Tag: CD review

CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Tony Williams – Play or Die (CD Review)

Tony Williams

Play or Die

Tony Williams, drums, percussion, vocals; Tom Grant, keyboards, synthesizer;

Patrick O’Hearn, electric bass.

M.I.G. Music GMBH

 

Recorded in Stuttgart in 1980 and limited to 500 copies that weren’t widely distributed outside Germany, Play or Die, led by late drummer Tony Williams, is a unicorn record that is finally receiving a reissue. Joined by keyboardist Tom Grant and bassist Patrick O’Hearn, Williams leans in on one his most fusion focused recordings. Sharing the composition duties with O’Hearn, Play or Die includes two originals by the drummer, one by the bassist, and a “Jam Tune” credited to the trio. 

 

O’Hearn’s contribution, “The Big Man,” features a low-range and wide-ranging melody on the bass guitar, one that could well stand beside “Walking on the Moon” as a memorable bass hook. Meanwhile, Tom Grant supplies ska chord stabs and synth filigrees and Williams goes his own way, playing powerfully with myriad virtuoso fills.

 

Williams begins “Beach Ball Tango” with a roll-filled solo. When the others join, O’Hearn once again provides a tuneful melody, but it is Grant who leads the fray with a mono-synth line and rhythmically charged ornaments. Another solo from Williams frames the piece and is followed by a return of the head to close. 

 

 The jam tune is a workout over a funky groove that gives each musician a chance to spread out in their soloing. The now-vintage synths played by Grant timestamp Play or Die on the cusp of the 1980s. His soloing, too, reflects giants from that era, ranging from David Sancious to Herbie Hancock. The number of keyboards Grant must deploy in a single tune are reminiscent of the formidable racks one saw in front of Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz, and Geoff Downes in seventies prog settings. Doubling O’Hearn’s bass line in his left hand, Grant plays an energetic solo in his right. Williams is right there alongside them, propelling the activity energetically. 

 

“Para Oriente” is a syncopated mid-tempo tune with a bluesy cast and an interesting modulation in the bridge. Not to slight percussionists, but it is impressive how Williams combines bluesy progressions and prog harmonies into a single piece. O’Hearn takes a fleet-fingered solo followed by yet another section that introduces a new motif and heady solo from the keyboards. When the original material returns, the unorthodox development and reentry make it seem transformed. 

 

One doesn’t think of Williams as a singer, but his vocal turn on “There Comes a Time,” which is haloed by overdubbed vocals in the chorus, is lyrically soulful. The chord progression supplied by Grant and O’Hearn, over which Williams sings and plays, includes lots of substitutions that feel tangy against the vocal melody. 

 

Unicorn records always make one wish for more: another LP from the group, a longer life for Tony Williams. While those dreams are unachievable, we have Williams’s widow to thank for working with M.I.G. Music to reissue this extraordinary recording. Ready, just as in 1980, to blow  listeners’ minds.

 

-Christian Carey


by Christian Carey
CD Review, Cello, Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Gity Razaz – The Strange Highway (CD Review)

 

Gity Razaz

The Strange Highway

Francesca de Pasquale, violin; Katharine Kang Litton, viola;

Ingbal Segev, cello; Scott Cuellar, piano

All-American Cello Band; Metropolist Ensemble, Andrew Cyr, conductor

BIS Records

 

Born in Iran and now residing in New York, over the past fifteen years composer Gity Razaz has created a number of well-crafted works. The Strange Highway, her first portrait CD, includes chamber music, ensemble works, and electronics in live and studio recordings.

 

The title piece, composed for cello octet and played by the All-American Cello Band for Dutch radio, was inspired by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaňo’s eponymous poem. It features outer sections of considerable intensity, with forte tutti ostinatos pressing the action forward. The central section begins to dissolve into solo lines and fragments of the ostinatos, only to bring lush harmonies to the fore. The final section reprises the intensity and material of the first.

