Handel – Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Marie-Nicole Lemieux; Karina Gauvin; Romina Basso; Emoke Barath;
Il Complesso Barocco; Alan Curtis
Naïve OP30536

Still remembering the brilliant pairing of soprano Karina Gauvin and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux with “Il Complesso Barocco” on the CD of Handel duets Streams of Pleasure, one is overjoyed at the prospect of hearing them together as the main characters of a full (over three hours) Handel opera. This is one of Handel’s best and the performance is nothing short of glorious! Lemieux is superb at portraying Julius Caesar’s commanding presence as is Gauvin with Cleopatra’s seductive wit and bravado. The two handle the characters’ romantic moments equally well. For example, Lemieux is a veritable cyclone spewing Caesar’s fierce vengeance in “Quel torrente,” but demonstrates such playful tenderness in “Se in fiorito,” where the composer provides a delightful interplay between the singer and the violin (as a little bird). Gauvin captures Cleopatra’s sensual nature beautifully in “Tutto puo donna”and “Venere bella” while her controlled and softly sustained tones characterize a sense of resignation in “Piangerò.”

There is some marvellous casting of the second leads, notably contralto Romina Basso who evokes the depth and regal bearing perfect for a noblewoman in mourning who is, nonetheless, pursued by no fewer than three suitors in her time of grief. Countertenor Filippo Mineccia displays an impishly evil tone in his portrayal of the murderous Ptolemy. The orchestra has some great moments, with sinfonias enhancing the sensuality of Cleopatra’s staged appearance in Act II as well as the triumphal entrance during the finale.

Haydn – The Creation
Amanda Forsythe; Keith Jameson; Kevin Deas; Boston Baroque; Martin Pearlman
Linn Records CKD 401

Although The Creation was a great success when it was first performed, it was almost forgotten by the end of the 19th century, outside Vienna at least. The first recording dates from 1949; now there are about 70 recordings available. They divide into two groups: those with modern instruments and symphony orchestras and, on the other hand, performances with period instruments that are attentive to late 18th-century performance style such as this CD. Tafelmusik recorded the work in 1993. I like the soloists on that recording (especially the soprano, Ann Monoyios) but the conducting by Bruno Weil is unimaginative.

By contrast, Martin Pearlman’s conducting has the right momentum. The soloists are very good. The tenor, Keith Jameson, has the right lyricism. The soprano, Amanda Forsythe, sings with lightness; yet her voice is full and warm. The bass-baritone, Kevin Deas, sings with a great deal of vibrato in a manner that might seem more appropriate for Porgy and Bess or the Brahms Requiem, bothofwhich are in his repertoire, but that is less important than the power and the sonority that he brings to the part. Just listen to his account of the dangerous creeping worm in Part II, a premonition of what will destroy the bliss achieved at the end of the work. If you are looking for a historically informed performance with period instruments which also shows passion and drama, I would recommend this version.

In Dreams
Philippe Sly; Michael McMahon
Analekta AN 2 9836

This is bass-baritone Philippe Sly’s first recording for Analekta. It’s a well-chosen program and presents him with several stylistic challenges that he handles impressively.

Every young singer needs to conquer the repertoire standards, so it’s no surprise to find Sly singing the Schumann Dichterliebe, Op.48. Here Sly captures the essence of Heine’s poems so well that we understand why they inspired Schumann and others to song writing. Wonderfully supported by accompanist Michael McMahon, Sly is free to engage his vocal line with the piano to create the kind of partnership the composer intended. The happy product of this is what every lieder performing duo seeks — those moments of indescribable oneness where separate parts cease to exist. Sly and McMahon achieve this many times throughout this 16-song cycle, but no more convincingly than in “Allnächtlich in Traume.”

The Guy Ropartz settings of six Heine poems call for a very different approach reflecting almost a century of art song evolution. Sly is very comfortable moving from Schumann into the more modern French style and honours the same poet’s muse with a new musical and textual language. Never demanding much of the chesty operatic voice, the Ropartz songs show the lighter, truly lovely mid and upper range of Sly’s voice.

The disc’s most interesting tracks are the Three Tennyson Songs by British composer Jonathan Dove. Written for Sly after their first meeting in Banff in 2009, Dove’s songs seem perfectly suited for Sly’s voice, which sounds more at home in these contemporary works than anywhere else on the disc. They are, among other things, a reminder of how wonderfully suitable the English language can be for art song.

