity. More commonly, the interaction involves unearthing blurry or bellicose brass timbres from unexpected places to work alongside shrill reed multiphonics, as well as dissected string flanges and ratcheting percussion, all of which owe as much to electronic processing as acoustic qualities. This is particularly noticeable on Dans le ventre de la baleine, where irregular drum chops and jangling guitar runs are further distended with on/off voltage shakes, as high-pitched trumpet peeps and reed trills preserve the narrative movement. Moving from discursive to distinct sequences with knife-sharp guitar whines, percussion buzzing, panting vocalese and blurry trumpet variations, the program is resolved at midpoint with the extended and concept-defining Souffle hybride. With electronic wave forms soaring throughout, the sound field becomes louder as the narrative intensifies with diffuse guitar twangs and drum clip clops. Duthoit and Hautzinger construct a melded duet from clarinet chicken clucking and half-valve barks. Vocal gurgles and retches alongside back-and-forth brass vamps finally relax the track into narrative coherence. 

Using a similar strategy and instrumentation, but with acoustic intonation, is Brittle Feebling (Humbler 006 heule.us) by a quartet of Bay Area players: trumpeter Tom Djll, Kyle Bruckmann on oboe and English horn, koto player Kanoko Nishi-Smith and Jacob Felix Heule using only a floor tom. Acoustic is merely one facet of these reductionist improvisations however, since expected tones are eschewed for the most part. The minimalist interface is adhered to so closely in fact, that it’s often impossible to attribute a single tone to one identifiable instrument. For the most part, koto strokes are intermittent, with short hammer-like clanks as present as strumming. Rarely harmonized, Bruckmann and Djll constantly overblow with squealing whines from the reeds and bell-against-mike metallic squeals from the trumpet. Underscoring this are concentrated abrasions from the floor tom that become shaking drones that sometimes replicate hurdy-gurdy continuum. Although there are brief tuneful hints emanating from the reedist’s and trumpeter’s usually dissonant narratives, the horns and percussion eventually meld into a massive blare that dominates the entire track. This density is only lessened when thin koto string plinks are gradually revealed. Careful listening though, confirms that timbral striations from the instruments during the performances mean the collective result is as fluid as it is brittle.

There are plenty of roles for trumpets in conventional ensembles. Yet each of these tone-explorers – and the groups in which they play – outlines other ways to use the brass instrument’s properties.

The new 11-CD set, Ivan Moravec Portrait (Supraphon 4290-2 naxosdirect.com/search/099925429027) will introduce, or reintroduce, a Czech pianist who was one of the very finest artists of the last generation. For a good many of the decades of the end of the 20th century into the 21st, Moravec was a familiar name to music lovers around the world, particularly to those who celebrated their Czech heritage. Born in Prague on November 9, 1930 he was influenced by his father who was an amateur pianist and singer. He introduced Ivan to opera and taught him to read the scores which together they read and sang through. In an interview at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he had been a professor for more than 30 years, we learn that “I basically studied with Irma Grunfeld, the niece of Alfred Grunfeld, a very famous Viennese pianist through the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – some of his recordings have been preserved. […] In addition I was somewhat influenced by Professor Kurtz who was also teaching in Prague. Kurtz was an absolutely first-rate teacher.” In a most interesting interview in PIANO News in April 2002, reprinted in the accompanying notes, An Enthusiasm for a Radiance of Tone, Moravec speaks about the many people who influenced his playing, especially Michelangeli.

The works included in the new discs embrace solo and concerted works by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Franck, Ravel, Janáček, Martinů and Smetana. Of course, I did not commence listening with the first track of the first disc as some listeners might have done if faced with such a wide range of compositions from 11 composers. Instead, I went straight to works by which to evaluate the artist. I have a special affection for the four Ballades of Chopin but have not heard a recorded performance to better express what, I thought, Chopin would have heard in his head. From Cortot, Rubinstein, Richter, et.al, none has come close. There is lots more inspired Chopin here: the complete 24 Preludes, Op.28, the four Scherzi, the Piano Sonata No.2 in B-flat Minor, Op.35, the 17 Mazurkas and many individual works. Moravec’s Chopin at last realizes all expectations. His playing is majestic and exultant and wholly satisfying; playing unequalled that I know of. Who would have thought? 

Moravec, as may have been expected, is a master of Schumann and Brahms. Equally authoritative performances of Schumann’s Kinderszenen and that wonderful little Arabeske in C Major, followed by Brahms: Capriccio in B Minor, the Rhapsody in G Minor and also Three Intermezzi Op.117 and the Intermezzo in A Major, Op.118/2. The Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 is preceded by the Schumann Piano Concerto in A Minor, both conducted by Eduardo Mata with the Dallas Symphony in 1993. There are many other performances: Beethoven and Mozart concertos; some exquisite Debussy: Images Books 1 and 2; Estampes; Children’s Corner; and, naturally, Clair de Lune; and Preludes. Also, interesting Ravel, Martinů, Smetana and Janáček.

