04 MoravecAmorisms – Music of Paul Moravec
Portara Ensemble; ALIAS Chamber Ensemble
Delos DE 3470

The word amorism is defined as the state of someone who is preoccupied with love and lovemaking or with writing about love. Certainly the case with the Elizabethans; Shakespeare was surely the most prolific in this regard. Composer Paul Moravec joked that “William Shakespeare is a sort of silent partner who has been very good to me over the years.” Two of the three works on this recording, Amorisms and Tempest Fantasy, are based on the Bard’s works. In writing Amorisms, which was jointly commissioned by ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, vocal ensemble Portara and the Nashville Ballet, Moravec speaks of the challenges of writing engaging music for both, whilst not detracting from the dance performance. The resultant music, with recurring, carefully pruned texts, provides a gorgeous and evocative palette to enhance the stage performance.

The second work on the album, Tempest Fantasy, earned the composer a Pulitzer Prize in 2004. Scored for violin, cello, clarinet and piano, each of the first three movements evokes one of the play’s characters: the sprightly Ariel, the mystic Prospero and the earthy Caliban. A fourth movement portrays the island soundscapes and the finale a challenging flight of fancy only for the most adept of players; ALIAS certainly rises to the task.

The outstanding Portara vocal ensemble joins the instrumentalists again for the third work on the recording, Sacred Love Songs, settings of biblical texts as well as the Prayer of St. Francis, with an instrumental interlude as the penultimate movement.

06 Eighth BlackbirdHand Eye
Eighth Blackbird
Cedille CDR 90000 162

Hot off their fourth Grammy Award win (2016 Best Small Ensemble/Chamber Music Performance for Filament) Eighth Blackbird’s latest record Hand Eye might be better described as a natural phenomenon – an autonomous, multimedia collage which seems to have arisen inevitably from the storm of information whirling in a data-saturated world.

For this project, Eighth Blackbird, all Oberlin alumni, collaborated with the composer supergroup Sleeping Giant, all Yale alumni. The two groups are made up of six members each, a handsome symmetry which is artfully exploited here: for each piece, one composer paired up with one performer to develop a work centering around that performer’s particular instrument. This is just one of Hand Eye’s organizational layers, however. In another, the composers take inspiration from works of art in the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art collection; in yet another the six pieces form one continuous narrative with a motivic continuity that is perceptible on the first listen.

As such, Hand Eye is meant to be taken in all at once – but there are certainly standout works. By-By Huey (by Ted Hearne) marshals bass clarinet wails, Ligeti-esque muted piano ostinati and a solo jazz piano pastiche into something not only internally coherent, but coherent with the works which surround it as well. Checkered Shade (Timo Andres), which owes much to David Lang, is inspired by a fractal drawing, and feels like the musical equivalent of scrolling out on a satellite map of earth until only a dot remains. In Hand Eye, Eighth Blackbird strides over the boundary between inspiration and art.

01 Brenda LewisFar & Near
Brenda Lewis
Independent BL-00220 (brendalewis.ca)

With her second jazz-inspired CD release (and fifth as a leader), rich and sonorous vocalist Brenda Lewis has presented an exceptional and intriguing recording. Co-produced by Lewis and longtime collaborator, guitarist/keyboardist Margaret Stowe, she has created a compellingly stripped-down performance and recording unit, which harkens back not only to Neolithic and contemporary jazz, but also embraces timeless roots, blues, gospel and Afrocentric folk musics. All of the arrangements here involve a Spartan but potent instrumentation of voice, electric guitar, keyboards and the contributions of multi-instrumentalist Jeff Bird on harmonica, mandolin, bass and percussion.

Lewis fires her opening salvo with an appealing and no-nonsense take on Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans (featuring Bird on a soulful harmonica solo). Her adept jazz sensibility (as well as her variegated alto voice) is beautifully displayed on the classic jazz standard A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Lewis wisely includes a tip of the hat to her folk-ish/Western swing roots with the old warhorse, Cow Cow Boogie (which also features hearty solos from Bird and Stowe). Of special note is the jaunty He Surprises Me and the lovely I Wave Bye-Bye, in which Lewis evokes an almost Celtic aura of heartbreak and longing.

Very few vocalists would have the courage to present themselves in such an exposing, bare-bones way, but Lewis is refreshingly fearless, committed and transparent in her approach and taste; her consummate vocal skill shines throughout.

02 Avery RaquelLife Lessons
Avery Raquel
Independent (averyraquel.com)

Fourteen-year-old jazz vocalist Avery Raquel is a delightful breath of fresh air and already an international success, having appeared at key festivals and venues. On her debut CD, she serves up a tasty collection of jazzified material that includes compositions from such diverse artists as Harold Arlen, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Mercer and Sting. Raquel’s voice is a diaphanous thing, ripe with jejune optimism as well as an effortless, innate understanding of vocal jazz. She is joined here by her skilled trio of producer/arranger Rob Fekete on piano, Mike Pelletier on bass and Joel Haynes on drums.