Strauss – Arabella
Emily Magee; Genia Kuhmeier;
Tomasz Konieczny; Michael Schade; Vienna State Opera; Franz Welser-Most
Electric Picture EPC03DVD

The creative spark between a composer and a librettist can result in masterpieces and lasting and memorable collaborations. Da Ponte and Mozart, Piave and Verdi, Gilbert and Sullivan; and, of course, Hofmannsthal and Strauss. The two hit it off after Strauss saw Hofmannsthal’s Electra in 1906. “Your style is so very similar to mine!” enthused the composer. “We were born for each other.” There were magical projects for the two men, who corresponded frequently until Hofmannsthal’s death. The obvious one is Der Rosenkavalier, easily the duo’s best opera and their most lasting legacy. In Arabella, the somewhat familiar device of a young, beautiful aristocrat trying to marry the right man to prop up the family’s sagging fortunes gets complicated by a bit of “Shakespearean” cross-dressing and lover-swapping. This particular staging is worth seeing not just for the fine singing, but also superb acting by the principals. Tomasz Konieczny as Mandryka is every director’s dream of a singing actor and Emily Magee as Arabella successfully defies stereotypes of youth and beauty — no suspension of disbelief is needed. Genia Kuehmeier is particularly touching as the younger sister Zdenka, forced to appear dressed as a man. For the writing duo, with Arabella the Viennese magic was back. As Strauss wrote in his condolences to Hofmannsthal’s widow, “No one will ever replace him for me or for the world of music!”

Canada’s Jasper Wood has long been one of my favourite violinists, ever since he used to come into the music store where I was working some ten years ago to promote his terrific CDs of the Eckhardt-Gramatté and Gary Kulesha solo Caprices and Saint-Saëns’ Music for Violin and Piano. Since then he has built a wide-ranging discography, including CDs of music by Ives, Stravinsky, Bartók and Morawetz. His latest CD on the American Max Frank Music label (MFM 003) is titled Chartreuse, and features Wood and his long-time accompanist David Riley in beautifully judged performances of sonatas by Mozart, Debussy and Richard Strauss.

The Mozart is the Sonata in B-Flat Major K454, and the playing here — as it is throughout the CD — is Wood at his usual best: clean; accurate; tasteful; sweet-toned; stylish; intelligent and thoughtful. The Debussy sonata is given an impassioned reading; and in the Strauss Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op.18 Wood and Riley handle the virtuosic demands with sensitive subtlety, invoking Brahms rather than providing a mere display of fireworks. The sound throughout is resonant and warm, and the instrumental balance just right. The CD digipak comes without booklet notes, but none are really necessary; listening to this CD is like being at a memorable live recital.

Cellist Simon Fryer teams up with pianist Leslie De’Ath on a fascinating CD of Victorian Cello Sonatas on the independent American label Centaur Records (CRC 3216). The composers Algernon Ashton and Samuel Liddle are probably new to you — they certainly were to me — but they are representative of that generation of late 19th century English composers whose style went out of fashion in the years before the Great War, and whose works virtually disappeared from the repertoire. Not surprisingly, their works here — Ashton’s Sonata No.2 in G Major from 1882 and Liddle’s Sonata in E-Flat Major and his Elegy from 1889 and 1900 respectively — are world premiere recordings; the Sonata No.2 in D Minor, Op.39 by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford completes the recital.

The previously unknown Liddle sonata was discovered by De’Ath in the course of his hobby of collecting musical documents and ephemera. The predominant influence seems to be German, especially the music of Mendelssohn and Brahms, but that’s hardly surprising, given the musical connections between the two countries in Victorian times. Ashton’s music, although scarcely acknowledged at home, was widely published in Germany, where he had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory; Liddle and Stanford also studied in Leipzig during the late 1870s, as had Arthur Sullivan some 20 years earlier.

While the Stanford sonata may be the stronger work, there is a great deal of worthwhile and highly attractive music here, clearly the work of competent and imaginative craftsmen. Fryer and De’Ath certainly present a persuasive case for the pieces, surmounting the often formidable technical challenges with expansive playing that never resorts to overly Romantic indulgence. Fryer’s tone in the lower register is particularly lovely.