In the box is a DVD that includes a most enjoyable and informative video biography of Moravec, including musical reminiscences by conductors and fellow musicians. Also, complete performances of works by Beethoven, the Appassionata; Prokofiev, the First Piano Concerto (Ancerl); Mozart Concerto No.25 (Vlach); and the Ravel G Major (Neumann). In Czech, with subtitles in many languages. A first-class package not to be overlooked.

Volume Two of Profil’s Emil Gilels Edition is a 15-CD selection of memorable recordings (weren’t they all!) derived from various sources (PH17066 naxosdirect.com/search/881488170665). All the composers are Russian from Tchaikovsky forward. There are performances of solo works, duos, trios, chamber music and concertos; too many for individual comment. The first disc contains two performances of the Tchaikovsky First: The first entry is a monaural recording of 1951 from Moscow conducted by Konstantin Ivanov with the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra, then one in stereo from October 10, 1955 with the Chicago Symphony and Fritz Reiner. Happily, the listener can listen to both versions and may have a preference for one or the other. Gilels is the same in both. Ivanov or Reiner? Mono vs. stereo? I enjoyed the weight and majesty of the Russians. Tchaikovsky’s Second also merits two versions, a Russian performance conducted by Kondrashin and a Hungarian conducted by András Kórodi. Rachmaninoff’s Third gets two outings with Kondrashin, from January and March 1949, but the Fourth gets only two movements, the second and third. There are concertos, chamber works, sonatas and duos, and arrangements by these familiar and unfamiliar composers: Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Aleksander Alyabiev, Mily Balakirev, Borodin, Cesar Cui, Scriabin, Medtner, Glazunov, Borodin, Alexander Siloti, Moisey Wainberg, Kabalevsky, Khachaturian, Arno Babajanian and finally, Andrey Babayev. Assisting artists are Elizaveta Gilels, Leonid Kogan, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yakov Zak, Yakov Flier, Dmitry Tsiganov, Vasily Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky, Sergei Shirinsky. The conductors are Fritz Reiner, Kirill Kondrashin, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Konstantin Ivanov, Franco Caracciolo and Kórodi. Never a dull moment in this superbly recorded collection.

To celebrate their establishment 40 years ago in Munich, Orfeo has issued several attractive compilations, Legendary Conductors, 40 Ultimate Recordings and now the collection Orfeo 40th Anniversary Edition – Legendary Pianists (C200071 naxosdirect.com/search/orfeo+c200071). This edition should be quite intriguing to collectors who surely will find a set of names quite different from what they might have chosen. It does not claim to be definitive; a collection, not the collection. There are ten CDs in the box featuring nine artists recorded live or recorded for broadcast, giving a sense of hearing an actual performance that contributes a heightened sense of you-are-there. It took a day to audition the set, which turned out to be not at all tedious, as the repertoire is pleasing and pianists clearly dedicated. Here are the pianists: Géza Anda, Bruno Leonardo Gelber, Friedrich Gulda, Wilhelm Kempff, Oleg Maisenberg, Konstantin Lifschitz, Carl Seemann, Gerhard Oppitz and Rudolf Serkin. Repertoire consists of mainly concertos from Bach to Brahms, via Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. Also, a handful of variations, etc. This is a most attractive collection of pure pleasure.

James Campbell, Clarinet
James Campbell; John York
Crystal Records CD330 (crystalrecords.com)

At what point in The Portrait of Dorian Gray does the protagonist look at his younger self in the mirror and realize something is amiss? Meanwhile the painting, hidden away, displays the truth of the ravages of time. Listening to James Campbell’s delightful playlist, the greatest hits of clarinet recital literature, the novel comes to mind because of how well it applies to recorded performances. 

There are eight selections on James Campbell Clarinet: Weber (Seven Variations on a theme from Silvana, Op.33); French composers who provided us with fluff, in the case of Paul Jeanjean and Gabrielle Pierné, and with one of the finest pieces in the clarinet literature, Debussy’s Première rhapsodie (plus his charming exercise, Petite Pièce). Alban Berg’s beautiful enigmas, Vier Stücke, Op.5, Witold Lutoslawski’s dashing and elegant Five Dance Preludes and good old Malcolm Arnold’s Sonatina Op.29 complete a survey of the 20th century. 

The recordings, all made in the 1970s by a youthful Campbell and the excellent pianist John York, mark the start of Campbell’s tremendous career in Canada and around the world. This was the era when we had few homegrown stars; they inspired a larger crowd of next-generation explorers, myself included, who hoped their success might equal Campbell’s. 

Let us speak in present tenses. Campbell’s strengths are his fluid sound and easy brilliant technique. Always understated, he modestly nails all of the demands of this difficult literature. It does my envious heart good to hear the extremely subtle proofs that he and I share the same difficulties in the Debussy Rhapsodie.

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