Kicking off the disc is a swinging take on Arlen and Mercer’s Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive. Raquel’s jazz chops are clearly evident, and her superb trio has an opportunity to stretch out in this fine arrangement. Also of note is Raquel’s take on the popular standard, Que Sera Sera, which was made famous by Doris Day in the film The Man Who Knew Too Much and is rendered here in a bluesy context that seems a very comfortable fit for Raquel.

The funky Wonder hit, Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing is a delight and utilizes Raquel’s natural, unpretentious, soulful feel. Other highlights include a rhythmic, Latin-infused arrangement of Sting’s Fragile, and although of tender years, Raquel’s emotional maturity and meaningful interpretation of this haunting ballad can’t help but resonate with the listener. A stunner is Arlen’s anthem of hope and longing, Over the Rainbow. A pristine a cappella intro is followed by a lyrical and uncluttered vocal interpretation that is both touching and musically eloquent.

03 Pram TrioSaga Thirteen
Pram Trio
Independent (pramtrio.com)

Pram Trio’s Saga Thirteen offers a refreshing and contemporary take on the time-honoured piano trio format. The album’s six tunes share a penchant for rhythmic adventure and a fluid approach to the line between composition and improvisation. This is unabashedly tonal music that isn’t afraid to be tuneful or leave space for the listener to enter. The playing and writing have a strong conversational element and, while the virtuosity of the group’s members is evident, the overall impression is of a distinct and identifiable group sound.

Bassist Mark Godfrey’s April opens the record with a compelling two-chord vamp supporting a deceptively simple melody. The trio’s sense of dynamics and interplay are clearly the work of three equal voices and pianist Jack Bodkin’s solo, displaying a remarkable range of materials, emerges from the mix in an organic fashion. Bucket List, also by Godfrey, begins with a rootsy bass intro leading to a folk-like melody that proceeds to take some surprising turns. Bodkin’s Mrs. Kim Visits the Living Room Alone juxtaposes an intriguing piano figure over Eric West’s rocking drum groove. March rhythms compound time signatures and contrasting sections unite to form this compact, through-composed piece. Control, another Bodkin composition, continues the through-composed theme with an exercise in space and brevity, aided by West’s open, transparent style. Godfrey’s Treptower Park returns to more familiar jazz terrain with exciting and inventive playing from the whole band. Bodkin’s piano solo in particular is a marvel of colour and variety.

04 Nick FraserStarer
Nick Fraser
Independent (nickfraserthedrummer.com)

Nick Fraser is an indispensable part of the Toronto jazz scene, a highly skilled, imaginative drummer whose broad swath distinguishes groups from fusion (Peripheral Vision), free jazz (Drumheller) and electro-acoustic improvisation (Lina Allemano’s Kiss the Brain) as well as the jazz mainstream. He’s recently emerged as a significant bandleader. This is the second CD (also available as an LP) by his quartet, and the music is distinguished by both its personnel and Fraser’s approach to composition, developing a distinct group language for the quartet.

The band combines cellist Andrew Downing and bassist Rob Clutton (functioning as a string section as well as in more traditional roles) with saxophonist Tony Malaby, a titan of current free jazz. Fraser’s compositions, often titled Sketch with a number following, are literally that, brief devices or figures to be elaborated in improvisation. Their character and usefulness is apparent from the opening minimalism/ 416-538-7149 in which Downing and Clutton establish a tense polyrhythmic field to which each musician gradually contributes. Sketch #29 begins as an elegiac ballad, bowed by Downing and Clutton in advance of Malaby’s entry; Jupiter (Sketch #15) develops complex, abstract, intersecting lines between cello and soprano.

On one occasion Fraser’s sketches come as a pair, maximizing contrast in a single piece: in its initial segment, Sketch #20/22 includes a playful pointillist dialogue between cello and drums; the concluding phase presents the tenor saxophone as high-speed drill, Malaby finding a level of intensity few can reach. The concluding Sketch #21 provides a tranquil contrast with Malaby on soprano, exploring not only its usual piquant flavour and subtle multiphonics, but initially pressing the instrument towards a flute-like sonority.

05 GGRIL GESTES coverGestes
GGRIL
Tour de Bras TDB CD 90015
(tourdebras.com)

GGRIL is an acronym for the Grand Groupe Régional d’Improvisation Libérée, a 12-member ensemble led by bassist Eric Normand that’s devoted to collective improvisation and conduction, or conducted improvisation. Based in the unlikely hamlet of Rimouski, Quebec, the group has nonetheless managed to collaborate with international soloists and recently completed a European tour. Gestes marks their continuing development, a program of five improvisations and a piece by percussionist Danielle P. Roger.