Sometimes, admittedly, works do remain buried or neglected for good reasons, but CDs like this one remind us just how rewarding it can be to take the path less trodden.

Fans of violinist Christian Tetzlaff will be delighted with his new CD of three Mozart Sonatas for Piano and Violin, with Lars Vogt at the keyboard (Ondine ODE 1204-2). The sonatas are those in B Flat Major K454, G Major K379 and A Major K526 and Tetzlaff more than lives up to his usual world-class standard in works that require not only virtuosity but also a great deal of sensitivity. His playing seems effortless, with a smooth legato and a lovely range of dynamics.

The booklet notes tell us that Vogt and Tetzlaff are both very conscious of the ambiguity created in these sonatas by Mozart’s customary emotional range, and their performances quite beautifully reflect this. Tetzlaff apparently came to Mozart’s music fairly late — well, at 15; late for a prodigy — but clearly understands that growing older is crucial to understanding the music.

The sound is spacious without being overly resonant, with the two instruments clearly separated but nicely balanced, reminding us — as does the CD’s title — that these were not originally written as sonatas for solo violin with piano accompaniment.

There are another two outstanding string quartet releases from the Naxos label. Hindemith String Quartets Vol.2 (8.572164) features the final three quartets of the composer’s cycle of seven, in impeccable performances by the Amar Quartet. The Zurich-based ensemble was granted use of the name of Hindemith’s own 1920s string quartet by the Hindemith Institute in 1995 on the centenary of the composer’s birth, so their interpretations here are clearly authoritative. Quartet No.5 is from 1923; Quartets Nos.6 and 7 are from 1943 and 1945, when Hindemith had settled in America. They’re terrific works, demonstrating his mastery of string writing and reminding one yet again that the opinion – still held in some quarters – that Hindemith was a dry and cerebral composer is patently false. Volume 1, featuring Quartets 2 and 3, is available on Naxos 8.572163; hopefully a third volume with Quartets 1 and 4 will soon complete an outstanding set.

The New Zealand String Quartet are the performers on the CD Asian Music for String Quartet (8.572488), a quite fascinating – and often quite beautiful – example of contemporary musical East meets West. There are single works by China’s Zhou Long and Gao Ping, Cambodia’s Chinary Ung (now an American citizen), Japan’s Toru Takemitsu and Tan Dun, the Chinese composer now resident in New York City. Titles like Song of the Ch’in (a Chinese plucked string instrument) and Bright Light and Cloud Shadows are a good indication of the sort of music you can expect here. It’s all superbly played by the New Zealand quartet. The recording was made in the acoustically superb St. Anne’s Church in west end Toronto, with the ever-reliable Norbert Kraft as recording engineer.

It’s always nice to open a CD when you have absolutely no idea – or, at least, very little – what to expect. I must admit to never having heard of the Polish composer and conductor Ignaz Waghalter (1881-1949), who moved to Berlin at the age of 17 and finally ended up, like so many others, in the United States after fleeing the Nazi regime in the late 1930s. Waghalter was born seven years after Schoenberg, the same year as Bartok, only one year before Stravinsky, two years before Anton Webern and four years before Alban Berg, but never showed any interest in what could be termed avant-garde music, a fact which certainly contributed to his virtual anonymity after the Second World War. His music, always strongly melodic, looks back to the world of Schumann, Brahms and Bruch, and never forward to the world of atonality and innovation. Naxos has issued a quite revelationary CD of his Violin Music (8572809), featuring the Greek-Polish violinist Irmina Trynkos in her debut CD and the first in her Waghalter Project, created specifically to promote the music of this composer.

The main offering here is the Violin Concerto Op.15 from 1911, a beautiful work that recalls Bruch and Brahms from the opening bars without ever showing quite the same sense of depth and scale. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Alexander Walker provides exemplary accompaniment in this and in the Rhapsodie Op.9 from 1906, a shorter work again strongly reminiscent of Brahms; both are world premiere recordings.

Three attractive works for violin and piano complete the disc: the Sonata in F minor Op.5; the Idyll Op.19b; and Geständnis, Trynkos being joined in these by pianist Giorgi Latsabidze.