 

Over the course of Duo’s two movements, the first angst-filled and the second boisterous, Razaz deconstructs and varies a single melody. The transformation from the cadenza passage of the first movement leading into a repurposed dancing melody for the second is well conceived. Violinist Francesa de Pasquale brings a limpid tone to the cadenzas and bright tone and incisive rhythms to the latter half of the piece. Pianist Scott Cuellar provides sonorous accompaniment to the opening and stands out in the muscular stabs of the fast section.

 

Razaz describes her solo viola work “Spellbound” as a soliloquy that features a melody that “hints at Persian music.” Katharina Kang Litton plays it with intensity and a fluid rhythmic sense. “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” is the title of a Salvador Dali painting. It is also the inspiration of the final piece on The Strange Highway. The myth itself has captivated Razaz and is an equal part of her considerations when composing the piece. The latter seems more resonant; not much surrealism is heard. An evocatively scored tone poem, “Metamorphosis of Narcissus” is crammed full of vividly orchestrated, lively motives. The Metropolitan Ensemble, conducted by Andrew Cyr, played this live at Le Poisson Rouge. They provide a detailed rendering of the piece. I was glad not to hear the tinkling of glasses in the background (how did they manage that?).

 

Cellist Ingbal Segev commissioned “Legend of Sigh” from Razaz. The work is the most extended on the recording – nineteen minutes in duration – and features atmospheric fixed electronics with overdubbed cello. The best parts of the piece make a “super-cello” out of overdubs, somewhat reminiscent of the textures in The Strange Highway’s central section. Descending glissandos are used to heighten tension throughout “Legend of Sigh’s” midpoint. As a foil, modal ascending passages provide a measure of consonance to the proceedings. A blustery section in the middle energizes both the cello and supplies clarion electronics. This is succeeded by an overdubbed ostinato accompaniment and high-lying sustained lines with bell-like electronics.

 

The second movement displays Segev’s abundant technical skill with a fleet cadenza followed by overdubbed pizzicatos. These two materials morph into the afore-mentioned “super-cello” texture in repeated sections accompanying triumphant ascending scales. Electronics return to accompany a poignant interlude. A sumptuous theme is then accompanied by all of the elements, including a new texture – cello choir playing arpeggiations – that affords a departure at the piece’s conclusion, with a little tag of electronics as an outro. A varied and compelling piece, “Legend of Sigh” is the most forward-looking offering on the recording. Razaz would do well to develop her creativity in this pocket.

 

Quite a promising portrait recording. Let’s hear some of Razaz’s operas next!

 

-Christian Carey

 

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Bryan Senti – Manu (CD Review)

Bryan Senti

Manu

Naive

 

Violinist/violist and composer Bryan Senti currently lives in LA, but his connections range widely. He’s scored films and television for the BBC and played on post-classical releases by Dustin O’Hallorn and Peter Gregson. Senti’s recording Manu demonstrates musical versatility and arranging talent.

 

Given his background, it is little surprise that there is a cinematic quality to Senti’s approach to scoring. That said, the pieces on Manu aren’t sound files from the cutting room floor; they hold together as post-classical compositions. The recording’s pieces use a cohort of strings. The title track at its outset features hocketing between various members of the ensemble, which eventually coheres into an ostinato in the bass with percussive interjections and dolphin tones above. “Icaro’s” melody is plucked out against sustained violin lines and a chaconne in the bass. “Mantra” (see video below) is the most impressively layered piece on the album and is considerably catchy.

 

There’s gravitas on Manu as well. “Humo” features Senti as soloist and is reminiscent of Arvo Pärt’s austere minimalism. Like several of the pieces here, the tight arrangement is compelling but one wishes it might linger longer. “Telar” and “Via,” which close the album, are more expansive. The former has a steady beat, percussively articulated, and downward glissandos in the altissimo register against mid-register repeated notes and a rangy bass part. Gradually, a forward moving harmonic progression presses the music towards its conclusion. A coda winnows down the texture to high violins and attenuations of the mid-register and bass.

