On this leaderless trio album, as with most ECM releases, you get the feeling of music emerging from a vast and echoey space; Erskine's Morse-code drum accents, Vitous' thrumming basslines and the plaintive cry of Garbarek's soprano and alto saxophones are far removed from what some would consider "jazz," but that's not the point. The tunes may be somewhat interchangeable, but the music is virtuosic, thoughtful and thoroughly lovely, at times heart-tugging. Makes you wish these three would get together more often.

Long on the Creel Pone radar has been this pair of LPs by French bandleader Philippe Doray, recorded in conjunction with the aid of his five "Asociaux Associés" & issued in 1977 & 1980, respectively, via Jean-Marc Patrat & José Serré's Gratte-Ciel & Invisible, the house-label of the inimitable Jacques Pasquier's Société Coopérative d'Ouvriers-Producteurs Artistiques. Centered around Doray's Synthi VCS3 playing & sprech-stimme vocal stylings, the selections here run the gamut from puerile, absurdist ad hoc rants, munged ring-modulated rhythm box experiments & general minimal-synth filigree, to straight up octave-pedal choogle, all laced with a particularly gallic sensibility. This is one of the more deconstructed and head-scratchingly odd entrants into the canon, with a similar studio-as-orchestra modus as Faust in spots, tethered by Doray's group of droogs, his "Asociaux Associés" who provide more traditional rhythm-section moves, only to disappear into voids of effects & Electronic treatments. One of the truly great, outsider statements from the late 70s Francophone Art / Punk / Damage milieu, on par with La Perversita, Ilitch, Pascal Comelade, Jac Berrocal, and Regrelh's formative work.

Long-awaited third album from one of the most touching and magical sound combinations in music today: Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek with Britain's premier vocal group, The Hilliard Ensemble. The first album, Officium, has sold nearly 1.5 million copies, and it is still in the charts as one of the top 20 best-selling classical albums of the past decade, well after its 1994 release.

With tour de force performances on both trumpet and cornet of music ranging from the Baroque, through the Classical era, and into the 20th century, this “Portrait” illustrates the extraordinary diversity of Wynton Marsalis’ classical repertory. Marsalis recorded each of these works between 1982 (when he was just 21 years old) and 1987. The 1982 recording of Hummel’s Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra in E-flat Major comes from his fist classical album, which won Marsalis a Grammy for Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist(s) with Orchestra.

Faced with five discs of 14 symphonic works by 11 composers from the former German Democratic Republic, the general listener might well throw up his/her hands in dismay. After all, the most famous names here, Hanns Eisler and Paul Dessau, have received scant recognition outside the former East Germany, while names like Goldmann, Geissler, Katzer, and Weiss will be completely unfamiliar. And yet even the general listener cannot deny the extrinsic interest of the symphonies produced by a state that now exists only in the dustbin of history.

This 1992 recording by the Garbarek Group has their customary blend of Norwegian folk themes and original compositions, with the leader's big-toned soprano and tenor saxophones at the heart of a music that combines cool lyricism and intense, if restrained, passion. It's the emotion that Garbarek can concentrate in a single note that distinguishes his work. His soprano is a keening wail in the unaccompanied introduction to "Brother Wind March," his high-register tenor an impassioned cry on "The Tall Tear Trees." Rainer Bruninghaus's piano provides a reflectively lyrical contrast, while the shifting rhythms of percussionists Manu Katche and Marilyn Mazur add variety to the reiterated themes. The CD is filled with distinctively Norwegian touches.

The Beatles - The Twickenham Sessions (1969) {8CD Box Set, Yellow Dog Records YDT 001-4 rel 1999}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.16 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.35 Gb
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© 1969, 1999 Yellow Dog Records | YDT 001-4
Rock / Classic Rock

The sessions commonly referred to as the "Get Back Sessions" took place during January 1969. (Jan 2nd - 15th at Twickenham Studios; Jan 22nd - 31st at Apple Studios). Paul originally conceived the project back in late '68, believing that they could revitalize the band by returning to live performances. The Beatles were to be filmed writing, rehearsing, and recording, culminating with the actual live show (the logistics of which were never really settled, resulting in "the roof top" as a last ditch compromise).

While Vivaldi remains most well known as a composer of his own instrument, the violin, his cello concerti are masterpieces of the baroque era and demonstrate his profound sensitivity and facility for writing for the cello. Although none were published in his own lifetime, Vivaldi's cello concerti are little gems of the baroque literature, and this recording does not disappoint. In this, the first of four volumes of Vivaldi's cello concerti, Rapael Wallfisch on solo cello, delivers a fresh and lively performance, beautifully balanced by the accompanying City of London Simphonia and Nicholas Kraimer on the Harpsichord.

Apart from David Sanborn, probably no living saxophonist has a more instantly recognizable voice than Jan Garbarek; actually, given the fact that Sanborn's sound is so widely copied, Garbarek's may be easier to identify in a blindfold test. This album in particular puts that sound front and center. Garbarek's the show; he composed all of the music, and is essentially the only soloist. The music (much of which was composed as soundtrack material for film or video) is quintessential Garbarek, full of the world music influences that have characterized his work since the 1970s.