Trynkos is a relatively new talent on the concert scene, but plays with warmth, style and confidence; she is clearly one to watch.

As for Waghalter, it will be interesting to see what, if any, other examples of his music will now be resurrected. There is certainly a great deal to enjoy here, but it is perhaps not too difficult to come up with an answer to the question posed at the end of the booklet notes: “How was it possible that this music went missing for a century?” To be fair though, that’s a question that can be asked about a good number of early 20th century European composers – especially Jewish ones – who fell victim to the political changes in the inter-war years and to the rejection after the Second World War of anything that was redolent of the old German musical tradition.

The excellent Swiss violinist Rachel Kolly D’Alba is back with her latest CD, American Serenade (Warner Classics 2564 65765-7), accompanied by the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under John Axelrod. In her booklet notes, D’Alba comments on the lack of boundaries between the multitude of different styles in American music. Certainly all three composers represented here were, as she notes, continually dogged by the question of whether their music was “serious’ or “popular” but for her it simply illustrates the fascinating complexity of American music. The Fantasy on Porgy and Bess opens the CD, George Gershwin’s music appearing in Alexander Courage’s arrangement for violin and orchestra of eight songs from the opera (– or was it a musical?). Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium is not heard all that often, but the composer apparently considered it his best work. When the conductor here, John Axelrod, was a pupil of Bernstein in the early 1980s it was the first work he studied with the composer, lending this performance a real sense of authority. Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie on themes from Bizet’s opera completes the disc. It’s a darker work than the Sarasate Fantasy on the same opera, and has long been a cult favourite with violinists. D’Alba is in great form throughout a terrific CD.

All in a Garden Green –
A Renaissance Collection
Toronto Consort; David Fallis
Marquis MAR 81515

This CD comprises a double re-release. Mariners and Milkmaids is a tribute to some of the stock characters of 17th century English ballads and dances. Its breakdown of 11 anonymous pieces and eight from the seminal English Dancing Master by John and Henry Playford bears this out.

Toronto Consort is highly imaginative in its selection and very few of the tracks are those old favourites often encountered in early music compilations. Come Ashore Jolly Tar is a spirited interpretation which would grace any Celtic celebration with its exuberant violin playing and percussion, as would The Sailor Laddie. More thoughtful but no less intense is Gilderoy: one singles out Laura Pudwell’s solo mezzo-soprano. One also notes the confident way in which Toronto Consort’s artistic director David Fallis defeats the Spanish Armada in In Eighty Eight — and Queen Anne’s enemies in the Recruiting Officer!

The Toronto Consort finds time to showcase its soloists. Katherine Hill (soprano) sings of being The Countrey Lasse, accompanied only by Terry McKenna’s lute. Alison Melville’s recorder and flute playing excel in An Italian Rant and Waltham Abbey, which reminds us of the complex techniques she draws on for the virtuosic English Nightingale by Jacob van Eyck.

The latter is found on the second CD, O Lusty May. This is more a celebration of renaissance music as a whole, dipping into the continental European repertoire, and less dependent on anonymous popular pieces.

There is a real sophistication to Allons au Vert Boccage by Guillaume Costeley, each of the four singers enjoying their own prominent part. The pure exuberance of Thoinot Arbeau’s Jouissance immediately follows — could there have been a more appropriate title for this tune? The continental pieces make their mark — Laura Pudwell in La terre n’agueres glacée, Giovanni Bassano’s Frais et Gaillard with Alison Melville rising to the challenge of some intricate baroque recorder fingering, and Meredith Hall’s solo Quand ce beau printemps je voy.

William Byrd’s All in a Garden Green is the most courtly English piece, its divisions bearing little resemblance to the plaintive tune set to words for lovers and, later, English Civil War activists. Meredith Hall breathes (bird) life into This Merry, Pleasant Spring, while an animated quintet urges us to See, see the shepherds’ queen.

Buy these CDs for anyone new to early music — and for your own sheer delight!

Concert note: Toronto Consort presents
the Canadian premiere of Francesco Cavalli’s 1640 Italian opera The Loves of Apollo & Daphne February 15 and 16 at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

Medtner; Mussorgsky; Prokofiev
Georgy Tchaidze
Honens
honens.com

Laureates of the Honens International Piano Competition are fascinating to follow as they begin to make their way in the world. The competition is a prestigious career launcher and offers wide public exposure as well as the promise of a performance recording on which to build a growing discography.