Perhaps it’s the relative isolation from musicians of similarly radical orientation, but GGRIL has developed a very high level of sustained interaction, evident here in continuously controlled work in which both individual and group invention are in sharp focus. The group’s odd mix of instruments – brass, reeds, accordion and a collection of guitars, strings and percussion – creates striking contrasts, while the musicians’ heterodox backgrounds have them drawing simultaneously on elements of classical, jazz, folk, and industrial music. Les gestes permettent… moves through distinct texture and moods, first featuring the warmly plaintive trombone of Gabriel Rochette, then shifting to a passage of Webern-esque spikiness from violinist Raphaël Arsenault that’s set against the sustained tones of low-pitched reeds. That passing invocation of high modernism gives way to random snare rattles and feedback guitars.

Other dimensions of the group’s resources are evident in the verbi-vocal explosions of De nombreux humain…, the dissonant brass blasts of Les signes… and the sustained machine rhythms of Mais au delà de montrer… as GGRIL continues to find ways to challenge themselves and audiences alike to take that next step.

06 Aldcroft Parker TranzacLive at the Tranzac Vol.1
Ken Aldcroft; William Parker
Trio Records TRP-D504-023
kenaldcroft.com/triorecords.asp

It is always curious to hear about musicians moving to Toronto where the establishments supporting creative music are few and far between, especially if these musicians relocate from Vancouver or Montreal. But who’s complaining? I am at great risk of losing an arm and a leg for suggesting better the Vancouver-born Ken Aldcroft than a hockey player from the U.S. for the Maple Leafs. However, when you hear his 2016 recording with bassist William Parker it all becomes eminently clear. Both men have reputations for being key 21st-century innovators. Parker and Aldcroft worship at the altar of creativity and if you needed more reasons to appreciate those facts, they are all on this remarkable album, Live at the Tranzac Vol.1.

There is never a dull moment on this long piece, simply entitled Set 1. Ideas abound and the music virtually bustles with energetic rhythm and vigorous figurations with no hint of ever coming to an end. The music weaves in and out of melodic phrases and features ever arresting improvisation that challenges even the instrument’s timbral colour. This is a dazzling performance – with Parker also featured on the Japanese shakuhachi and the West African donso ngoni – and when imbued with the intensity and imagination of Aldcroft and Parker the music emerges with a constant stream of new colours, emotions and effects. Moreover, both musicians are supreme masters of musical invention, as this recording triumphantly demonstrates.

Utilities
See Through 5
All-Set AS001

Transcombobulation
Mike Smith; Jonathan Adjemian
All-Set AS003

Never Get Lost for Long
Ali Berkok
All-Set AS002 (all-set.org)

The experimental music scene in Toronto is bustling. It had all but been written off with the virtual retirement of Bill Smith, who, almost single-handedly, brought in musicians such as trombonist George Lewis, the great Anthony Braxton, bassist Dave Holland and many others. Together with the late John Norris, Smith put a lot of the 60s avant-garde on the Sackville label. With Smith in hermitage and the death of John Norris, the centre of this daring music seemed to shift to Guelph, Ontario, where the annual festival seemed to be the only event that showcased the new music. But the Greater Toronto Area appears to have awoken again and the latest manifestation of this is a new imprint called All-Set! (all-set.org). This enterprise founded by bassist Mike Smith has exploded out of the blocks with three discs featuring bold new music where conventional instruments have been leavened with electronica.

07a All Set See ThroughSome people’s reaction on hearing the synths and loops of See Through 5 on Utilities might be “this is not a jazz album.” But Mike Smith, pianist Tania Gill, bassist Pete Johnston, reeds and woodwinds specialist Karen Ng and percussion colourist Jake Oelrichs may confound yet please critics. But then the virtuoso musicians seem to have cut the improvised to the bone and turned it into tracks with tunes or at least music with irresistible hooks. To complement the crisp clarity of the electronics, See Through 5 have sown carefully constructed pieces with sections of Ng’s magisterial saxophone and clarinet improvisations. As a studio production it works beautifully.

07b All Set DiscombobulationOnce you get past the almost unpronounceable title of this recording, Transcombobulation by Mike Smith and Jonathan Adjemian, you truly enjoy its exploratory music. This is a six-part musical adventure that abounds in variety, depth and invention. Smith is among the foremost of the talented Toronto musicians who has developed an individualistic, difficult-to-classify personal genre. On this riveting disc, Smith and Adjemian imaginatively and (by-and-large) subtly mix in elements of electronic music, rock and contemporary composition with an occasional nod to noise music. Although the pieces develop from beguiling, elegant melodies, what makes them special are Smith and Adjemian’s arresting textures and colours.

07c All Set BirkokAli Berkok’s Never Get Lost For Long is one of the most adventurous recordings by a Canadian in a considerable length of time. Angular, with a proverbial doffing of the hat towards minimalism, Berkok’s playing is exhilarating, extroverted and virtuosic. Simple as it seems it actually presents rather formidable technical challenges, all of which are surmounted almost with nonchalance. Berkok has a particularly rewarding sense of rhythm, high-sprung, light and incisive, and entirely secure. John Coltrane’s Giant Steps is particularly brilliant, also played with no-holds-barred intuition.