 

“Via” has a repeating tune that is somewhere between a motive by Philip Glass and a Celtic reel. The texture shifts in a number of ways throughout the tune, at some points underscoring glissandos and altissimo register doublings of the tune, at others planing in the middle register. The violin motive returns several times, with its rhythmic values moving from sustained notes to sixteenths. It is ultimately overlaid in presentations at three different speeds, an impressive demonstration of contrapuntal chops by Senti. The coda features rich modal harmonies followed by a spare outro.

 

Senti demonstrates tremendous facility in scoring strings. Hopefully he will get a full orchestra involved for his next release. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Chamber Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Psappha Commissions (CD Review)

Psappha

Commissions

Psappha, 2022

 

Contemporary ensemble Psappha has commissioned both emerging and established composers. This recording chronicles works the group has brought to life by John Casken, Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, Tom Harrold, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Tom Coult, George Stevenson, and Alisa Firsova. 

 

The selections provide a diverse array of styles, displaying the confidence with which Psappha assays musical challenges. Some of the pieces are by longtime associates, such as John Casken, whose Winter Reels, written for the group’s core “Pierrot plus percussion” instrumentation, depict three different aspects of the season. The first two open with chiming percussion before the rest of the ensemble enters; the third with drums. Climate change has left Casken’s reels unaffected, as blustery percussion and angular melodies depict “A Warming Song.” “A Cold Song ” is more reflective, with intricate layering of the parts and supple solos. “A Spirited Gathering” is rhythmically propulsive and seems like a ceremonial dance with, as one might guess, shades of Stravinsky. It does a slow build to an ebullient climax, with a splash of chimes to conclude.

 

Cruttwell Reade explores Indian raga in Patdeep Studies, a showcase for sitar player Jasdeep Singh Degun. It is a beguiling work, with the sitar taking up a different aspect of raga in each movement and the ensemble providing subtle accompaniment that often blurs into the sitar part. 

 

Tom Harrold says of his Dark Dance that it is a “perverse viola concertino.” The piece is rambunctious, playfully tart, and easily could have gone on longer.  Tom Coult’s Two Games and a Nocturne is similarly jocular. The first movement features inside-the-piano glissandos followed by jaunty unison gestures and pitched percussion playing a gangly tune. The second, Meccanico ma accelerando, has a devolving robotic sound in the percussion that is successively overshadowed by stentorian string and wind passages. It closes with an intensification of each instrumental group’s music, with fleet winds and a percussive punctuation to close. “Nocturne” begins with chimes and wind solos with repeated pitches haloed by piano unisons. Strings then become prominent in the texture, taking over some of the angular gestures from the winds. Bird calls, piano chords, and continuous chimes underscored by enigmatic harmonies bring the piece to a pensive close.

 

One of the most successful pieces on Commissions, George Stevenson’s Trees Made of Air, has a Francophone post-tonal pitch palette and consists of overlaid off-kilter ostinatos and angular solo and duet passages. The shifts between different gestures, and their often disparate metrical structures, is a key facet of the piece’s development. Stevenson’s inspiration for the piece is physicist Richard Feynman; in particular, the trajectories of his thought and explication of ideas. One can readily hear how the labyrinthine form of Trees Made of Air might be inspired by one of our era’s greatest minds.

 

The centerpiece of the recording is Black Milk, by Mark-Anthony Turnage. A sixteen member ensemble supports jazz singer Ian Shaw, who performs Turnage’s setting of an English translation of Paul Celan’s poem Todesfuge (‘Death Fugue’). To say that Turnage is an extraordinary orchestrator is not news. Still, the eloquently arranged accompaniment of Black Milk and the responsive quality it frequently undertakes alongside Shaw’s singing creates a constant feeling of dramatic urgency. Shaw delivers the poem with poignancy and at times great emotionality, both approaches suiting his muscular voice perfectly. 