It’s easy to understand why Russian Georgy Tchaidze emerged victorious from the 2009 crop of gifted competitors. On this, his first major recording, he plays with articulate clarity and an enormously expressive technique, and considering his youth, his interpretive maturity is truly surprising.

Recorded at the Banff Centre in May 2012, Tchaidze plays Prokofiev, Mussorgsky and the somewhat lesser known Nicolai Medtner. The four Medtner Fairy Tales, Op.34 are a diverse and well-crafted collection of programmatic works. They demand much of their performer, especially the final one of the set where Tchaidze succeeds in making Medtner sound more of a modernist than even he may have realized.

Moving from the poetry of Medtner to the intellectual discipline of his contemporary Prokofiev, Tchaidze is fully at ease in the Sonata No.4 in C Minor, Op.29. He seems, in some way, to understand the music better than the composer himself and to convey this youthful confidence quite convincingly, never pushing this understated composition beyond credibility — even in the brief but highly charged final movement.

Mussorgsky’s Pictures are so well known and frequently recorded that including them on a first CD is a courageous choice. Tchaidze truly makes “Pictures” an exhibition.

For a closer look at this amazing young pianist, watch his several YouTube interviews and performances.

American Mavericks
San Francisco Symphony;
Michael Tilson Thomas
SFSMedia SFS 0056

The lion’s share of this captivating disc of American music is devoted to two major works by the innovative Henry Cowell (1897–1965), an early proponent of what came to be known as “World Music” and a pioneer of new sounds from his own instrument, the piano. His fascinating 1930 Synchrony for orchestra was originally titled Synchrony of Dance, Music, Light and was intended as a vehicle for the American dance pioneer Martha Graham, who unfortunately lost interest in this multimedia project. There is undoubtedly a scenario behind this work which might help explain its episodic character. Unfortunately the very meagre program notes leave us in the dark. Cowell’s rather more conventional three-movement Piano Concerto was also composed in that year, with the composer himself the pianist for the premiere performances. Both scores make prominent use of Cowell’s trademark “chord clusters” — aggressive conglomerations of notes played by closed fists or open palms — which caused quite a sensation at the time. Pianist Jeremy Denk is the soloist in a rousing rendition of this very propulsive work.

Lou Harrison (1917–2003), a student of Cowell’s, carried on his mentor’s interest in Asian musical traditions with a particular emphasis on Balinese music. His Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra, completed in 1973 though incorporating elements from as far back as 1951, features an excellent performance from Paul Jacobs. The five movements of the concerto form a convincing and satisfying synthesis of Eastern and Western elements seasoned with a strong French influence reminiscent of Messiaen. The percussion section of the orchestra is in particularly fine form in this invigorating score.

A superlative performance ofthe landmark 1927 version of Amériques by Edgard Varèse (1883–1965) brings the album to a close on a spectacular note. Tilson Thomas has always had an uncanny knack for voicing the most dissonant of chords into a harmonious blend and here he outdoes himself. These splendid live performances from 2010 and 2012 are indispensable fodder for devotees of any of these unbranded composers.

Barbara Pentland – Toccata
Barbara Pritchard
Centrediscs CMCCD 18312

I am very happy that Centrediscs, a label on which I also record, has released this CD of the solo piano music of Barbara Pentland. She was one of Canada’s leading composers who also had a place in the international avant-garde. Although she favoured serial techniques she did not let the rules restrict her. Her music sings and flows with imagination and colour. These are not the dry ascetic pieces you might expect from a serialist.

The first piece on the CD, Toccata (1958), is modelled on the toccatas of Frescobaldi and reflects the baroque virtuosic style of fast trills, arpeggios and hand crossings. Barbara Pritchard played this piece for the composer and gives an exemplary performance.Ephemera (1974–78) is made up of several short pieces named Angelus, Spectre, Whales, Coral Reef and Persiflage.This is an extraordinary set of works and Pritchard’s sensitive tone and attention to detail make this impressionistic-sounding music a mesmerizing experience. The humour that Pentland injects into two of these pieces is charming. A hint of Reveille in Persiflage is quirky and fun.