08 Preminger Pivot Live At The 55 Bar COVERDark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
Noah Preminger
Independent (noahpreminger.com)

Last year New York tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger released Pivot: Live at the 55 Bar, leading his quartet in two half-hour improvisations based on themes from the 1930s blues master Booker “Bukka” White. Now there’s a studio follow-up deep in the same vein, with concentrated instrumental treatments of nine songs by White, Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson and other country blues and gospel singers who recorded in the late 20s and early 30s. Preminger’s group conception is rooted in the early 60s work of Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins (particularly their bands with Don Cherry), employing that highly conversational, free jazz style and its raw, vocalic emphasis as a conduit to the emotional wellsprings of early blues.

White’s I Am the Heavenly Way has the band in celebratory flight, from the bouncing theme statement and sprung rhythms generated by bassist Kim Cass and expatriate Vancouver drummer Ian Froman to Preminger’s charging solo and trumpeter Jason Palmer’s rapid-fire, splintering lines. Jefferson’s Black Snake Moan has elements of a New Orleans parade band, while Robert Johnson’s mournful Love in Vain is reduced to an ever-resolving melodic fragment, at once litany and cry.

It’s music filled with a subtle light as Preminger and company seek the emotional and spiritual heart of jazz through the grain of its primal melodic figures, journeying into the past to achieve a rare presence.

10 AdamRudolphTurning Towards the Light
Adam Rudolph Go Organic Guitar Orchestra
Cuneiform Records RUNE 406 (cuneiformrecords.com)

New York guitarist Adam Rudolph’s conducted Toronto players in a fascinating group improvisation earlier this year at the Music Gallery. But it was also like reading one well-crafted chapter in a serialized novel. That’s because the peripatetic Rudolph has directed similar large groups for the past few years, melding non-western rhythms with Euro-American instrumental techniques. Turning Towards the Light is the most recent recorded example, but rather than parcelling out parts among vocalist and instrumentalists as in Toronto, the CD showcases 13 instances of intermingling string strategies from six electric guitarists, one acoustic guitarist, a bass guitarist as well as three pickers who individually switch between electric bass and lap steel guitar, electric and national steel guitars and electric guitar and banjo.

Rather than resembling a free-for-all at a string-players convention, sonic strategies unite each performance. Like an architect combining many styles to design a distinctive building, Rudolph’s musical configurations can be jarring as well as soothing. As opposed to some builders who attempt to shoehorn period details onto a contemporary structure, complementary textures are instead sought out and used judiciously as microtones and for maximum effect. On Lambent for instance, the overlapping of thick surf music-like electric bass runs and the tang of steel-guitar licks creates a feeling of both freedom and formalism. Specular finds two guitarists hashing out hard blues licks over a rhythmic groove. Meanwhile the narrative of the title tune buffets ocean-liner-like on waves of so many buzzing flanges and doorstopper-like resonations that the interaction could reflect computer programming.

However the most indicative track is Flame and Moth which, unlike its title, transmogrifies caterpillar to butterfly within seven minutes. Initially sharply contrasting electric bass beats and meandering guitar locks, subsequent stacked string lines clang metronome-like to reach a crescendo of courtly gavotte-like passes, where all the pickers participate in sustained textural interchange.

Without stringing anyone along, Rudolph and his 11 associates demonstrate how, in the right hands and plectrums, improvising guitars can produce a riveting, transformative program.

11 OpenCollectiveDerengés/Dawn
Grenscó Open Collective
SLAM CD 565/Hunnia Records HR CD 1508 (slamproductions.net)

Arguably Hungary’s most unique composer of the post-war era, pianist György Szabados (1939-2011) had difficulty performing his admixture of free jazz-new music and folkloric sounds in communist times. Even after liberalization, during his sole Canadian appearance at 2006’s Guelph Jazz Festival, his duo with percussionist Vladimir Tarasov was the equivalent of reading a Reader’s Digest version of a novel – textures were lacking. Budapest-based reedist István Grenscó, who was a frequent member of the composer’s ensembles from 1984 to 2007, rectifies the situation with this two-CD set of six Szabados compositions. Grenscó, who plays soprano and alto saxophones and bass clarinet here, creates the equivalent of a Technicolor film from the scores by adapting them to the varied tones produced by his own band – pianist Máté Pozsár, bassist Róbert Benkö and percussionist Szilveszter Miklós – plus, on three tracks, the viola of Szilárd Mezei, who may be Szabados’ heir as a composer; trumpeter Ádám Meggtes on two; as well as two additional woodwind voices to give a breezy vaudeville-like strut to the concluding Regölés/Minstrelsky.