 

Three bonus tracks are performances by soprano Daisy Brown of Alissa Firsova’s Songs of the World. Although Hugo von Hofmannsthal is best known as a librettist, Firsova found these poems to be expressive material for art songs. She is correct, and her settings display echoes of the late romantic works to which Hofmannsthal artistically contributed. Lush scoring and lyrical melodies that are beautifully sung by Brown make these songs quite a bonus for listeners. Psappha is involved in a number of current and upcoming projects. Keep an eye and ear open for them.

 

-Christian Carey 



by Christian Carey
CDs, Cello, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Ivan Fedele – Works for Violoncello (Review)

Ivan Fedele

Works for Violoncello

Michele Marco Rossi, cello; Francesco Abbrescia, electronics

Kairos CD

Ivan Fedele (b. 1953) has created a large catalog of compositions. Like J.S. Bach, he has written six French suites, “Suite Francese.” Unlike Bach, Fedele’s six suites are for different instruments. His latest recording on the Kairos label focuses on the suites for cello, a solo Partita, and a reworking of Suite Francese VI that incorporates electronics. 

Suite VI uses traditional baroque dances as movement titles, further underscoring the question: how closely related are Fedele’s pieces to their progenitors? It is a similar problem to considering the movements from Schoenberg’s Op. 25 Suite, and in both cases, any incorporation of baroque dance rhythms is, at best, greatly sublimated. Within these modern takes on the suite however, there are rhythmic and textural distinctions between movements that suggest that they are indeed organized as a set of variations.

The opening “Preludio” features trilled passages and ascending chromatic scalar segments, offset by rhythmically punctuated bass notes. “Ostinato” has a middle register melody that, rather than remaining unvaried, throughout the movement enlarges and collapses. “Corrente 1” features driving rhythms and squalls of sound effects against an occasionally present motive built out of minor seconds and minor thirds. Partway through, a huge build up of repeated notes arrives in a series of bass notes, giving the sense of an interior structural boundary. The bass register is then used as an ostinato with periodic interruptive soprano register squalls. The minor second theme once again makes appearances set against thrumming bass. The upper register is reasserted with a flurry of activity, juxtaposed against lower register glissandos. Those glissandos populate the final section, alongside minor seconds, now in the bass register. “Interludio” is a duet between a plummy tenor register melody and high harmonics. The eventual imposition of a bass line makes it conclude as a trio. “Corrente 2” is rife with combative repeated notes bounced from register to register. Upper register interjections harry the main rhetorical thread, which is a repeated move towards descent to the bottom of the instrument. Chords replace the upper voice and a longer bass melody is introduced and then swiftly deconstructed. Pizzicatos and bow pressure treat a melody that soars to the soprano register. This stentorian climax is just as swiftly replaced by hushed effects to close. The suite is an impressively varied piece in terms of techniques employed, expressive qualities, and ways in which relatively brief movements are given intricate formal identities. 

Suite III has a different character at the outset of its first movement, “Arc-En-Ciel” with gently juxtaposed harmonics crafting a gradual move towards open strings and octaves that grounds the harmony between sliding tones. The harmonic series is presented successively in harmonics and open strings, finishing the movement with a sense of tonicization. “Preludio e Ciaccona” contrasts this with reedy thematic cells spiraling away, finally supplanted by open low strings and bass register slides. “Branle Double” contrasts this by starting in the upper register and moving through chromatic descents that land on dissonant multi-stops. Partway through, things are halted by bass octaves. The chromatic descents are now replicated in mid-range octaves. Angular and rangy melodic material is given an ardorous presentation. The piece gradually quickens, adding harmonics and bass notes to the line to create a compound melody. Here as elsewhere, cellist Michele Marco Rossi supplies a detailed, embodied, and expressive interpretation of Fedele’s music.

All of the pieces employ extended techniques, but Partita is a showcase for them. Instead of dances as movement titles, here we are given a bit more of a hint of generative properties for some –  “X-Waves” and “Z-Point” – and moods for others – “Hommagesquisse” and “Threnos.” The latter title speaks to an overarching sense of keening and frequent violent utterances. The use of slow-moving glissandos imparts a vocality to the playing that underscores the sense of mourning. The final movement, “Corrente,” adds percussive raps and slaps alongside mercurial melodic playing that is embellished with high harmonics. There is a slight sense of triple meter that is one of the most palpable places related to dance. 