Tenebrae (1976) is full of brooding shadows lovingly played by Pritchard. Dirge from 1948 and From Long Agofrom 1946 illustrate Pentland’s early style and you can hear the influence of Copland, Stravinsky and Bartók on her work. Vita Brevis (1973) and Horizons (1985) complete this excellent CD which should encourage pianists of all levels and musicians of any taste to discover the marvellous, musical world of Barbara Pentland.

Adam Sherkin – As At First
Adam Sherkin
Centrediscs CMCCD 18212

This new recording finds Adam Sherkin at a fascinating early point in his career as a composer. Sherkin trained first as a pianist, and the works on this CD of his solo piano compositions show him processing this experience. Having engaged the piano repertoire as broadly and comprehensively as one could ask of an artist of 29 years, classical piano music remains his central point of reference. Clearly evident are the influences of an entire gallery of European piano keyboard composers from the Baroque through the late 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Mozart and Haydn are overtly acknowledged in this recording (in the pieces called Amadeus A.D. and Daycurrents, respectively), but the presence of Bach, Liszt and Shostakovich are no less clearly felt at various points in the proceedings.

Influences aside, what do we perceive of Sherkin himself? It’s a fair question in this case, because his compositions must accommodate the performer’s own fulsome expressivity: the dynamic range of his playing is wide, tending to the forte; his articulation is crisp with a fondness for jabbing accents; his phrasing often features a late-Romantic emotionalism in its rubato, but can also — albeit less frequently — settle into a calmer metric momentum. And here is what is interesting about this portrait: as a composer, he is dealing with the conflicting attractions of self-expression on one hand, as in the solo piano music of Schoenberg or Scriabin for example, and a less subjective, more outward and “American” approach on the other, as in the music of John Adams, with whose solo piano music Sherkin is well acquainted. It is a typically 21st century creative quandary, and Adam Sherkin has taken up the struggle with energy and panache.

Levant
Amici Chamber Ensemble
ATMA Classique ACD2 2655

Clarinettist Joaquin Valdepeñas, cellist David Hetherington and pianist Serouj Kradjian are joined by first-rate guests (Benjamin Bowman and Stephen Sitarski, violins, Steven Dann, viola) to perform a wide range of pieces which make up the passionately played program of this superb recording. The music of familiar composers such as Glazunov and Prokofiev sits alongside that of little-known Gayané Chebotaryan, Solhi Al-Wadi, Marko Tajčević and other artists inspired by the “sounds and colours of the Middle East,” as explained in Kradjian’s informative liner notes.

Highlights include Prokofiev’s Overture on Hebrew Themes, involving all the musicians and featuring Valdepeñas’ gorgeous clarinet sound, and the Seven Balkan Dances by Tajčević, a 20th century Yugoslav composer. The performance of these dances is highly spirited and showcases the artistry and virtuosity of the core ensemble.

The program is punctuated by chants by the spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff, arranged for solo piano by Thomas de Hartmann. These contemplative pieces, sensitively played by Kradjian, act as a welcome foil to the larger, longer and more intense ensemble pieces.

The disc ends with a sensational solo piano work — Levante, by Osvaldo Golijov — brilliantly rendered by Kradjian.

The string playing by Hetherington and guests is rhapsodic and committed and the whole disc exudes polish and thoughtful musicianship. Special mention should be made of Carlos Prieto’s engineering.

Concert notes: Amici provides live music to accompany classic silent (and neo-silent) films by Buster Keaton, Man Ray and Guy Maddin at the Bell Lightbox on February 3 at 3:00. They will be joined by soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and other guests in music of Beethoven, Chausson, Poulenc and Montsalvatge at Koerner Hall on March 1 at 8:00.

Stealing Genius
Amy McConnell; William Sperandei
Femme Cache Productions FCP0001 mcconnellsperandei.com

The debut record from singer Amy McConnell and trumpeter William Sperandei, with producer Feisal Patel, is a stylish romp through 20th century music originating from a range of genres and eras. The title, Stealing Genius, is a reference to Oscar Wilde’s quip “talent borrows; genius steals.” But since covering other songwriters’ work is standard practice in the world of jazz, the quip could be reworked as “talent borrows; jazz artists assume ownership.” In this case, the victims of the thefts are varied and sometimes unexpected such as Elvis Presley (Suspicious Minds), Led Zeppelin (Thank You) and James Bond (From Russia With Love).