Meggtes’ atonal blasts add the requisite free jazz tinctures to Adyton. But otherwise that tune, like Azesküvö/The Wedding and Fohsáz/Supplication is chiefly animated by carefree currents of Roma-like dances via Mezei’s fiddle, stacked up against the alternately dark ecclesiastical (deepened by bell-like resounds from the cymbals) or evocatively romantic, melody-making from Pozsár. Torquing the pace via nasal soprano bites or mocking the profundity of the slower faux-rustic tunes with sardonic alto saxophone cries, Grenscó still shepherds the ensemble back to the head at each composition’s completion. Halott-Táncoltatás/Dance of Reanimation is the multiphonic masterstroke here. The original quartet members precisely figure out the exact percentage of light and dark tones and fast and slow rhythms needed to animate the composition, with the skill of medics gauging the proper amount of vaccine in a hypodermic needle. Pozsár uses pedal pressure to dig notes from the instrument’s nether regions in tandem with thumping string bass slaps as a way to bolster the theme propelled on unruffled saxophone cries and then bass clarinet reverb. Meanwhile these instances of solo reed elation constantly trade places with successive theme motifs that encompass rustic dance-like cadences and a final military-like crescendo. The aura emanating from this CD demonstrates both the quality of Szabados’ compositions and the pliant talents of his devoted interpreters.

01 So Long SevenSo Long Seven
Neil Hendry; William Lamoureux; Ravi Naimpally; Tim Posgate
Independent SLS001 (solongseven.com)

Review

The music scene in Toronto is jam-packed with talented, inventive and courageous musicians. So Long Seven, a multifaceted collective comprised of composer/banjoist Tim Posgate, composer/guitarist/mandolinist Neil Hendry, composer/tabla star Ravi Naimpally and violinist William Lamoureux, is one of our city’s cream of the musical crop. Their self-titled debut CD features eight tracks of joyous, at times complex, original tunes with melodious world music, blues, jazz, pop, symphonic, classical and folk-flavoured nuances.

Each track is composed yet features lengthy, storytelling improvisations. Highlights include Hendry’s Torch River Rail Company which opens with a tight group melodic section punctuated by brief stops followed by a touching violin improvisation. Postgate’s MSVR (My Swedish Viking Roots) rocks with his lyric and groove banjo playing and a big band group crescendo ending. Naimpally’s Aarti features special guest, South Asian singer Samidha Joglekar, soaring to lyrical and complex rhythmic heights while the ensemble creates both conversational backdrops and instrumental interludes.

There is such a positive glowing musical force driving the sound. Each performer is a star when soloing and improvising. Great production values add a live off-the-floor ambiance. Brilliant original songwriting creates a unique band sound. Yet the group’s real strength lies in each member’s ability to share and understand the importance of close ensemble listening and the intricacies of musical interplay. So Long Seven is a release that absolutely every music aficionado needs to hear over and over and over again!

02 Tango FadoTango Fado Project
Manhattan Camerata
Sorel Classics SC CD 005 (sorelmusic.org)

Created by artistic director/composer/pianist Lucia Caruso and music director/composer/guitarist Pedro H. da Silva, Manhattan Camerata is a chamber orchestra that excels in its ability to combine all styles of world and classical music to create their self-described Transclassical Music. Here along with special guests Daniel Binelli (bandoneón), Polly Ferman (tango/classical piano) and Nathalie Pires (fado singer), Argentinian tango and Portuguese fado styles are performed, combined and transformed into music that soars in astonishing lyrical emotion and rhythmic drive.

Tango and fado may differ rhythmically yet their shared lyrical and melodic styles thrive when combined. Binelli has arranged the familiar Raul Ferrao Portuguese song April in Portugal into Tango “Abril en Portugal. A mournful virtuosic violin opening leads into a joyful bandoneón, piano and orchestral tango rendition. Other successful reworkings include compositions by Astor Piazzolla and Carlos Gardel among others. But the original compositions are the highlights. Pires sings da Silva and Caruso’s Amor é Fogo with both understated remorse and a dramatic powerhouse ending. Caruso’s Tanguito Cordobés takes Bach-like fugal counterpoint into tango land with conviction. Da Silva’s Non-Absolutist Universal Anthem is a blasting mass of Latin rhythms, mind-boggling instrumental solos and orchestral bravado.

The brilliant virtuosic playing by all the performers is inspiring and captured clearly in the production. The tango/fado compositions and arrangements are surprisingly successful and never mannered in their stylistic interweaving and reworkings. Tango Fado Project is an uplifting unique listening experience.

Matching Electronic And Acoustic Improvisation

At least since 1948, when French theorist Pierre Schaeffer coined the term musique concrète as serious composers and performers began experimenting with technology to create music, the possibilities available from the use of electronics became accepted. Today electronically advanced sounds are as common and expected as outlandish tonsorial choices for pop stars. Electronic processing has also been adapted to create more variables in improvised music. Although some purists renounce non-electronic sources completely, in the main those players that create a nourishing musical meal by pairing electronic and acoustic impulses appear to end up with the most interesting programs.