The revised version of Suite VI, Suite VIb, incorporates electronics. It would be interesting to know whether Fedele had this in mind before composing the original version. There is certainly ample room left for the treatments employed, most of them effects that embellish the existing music. Harmonics are enhanced, repeated passages reverberate to create a sense of overlap, the gestures that result taking on the perception of a “super instrument.” Overdoubling and squealing treble register climaxes replace considerations of the baroque suite with ones of deformation and deconstruction. It is an impressive example of reconstituting an acoustic work in the digital domain. Which to prefer? Best not to have to choose. Recommended. 

-Christian Carey     

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz

Ches Smith – Interpret it Well (CD Review)


Ches Smith
Interpret it Well
Ches Smith, percussion and electronics; Bill Frisell, guitar; Mat Maneri, viola; Craig Taborn, piano
Pyroclastic Records

Percussionist Ches Smith was previously working in a trio with violist Mat Maneri and pianist Craig Taborn. In 2018, guitarist Bill Frisell heard them live and wanted in. The resulting quartet had to deal with the vicissitudes of the pandemic; their 2020 sessions weren’t released until 2022. Every eighth note is worth the wait.

Smith plays drums and non-pitched percussion. He is also a talented vibraphonist. It makes a big difference that a bass player isn’t part of the proceedings. Taborn, Frisell, and Maneri sometimes emphasize a bass line to fill in for this absence. For the most part, the texture they inhabit doesn’t imitate a classic quartet, instead creating its own, inimitable thing. Interpret it Well is named after the 1987 drawing by Raymond Pettibon that appears on the recording’s cover. The title track employs multiple rhythmic layers, with Taborn creating a steady pulse while the others polyrhythmically depart from it. There are searching solos from Frisell and Maneri and Smith creates a rollicking groove at the drum kit. Another of the extended cuts on the recording, “Mixed Metaphor,” features a long instrumental introduction by Frisell, with other instruments gradually entering from the background to join him. Taborn and Maneri each take solo turns, the pianist creating intricate textures while the violist plays with particularly fiery enthusiasm. Smith urges them on with a strong backbeat.

“Clear Major,” begins with Smith on vibraphone alongside the rest of the quartet, all playing just as the title suggests. Things get thornier as they progress, with the infiltration of sinuous chromatic lines played by Frisell and Maneri, clusters forcefully played by Taborn, and fast triplet percussion fills by Smith. The mid-section moves towards bluesier gestures, with Taborn playing seventh chords and Maneri inflecting his own grooves with trademark microtonality. Frisell gets in on the fun by dovetailing Maneri’s riffs in the same register. The texture dissolves into arpeggiations and terse rhythmic interjections, once again outlining the home key with greater clarity, with Taborn repeating an impressionist harmony over and over. They hang out in this aphoristic atmosphere for a good portion of the piece’s second half. There is a long fade that ends mirroring the beginning’s tonal ambience.

“I Need More” uses a tune based on the spoken rhythm of the title, an old-fashioned technique that is deployed in anything but an old-fashioned sound world. That said, there is a thread between the playing here and more traditional – say post-bop- gestures. It is fascinating to hear how the quartet is able to encompass this change with such subtlety and skill. The climax teases going off the rails only to reassert the tune in unison riffs and end the piece with interlocking ostinatos.

“Morbid” is more chamber music than jazz, with a modal and mysterious sound world that shares more than passing references to Arnold Schoenberg and George Crumb. That “Morbid” is spontaneous, instead the careful composition of its influences, makes the expressionist result all the more stirring.

Two short pieces begin and end the recording. Taborn and Frisell create a loping groove on “Trapped” that is punctuated by repeated chiming from vibes and Maneri sneaks in with a few repeated gestures. Like an unwinding music box, the piece comes apart at the end. On “Deppart,” there is instead a surface that takes time to cohere, almost like the clock winding up here into another corruscated set of repetitions.