McConnell’s background in theatre shows in her vocal phrasing and approach — she has a big sound and emotions are expressed in broad strokes that play to the back of the house. Her accent is beautiful and convincing on the few French offerings including, of course, Piaf’s La Vie en Rose. Sperandei’s nice, bright sound blends well with McConnell’s and his soloing is confident and concise. Singer/stride pianist Michael Kaeshammer’s guest turn on the Ink Spots’ I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire is inspired. But the real genius is in having Larnell Lewis and Rob Piltch play drums and guitar on this record. Lewis’ exuberant precision and Piltch’s subtle musicality elevate many of the songs from stylish to artful.

The Speakeasy Quartet –
Vintage Style Hot Jazz, Swing and Pop
Speakeasy Quartet
Independent WJS004
hughleal.com

Hugh Leal may not be well known in Toronto but he has been a significant force for jazz in the Windsor area since the late 70s. He has been a real catalyst for the music as a guitarist/promoter/record producer; between 1983 and 2000 his Parkwood Records label recorded such veteran musicians as Doc Cheatham, J.C. Heard, Art Hodes, Franz Jackson and Sammy Price.

On this latest CD he features the Speakeasy Quartet in a program of jazz standards from the 20s and 30s including a couple of Bechet compositions, Egyptian Fantasy and the rarely heard Premier Bal, East St. Louis Toodle-oo and The Mooche by Ellington, Jubilee, Willie The Weeper, two trio numbers where the cello lays out, Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams and Indian Summer plus three originals by saxophonist Ray Manzerolle whose impressive playing is featured throughout the album. There are also fine solos from cellist Mike Karoub and pianist Mike Karloff.

All in all an enjoyable album from four musicians who respect and understand the traditions of the music. As the back of the jewel case accurately says: “Classic jazz with a unique fresh sonority.” Thank you Hugh for your seemingly tireless dedication to the jazz of an earlier era. To buy the CD contact lealjazz@gmail.com. $15 and it’s yours.

When I Arrived You Were Already There
Aviva Chernick
Independent AVGC-002
avivachernick.bandcamp.com

This is the solo CD debut for Aviva Chernick, who also performs as lead singer of the JUNO-nominated group Jaffa Road. Jaffa Road, like many of the other groups she performs with, explores a wide variety of world music. This recording reflects her work leading devotional music in the Jewish community, including at a number of Toronto’s temples and synagogues.

Her melodies on English and Hebrew texts are presented in a lovely, simple and accessible chant-like style. They transport the listener with a meditative and transcendent character, while the accompanying musicians on a number of exotic instruments provide more intricate and varied textures elegantly lending elements of rock, jazz and world fusion. One of the songs, Chadesh yameinu, borrows its melody with a tip of the hat to the Indian-Persian duo Ghazal.

Aviva maintains a forthright manner and purity of tone in her vocal style, as do her many notable guest singers. The relationships of breath/spirit, creativity/divinity, nature/renewal, family and community are explored on many levels in this deeply heartfelt and personal offering. The title When I Arrived You Were Already Thereis an invitation to the listener to look deeply within and return to peace.

Few cds will garner the immediate interest of Test of Time (Cornerstone Records CRST CD 140, cornerstonerecordsinc.com), previously unreleased material recorded in 1999 by the trio of saxophonist Mike Murley, guitarist Ed Bickert and bassist Steve Wallace. The trio’s only previous CD won the 2002 Juno Award for best mainstream jazz album, shortly after Bickert’s 2001 decision to retire from playing. Bickert may be Canada’s most distinguished jazz guitarist (his tenure with Paul Desmond might be enough to establish that) but all his gifts are in evidence here, the gentle propulsion of his chording, the perfect voicings when he’s comping and the brilliant linear flow of his improvised lines. There’s likely no better forum to showcase his gifts than this trio without drums, his every nuance clearly audible and Murley and Wallace ideal associates to bring out his best as both soloist and accompanist. East of the Sun stands out.