01 MadetoBreakMade to Break for instance is a quartet consisting of Americans Ken Vandermark on saxophones and clarinet, and drummer Tim Daisy, plus Dutch electric bassist Jasper Stadhouders and Austrian Christof Kurzmann playing the lloopp, interactive MaxMSP software for an Apple Mac. The key to the three tracks on Before the Code (Trost TR 141 trost.at) is how well Kurzmann’s apparatus links with the others’ free-form improvising. Never suggested is the image of an improvising trio playing in one area and a lab-coated sound scientist wriggling his machine’s dials in the other. Whether it’s swifter, extended fare like Dial the Number or Window Breaking Hammer or the mellow interlude that is Off-Picture No.119, the lloopp’s distinctive undertow complements the acoustic playing like fine plating for a meal in a gourmet restaurant. The last track is particularly enhanced as accordion-like tremolos from Kurzmann help slide Vandermark’s hurtling saxophone honks into a form that’s both chipper and clanging. On the faster tracks Stadhouders’ resonating thumb pops and Daisy’s backbeats join with lloopp tones to create a continuum. But considering that Kurzmann’s interface can at points resemble teletype keys code or an electric kazoo, those effects are unique. Crucially, the concluding Window Breaking Hammer defines the latitude available. Following a dispassionate hand-drum display and wafting clarinet warbles, near moderato is traded in for near-metal with Vandermark’s baritone saxophone blasting away and Daisy beat crunching. Coupled with Kurzmann loops, this makes the climax distinctive as well as dramatic.

02 MyHorseDoesIn-your-face mockery shares space with musicianship on My Horse Doesn’t Give a Shit (Unit Records UTR 4609 unitrecords.com) as the German Knu! trio uses Achim Zepezauer’s electronics, Florian Walter’s baritone saxophone synthesizer and Simon Camatta’s drums to create the improvised music equivalent of punk rock. Over the course of 14 tracks, some with semi-scatological titles, rawness is the outstanding leitmotif. Walter’s glottal blasts often evolve in direct counterpoint to the electronic processing, while shaded drumbeats underline that contest. In a way it’s the equivalent of a 1950s film on juvenile gangs, with Zepezauer and Walter facing off for a rumble and Camatta’s recurrent beats setting up the confrontation. Although Zepezauer’s programs can create unattributable textures, he’s more interested in chameleon-like reverses. He replicates roller-ring organ tones on Mit Dir Am Hafen, spelled by back beat drums and reed tones that seem to be filtered through a sieve; matches cymbal scrapes and sax tongue stops with signal-processed buzzes on Austritt; plus the connected Brotwar Quadrata and Fifty Shades of I Don’t Give a Fuck. Lyricon-like whooshing produces a seemingly endless disco-dance-like rhythm cannily burlesqued by reed overblowing on some tracks. Zepezauer also layers the tracks with programming tropes. Recordings of German and English voices are introduced to many tracks, subsequently cut off, slowed down or sped up so they resemble cartoon chipmunk chatter. Flanged interruptions sound like magnetic tape running backwards, which on Den Hooran challenges Camatta’s stick whumps and cymbal clanks and Walter’s intermittent processed buzzes. The brief Thank You Mom melds pre-recorded marching band echoes with live beats pumping from the others. Insisting like a punk band that the CD be played loud, there’s enough distance and detail expressed here to distinguish Knu! from rock primitives.

03 GranularitiesFrom the opposite side of the equation is Scenes From A Trialogue (Amirani Records AMRN 045 amiranirecords.com) by Granularities consisting of soprano saxophonist Gianni Mimmo; valve and alphorn player Martin Mayes, both of whom are Italy-based, and Lawrence Casserley’s signal-processing instrument. One of the first students of electronic music at London’s Royal College of Music in the 1960s, Casserley subsequently taught at RCM while adapting software to transform the sound of his collaborators including Evan Parker. Although the tracks on Scenes From A Trialogue have subtitles like Overture, Entr’actes and Acts/Scenes it’s no academic treatise. Instead the CD shows how an undercurrent of warm machine-sourced oscillations provides an appropriate frame – with auxiliary decorations if needed – for a sound canvas illustrated with painterly dabs of reed tone bursts and lonesome French horn echoes. Since Casserley’s granular synthesis layers timbres at varied speeds, volumes and densities, on Open Space for instance he regurgitates reed and brass sounds like those played by the horns, as additional staccato jabs upset the interface. In the same fashion, wind-like textures drone in the background of Entracte 1 as a solo valve horn exposition expands with polyphonic glissandi. Opaque drones create a sense of stoic inevitability, like ocean tides advancing and retreating, on the disc’s penultimate and concluding tracks. Concentrated granulation from Casserley’s machine cunningly joins Mayes’ muted slurs and Mimmo’s contralto trills, so that the sonic wedges unite with the logic of a baroque chamber piece. Earlier the connected Sacred Site – Procession and Sacred Site – Dark Ritual reveal an analogous concordance but with sharper edges, like a dagger compared to a butter knife. It’s the electronics which splinter the horns’ near-impressionistic mellowness with a mallet-like scrape across unyielding surfaces and dynamic whooshes. Ultimately Mayes’ mahogany-tinged tones and Mimmo’s wheezy reed trills unite with Casserley’s burbling densities for a harmonized climax.