Interpret it Well is one of the finest creative music releases thus far in 2022. Look for it on many year-end lists.

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Guitar

James Romig’s The Complexity of Distance (CD Review)

James Romig

The Complexity of Distance

Mike Scheidt, electric guitar

New World Records

 

James Romig is best known for his solo piano piece Still, an hour long meditation on the paintings of Clyfford Still. Trained at Iowa and obtaining the Ph.D. at Rutgers, where he worked with Charles Wuorinen and Milton Babbitt, Romig has a number of serial works to his name. The structuring of Still displays this, but the surface has a limpid character and the gradual development of the material also demonstrates an affinity for Morton Feldman and Earle Brown. Pianist Ashlee Mack’s recording of Still was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an unusual choice for the committee, as large-scale works – opera, orchestral pieces – are more often selected. 

 

Romig’s current project is an even greater departure. The Complexity of Distance is for solo electric guitar, tuned down a fifth so that the low string is A instead of E. It was commissioned by doom metal guitarist Mike Scheidt and composed during the remote times of the pandemic via long distance communication. Scheidt is best known as being part of the band YOB, but he adapts well to the detailed notation and solo context of TCOD. 

 

The piece opens with a sustained open power chord, which forms the basis of the piece: roots, fifths, and octaves, seldom thirds. TCOD’s rhythmic structure is a three-line canon, which Romig describes thus,”The first rhythmic strand alternates, at a time-interval of 13 beats, between chords with roots written E and G (sounding A and C in A-standard tuning). The second strand alternates every 14 beats between chords with roots of C and D (F/G). The third strand alternates every 15 beats between chords of B and A (E/D).Beginning and ending with a unison pulse in all three strands, the 13:14:15 ratio takes 2,730 beats to resolve. At a metronome tempo of 48, this cyclic process lasts nearly an hour.”

 

The canonic techniques that Romig is using have ample precedents, from Ockeghem and Josquin in the Renaissance, to Conlon Nancarrow’s player piano pieces in the twentieth century, and Babbitt, Carter, and Wuorinen’s use of time points and canonic devices in their post-tonal pieces. The overarching structure requires patience to apprehend, but it is a well-conceived use of rhythmic design. On the death metal side of the equation, the power chords use feedback and distortion and sustain through the score’s rests. Many of the chords employ open strings for resonance. Scheidt’s choice to tune down allows the piece to co-opt the sonic signatures of doom metal, its sepulchral register and slow tempos. 

 

TCOD is a curious amalgam. It stretches the stylistic possibilities in which one may incorporate complex canons and serial procedures. A departure for Romig to be sure, but a winning one.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Minimalism, Organ, Piano

John Tilbury Plays Terry Riley

Terry Riley

Keyboard Studies

John Tilbury, piano, harpsichord, celeste, and electric organ

Another Timbre

 

In addition to their impressive catalog of music of the moment, the past recordings that are uncovered and released by Another Timbre are frequently astonishing. This is certainly true of a recording of the great new music keyboardist John Tilbury playing three pieces by Terry Riley from 1965: Keyboard Study No. 1, Keyboard Study No. 2, and Dorian Reeds.  Written just after In C, these pieces are foundational as well, presenting the methods with which Riley would assemble solo work from patternings. Like In C, they do not have full scores, and their durations may vary. Dorian Reeds was originally written for saxophone with tape delay and is adapted here for electric organ. Tilbury is well known for his performance of New York School composers, Morton Feldman in particular, as well as his work as a free improviser. This is the first recording of him engaging with 1960s American minimalism.

 

The tapes from which this CD was made are from the late 1970s or early 1980s in Hamburg, with other details forgotten. They have weathered well, and provide an important link to that time period, in which American minimalism had begun to have a significant number of British and European interpreters. The 1980s would see minimalism capture English composers’ interest as well, with figures like Michael Nyman and Steve Martland creating distinctive repetition-based music.