Myriad 3 is a group of young Toronto musicians in the traditional jazz piano trio format, with Chris Donnelly on piano, Dan Fortin on bass and Ernesto Cervini on drums. Tell (ALMA ACD13112, almarecords.com), however, doesn’t strongly suggest any traditional trio approaches. Instead the group’s affinities are with more recent paradigms, like Sweden’s EST or the American trio Bad Plus. Myriad 3’s style is distinctly spare and strongly rhythmic, with elements of classical and pop music frequently appearing. The opening Myriad may suggest Satie in its modal grace, while Drifters emphasizes forceful, broken rhythms and dramatically unexpected piano chords. There’s a sense here of an equality of parts, each member playing in a sparse, assertively gestural style. When older jazz elements appear, they’re equally lean and specific, whether it’s Duke Ellington’s almost monotone C Jam Blues or the bluesy Horace Silver-style bop of Donnell’s Mr. Awkward.

The Lina Allemano Four has achieved remarkably consistent form, maintaining the same personnel for their fourth consecutive CD (beginning with Pinkeye in 2006). Trumpeter Allemano is joined by Brodie West on alto saxophone, Andrew Downing on bass and Nick Fraser on drums on Live at the Tranzac (Lumo Records, linaallemano.com), the Toronto bar providing a comfortable setting for these close-knit, highly conversational dialogues on the leader’s compositions. The style is free jazz, the band reminiscent of Ornette Coleman’s original quartet, but the music couldn’t be more disciplined, the band working hand-in-glove to realize the most from each of Allemano’s tunes.

Tenor saxophonist Michael Blake has long been established in New York, where he’s best known for his decade-long membership in John Lurie’s high-profile Lounge Lizards. He still maintains strong ties to Vancouver, however, and he has just released In the Grand Scheme of Things (Songlines SGL159-2, songlines.com) featuringa quartet with Vancouver musicians. It’s a heady musical blend that delights in contrasting sounds, from Blake’s own, often straight-ahead tenor in lyrical ballad or forceful up-tempo mode to passages of eerie, electronically altered trumpet from JP Carter, techno and ambient electronic sound from Chris Gestrin on Fender Rhodes electric piano and a Moog Micromoog synthesizer and percussion that ranges from traditional trap drumming to the metallic grit of scraped cymbals from Dylan van der Schyff. It’s evocative work, but it’s Blake’s warm, keening tenor on the soulful Treat Her Right that leaves the strongest impression.

The American composer and bandleader Sun Ra died in 1993, but his influence persists in new recordings from Montreal and Toronto. Bassist Nick Caloia has been building the Ratchet Orchestra since the early 90s. At times it’s been as small as a quartet, but the current personnel numbers around 30. While the band has performed and recorded Sun Ra compositions in the past, here the influence is apparent in Caloia’s own writing. It’s a mad explosion of sound that layers Caloia’s ceremonial melodies over processional rhythms and a thick undergrowth of improvising percussion. As heard on Hemlock (Drip Audio DA00820, dripaudio.com), the band has also assembled the strongest core of soloists you’re ever likely to hear in a Canadian free-jazz band, including the reeds of Jean Derome, Lori Freedman, Christopher Cauley and Damian Nisensen, trombonists Tom Walsh and Scott Thomson and guitarist Sam Shalabi. The vitality and high spirits are palpable and they sometimes explode, as in the eruption of Beat poet Brion Gysin’s permutational Kick that Habit Man.

Toronto guitarist Ken Aldcroft’s Convergence Ensemble has released a 2-CD set of the leader’s compositions called Sneaky Pete/Slugs’ (Trio Records try 015, kenaldcroft.com). Disc one is a collection of pieces that emphasizes sub-groups and solo improvisations; Disc two, by the full sextet, presents Slugs’: Suite for Sun Ra, named for the New York club where Sun Ra once played regularly. It’s animated at once by Aldcroft’s melodies and swaying rhythms, but it’s elevated by the focused improvisations of the ensemble, from Aldcroft’s own divergent approaches (sometimes a lyrical minimalism, at other times tumbling, rapid flurries of notes) to the extended techniques of trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud, playing multiple tones at once, and trombonist Scott Thomson (yes, he manages to appear in both these bands) who explores seemingly contradictory low-pitched whistles. The final piece, combining themes from both Sneaky Pete and Slugs’, goes through numerous textures, highlighted by the intensity of saxophonist Evan Shaw.