04 DouVientGoing mano-a-mano, French clarinetist/saxophonist Jean-Luc Petit and electronics manipulator Jean-Marc Foussat create a self-contained sound world on …D’où Vient La Lumière! (Fou Records FR-CD 13 fourecords.com). Oddly enough the program is initially more rustic than urban with buzzing bee oscillations and ring-modulator created aviary chirps heard on the first track, plus rooster-like crowing and cicada-suggesting chirrups which emanate from the electronics on the second and title track. At points, Petit fishes out deeply embedded notes from within his bass clarinet as if they were tadpoles caught in murky algae. A climax is reached on the penultimate Premières curiosités as Foussat’s multi-channel wave forms become louder and more clamorous until they form an impermeable mass. In response, Petit’s quick yelps and circular breathing confirm the acoustic qualities of his sopranino saxophone. Although each player’s timbres are initially isolated like pinpointed colour on an otherwise all-white painting, the textures eventually blend to such an extent that at points it’s impossible to distinguish a specific source. Intensifying his attack to atonal echoes and kazoo-like squeezes as he shifts to alto saxophone on Un animal qui me plaît, Petit presages the perfect finale. With reed multiphonics splayed in front of undulating drones, the ending is as spiritually appropriate as if reflecting a soloist testifying in front of a mass choir.

05 SharedUnlike Foussat and Petit, whose approach is based on unifying impulses from unique instruments, the Uliben Duo’s CD Shared Memory (Creative Sources CS 327 CD creativesourcesrec.com) more accurately describes the performance of French bassist Benoit Cancoin facing the live processing of German Ulrich Phillipp. In other circumstances Phillipp also plays bass, so his electronic impulses are informed by that knowledge. Throughout he stretches the processing function so that it not only accompanies, but also enhances the double bass’ tonal qualities. More than replicating Cancoin’s initial sounds, Phillipp’s often tandem, frequently wriggling, textures extend the bull fiddle’s range, directing acoustically sourced sounds to unforeseen places. While there are instances of skyrocketing sound eruptions and multiplied string drones on the tracks surrounding Joint Repository, this over-40-minute improv gives the players ample space to define and perfect their hook-up. Like stars floating in a night sky that illuminate at junctures, different sequences are prominent in stages. Languidly expressed, bowed resonations and bottle-top-like pops from the higher-pitched strings solidify into an electric shaver-like buzz via Phillipp’s electronics, with Cancoin interjecting sporadic mandolin-like plucks. By mid-point however, a euphonious bassoon-tempered tone predominates, until split into separate streams of sprawling, spiccato thrusts from the bass and an assembly line of crackles and drones from the electronics. Before individual improvisations dribble away into irreconcilable solipsism, the program speeds up to sound like two double basses, courtesy of Phillipp’s machine-processed memory. As brief interludes where graininess reveals one tone’s electronic origins and Cancoin’s acoustic pulls, the “humanness” of the other strands finally unite. The finale finds the two fading into a single sonic source like the fused profiles at the climaxes of the film Persona. Used judiciously with respect from both sides of the acoustic-electric divide, processing can create memorable discs of unanticipated sophistication like these sets.

01 Pollini AbbadoSurely, with a few exceptions, there cannot be unanimity on the very best recording of an instrumental score. Some listen for wrong notes or slurred passages, most for interpretation and some for quality of the recorded sound. We may have our preferred individual performance or performances but there is no finish-line tape to chest. However, in Pollini & Abbado, The Complete Recordings on Deutsche Grammophon (DG 4821358, 8 CDs) listeners should hear no wrong notes nor slurred passages or anything less than vibrant recorded sound, regardless of the venue. The first three discs of their collaboration contain live performances of the five Beethoven piano concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic in the Philharmonie in December 1992 and January 1993, together with the Choral Fantasy Op.80 for piano, soloists, chorus and orchestra, with the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein in 1986. These are all exuberant, festive performances that should excite even the most blasé listener. The body of sound is astounding. The same qualities apply in spades to the two Brahms concertos, live with the BPO (Philharmonie, 1997 and 1995) and an added earlier Brahms Second with the VPO (Musikverein, 1976). Disc seven contains the Schumann Piano Concerto (1989) and the Schoenberg Piano Concerto (1988) both in the Philharmonie. The final CD has their brilliantly articulate versions of Bartók’s first and second piano concertos with the Chicago Symphony in Orchestra Hall in 1977 followed by Luigi Nono’s Como una ola de fuerza y luz (like a wave of force and light) for piano and orchestra, soprano and magnetic tape. Recorded in the Herkulessaal, Munich with the Bavarian Rundfunks Orchestra in October, 1973, this work was written for them by Nono, their friend. “In this piece we find aspects typical of Nono’s maturity, dense accumulations of sound material, explosions and suspended silences, amid violent sounds and clear, enchanted lyricism.” Summing up, it’s pretty unlikely that a seasoned listener would not be captivated and drawn to listen to every note of the above collection. These recordings belong on the shelf of everyone who has a CD player – unless you irreversibly hate the repertoire.