 

Tilbury’s performance of Keyboard Study No. 1, played on the piano, clocks in at eighteen minutes. Like In C, a repeated pitch is a constant throughout. The piece features unraveling and returning patterns not dissimilar to Steve Reich’s phase pieces, with tasty secundal dissonances set against fourths and fifths and generally avoiding thirds. Gradually, it moves through all sorts of modal inflections and polyrhythms.

 

Keyboard Study No. 2 has the most elaborate instrumentation: piano, electric organ, harpsichord, and celeste. Over a half hour long, it is also the most expansive. Once again, scales and rhythms morph against a constantly repeating note. Here, the instrumentation brings out different parts of the patterning, the varied attack and sustain of the instruments allowing notes to become prominent or recede in the texture.

 

Dorian Reeds works well for organ, with intervallic oscillations and corruscating melodic gestures punctuated by repeated pitches. The organ registrations provide varied timbres for the piece’s motives, with more and more lines accumulating as the piece develops. Tilbury plays Dorian Reeds with tremendous dexterity. Here, as elsewhere, he delineates the counterpoint with deft touch. The original saxophone version is compelling, but this version is equally so. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

by Christian Carey
CD Review, File Under?, jazz, Piano

Vadim Neselovskyi – Odesa (CD Review)

Vadim Neselovskyi 

Odesa

Sunnyside Records

 

Jazz pianist Vadim Neselovskyi was born in Ukraine. He moved to the US to study at Berklee and has since joined its faculty, splitting his time between New York, Boston, and as a touring musician. His latest recording for Sunnyside, Odesa (the Ukrainian spelling of the city’s name) is a memory book of Neselovskyi’s childhood in Ukraine, with various places and experiences recounted as programmatic elements of the music. Another layer of the recording’s organization is the use of Pictures at an Exhibition, by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, its character as a suite of images that one encounters walking through a museum, as a kind of touchstone for the scenes Neselovskyi has depicted. Accordingly, he subtitles Odesa, “A musical walk through a legendary city.” There are several places where Neselovskyi slyly interpolates brief flashes of Mussorgsky’s music; one will hear a particularly vivid quote at the end of track two, “Odesa Railway Station.”

 

Classical music frequently informs Neselovskyi’s playing. He is a double-threat pianist, one able to channel and play concert music while at the same time possessing sturdy jazz chops and improvisational acumen. On “Potemkin Stairs,” there are flurries of ostinatos, calling to mind both minimalism and the passagework of Romantic concertos. These are interspersed with plummy chordal passages that halt the piece’s momentum to savor a rich harmonic language. Where “Potemkin Stairs” is virtuosic, “Winter in Odesa” seems based on Eastern European folk music, with a concomitant Impressionist cast. Here Neselovskyi builds a moving piece out of a simple modal tune and countermelodies. Over time, elaborate ornaments are added to the middle section, only to return to the modal tune with a fourths and fifths harmonic accompaniment: another signature of folk music. 

 

Neselovskyi had distinguished studies and an early acceptance at Odesa Conservatory. This is celebrated by “Waltz of Odesa Conservatory,” which depicts a mischievous youth playing with humorous, showy, and then jazzy gestures. One can imagine young Neselovskyi far away from his teachers when playing in this manner. The waltz is great fun: one could imagine a notated version serving as a competition piece. “My First Rock Concert” is the only composition on Odesa that isn’t an original. It is based on the rock song “Blood Type” by Viktor Tsoy. The voicings remind one of how barre chords are played on the electric guitar, with lots of parallelisms. Playing this alongside the vocal melody, bass part, and inflections of the percussion is no mean feat, and it stretches out with proggy soloistic sections to eight minutes in duration (now I want to check out some Viktor Tsoy: Neselovskyi makes him sound compelling). 