02 Mono EraAnother collection from DG will be of value to those who are interested in the artistry of noted figures on concert platforms a generation or two ago. The Mono Era 1948-1957 (4795516, 51 CDs) is a well-chosen selection that best represents their artists in their established repertoire or to which they aspired. In 1951, three years after American Columbia originated the long-playing discs pressed on vinylite (RCA had issued several 33 1/3 recordings by Leopold Stokowski in the mid-1930s but they quickly wore out in use) Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft produced the first long playing discs in Germany and confirmed their reputation for excellence. The first few were derived from 78 rpm discs (as were most initial releases by all the majors) and then from tape machines, the newest recording medium developed in wartime Germany. Looking through the list of singers, instrumentalists, ensembles and conductors, I see only one named artist who is still with us. The enclosed 140-page booklet contains, in addition to complete data of each recording, an interesting and informative history of the company’s growth over the years and full-page photographs of each artist at the time.

I assume that I am not alone, when faced with a collection of this magnitude and significance, in sampling works or artists of personal interest. The first out of the box were the two Wagner discs, one with selected scenes from The Ring with Astrid Varnay’s Brunnhilde and Wolfgang Windgassen’s Siegfried winding down with the Immolation Scene conducted by Hermann Weigert, Varnay’s husband. In the 1950s the Swedish-born Varnay was at the very height of her powers and was in demand worldwide. As was Windgassen, a leading heldentenor of the 1950s and 60s. The other Wagner disc is devoted to Windgassen in notable arias from eight operas. Soprano Rita Streich’s disc is a treasure, a potpourri of arias from Mozart to Verdi concluding with Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock. Paul Hindemith conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in the Jesus Christus Kirche in 1955 playing Symphony Mathis der Maler, The Four Temperaments and the Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes by Weber. For many, these remain preferred versions. The 40-year-old, already world famous Ferenc Fricsay conducts the effervescent La Boutique Fantasque and Scheherazade with the RIAS Orchestra in 1955, 1956. The unique artistry of soprano Tiana Lemnitz (Marshallin), the soprano Elfrida Trötschel (Sophie) and mezzo Georgine von Milinkovic (Octavian) are heard in scenes from Der Rosenkavalier from Stuttgart conducted by Ferdinand Leitner. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a young 24 in September 1949 when he made his debut recording for DGG singing Brahms’ Four Serious Songs, then excerpts from Hugo Wolf’s Italian Song Book in 1950/51 and Schumann’s Dichterliebe in 1957.

I spoke today to a friend who regrets not hearing Polish pianist Halina Czerny-Stefanska live. She can be heard playing Chopin in 1956 (CD6). Also Monique Haas plays Ravel’s G Major Concerto, Le Tombeau de Couperin and Stravinsky’s Capriccio (CD14). Clara Haskil plays two Mozart concertos with Ferenc Fricsay conducting (CD16). Elly Ney plays four Beethoven sonatas, Pathétique, Moonlight, Appassionata and Op.110 (CD40). Other pianists who have their own CD are Stefan Askenase, Shura Cherkassky, Andor Foldes, Conrad Hansen, Wilhelm Kempff and Sviatoslav Richter. Other instrumentalists include David and Igor Oistrakh, Johanna Martzy, Bronislav Gimpel and others. Some mighty conductors recorded for DGG: Eugen Jochum, Karel Ančerl, Ferenc Fricsay, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Paul van Kempen, Ferdinand Leitner, Lorin Maazel, Igor Markevitch, Hans Rosbaud and Kurt Sanderling. Strong quartets include the Amadeus, Koeckert and Loewenguth. A few readers may remember the Don Cossack Choir, 20 of whose energetic performances ring out on CD7.

The Mono Era 1948-1957 is collectively an historic document, a discerning choice of repertoire and performers recorded during the last decade of monaural before the stereo disc. DGGs mono recordings are models of clarity and reality. View the complete details of every track at arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2174287.

03 Beethoven TrippleThe concerts given by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra were always memorable events, thanks to Szell who honed his orchestra to near perfection, the equal of the greatest conductor/orchestras in the world, notably Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic and Mravinsky/Leningrad Philharmonic. On many weekends in the 1960s we made our regular pilgrimage to Cleveland’s Severance Hall. I was not there on Wednesday July 13, 1966 to hear Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose and Eugene Istomin join the orchestra for the Beethoven Triple Concerto and Brahms Double Concerto. Doremi has resurrected a copy of the broadcast tapes of that concert and issued the concertos on a single CD (DHR8047). To hear these lauded musicians, soloists, conductor and orchestra live in these high voltage performances is illuminating, preferable in many ways to their recorded performances of the same repertoire recorded two years earlier with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I trust that there is more to come from Cleveland via Doremi.

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