 

Two interludes serve as etudes for modern jazz styles, the first atmospheric and the second angular. “Acacia Trees” inhabits a hushed wayward melody and aching, poignant harmonies. The opening line of “Odesa 1941” delicate too, but it is accompanied by a thrumming, sustained bass pedal and succeeded shortly by dissonance verticals and a polymetric dance and a thunderous middle cadence. It is like a tempestuous amalgam of works by Bartôk and Shostakovich. At the piece’s conclusion, the gentle opening melody returns, basically unaccompanied. Thus, the entire dynamic and rhetorical spectrum is accommodated in just under six minutes. Supplied with a brief Phrygian introduction filled with open fourths/fifths, “Jewish Dance” depicts another aspect of Neselovskyi’s background. The dance proper has a soprano register tune that glides downward through a minor scale with a flat second, a feature of both Jewish and Eastern European music. The tune reverses direction, rising against countermelodies and thick quartal/quintal bass register chords. The two melodies, now in soprano and alto registers, are juxtaposed and one is augmented, creating a long, pedal-supported cadenza. The last section of the piece brings its register down about an octave, thickening the accompaniment and adding a slice of swing to the polymeter. It moves into half-time, then double-time, and ends with another descending cadenza and a pedaled splash of color. 

 

“The Renaissance of Odesa” concludes the recording.  A haunting midrange melody against harmonically intricate arpeggiations, that lead the tune through a number of key areas, occupies a registration previously unheard on the recording. But two flourishes at the end once again evoke Mussorgsky: low bass fifths and octaves and an altissimo register modal duet. It is as if Neselovskyi is saying goodbye, for now, to his past and to all its treasured reference points. Odesa is imaginative, superlatively well performed, and enthusiastically recommended. 

(All proceeds from the recording go to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine).

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Cello, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Percussion

Žibuoklê Martinaitytê – Ex Tenebris Lux (CD Review)

Žibuoklê Martinaitytê

Ex Tenebris Lux

Pavel Gunter, percussion; Rokas Vaitkevičius, cello

Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Karolis Variakojis, conductor

Ondine 

 

Ex Tenebris Lux is the second portrait recording in as many years for composer Žibuoklê Martinaitytê. The works here are for string orchestra, two of them with soloists. They present a reduced language, often involving modal collections without any accidentals. Despite this, Martinaitytê draws forth a variety of compelling sonorities and textures.

 

The Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra plays seamlessly, with rich tone and precise intonation. The title work, from 2021, is abetted by these qualities, its descending arpeggiations and vertical sonorities played with rhythmic precision. Conductor Karolis Variakojis understands that forward momentum is a necessary approach to avoid the thick textures feeling languid. In the piece Nunc fluens, Nunc stans (2020), percussionist Pavel Giunter creates gently shimmering passages that enliven the strings. The title is a quote from Boethius, a rough translation being, “The now that passes creates time; the now that remains creates eternity.” Written in the midst of pandemic lockdown, Martinaitytê suggests that this piece was in response to the past being gone, the future being very uncertain, and the only thing left being the present moment. The mindfulness of this bespeaks the meditative trance that Nunc fluens, Nunc stans creates, a beautiful space of contemplation. 

 

Cellist Rokas Vaitkevičius is the soloist on Sielunmaisema (2019). Cast in four movements, the thirty-five minute long piece is a concerto that is more rhapsodic than virtuosic with a spacious ambience. Unfurling melodies, undulating passages, and harmonics are set against glissandos, repeated notes, and achingly long melodies in the ensemble. Ebullient repeated notes and dynamic swells characterize the second movement. The solo takes up harmonic glissandos to provide a coloristic element to the proceedings. The third movement incorporates hushed, mysterious verticals and pitch slides in the solo. The conclusion of Sielunmaisema features poignant overlapping melodies and chordal swells. Questing counterpoint, with the cello solo plangently mining its upper register, creates a closing section that soars with graceful elegance. 

 

Martinaitytê spent her pandemic time productively, crafting two of the three expressive works here. They are memorably beautiful pieces. Her previous recording, Saudade, is also richly recommended. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey