Tag: CD review

CDs, Chamber Music, Concerts, File Under?, New York

5/10: Cuckson and McMillen at LPR

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On Friday, violinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Blair McMillen release their ECM debut CD. It contains the Hungarian Béla Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 2 (1922), the Russian Alfred Schnittke’s Violin Sonata No. 2 “Quasi una Sonata” (1968) and Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s Partita for Violin and Piano (1984). One can hear sound excerpts via ECM’s website. All three are interpretations of searing intensity, rhythmic vitality, and impressive ensemble cooperation.

One can hear works from the CD live at Le Poisson Rouge on May 10, where ECM will be hosting a release party for the two artists. Each will also take a solo turn with short pieces by Americans: Cuckson playing Carter and McMillen playing Stucky. Doors open at 6 PM; concert starts at 7 PM. More info can be found at LPR’s website.

by Christian Carey
CDs, File Under?, Recordings, Review

Soulful Singing

Changes

Charles Bradley

Daptone Records 041 CD/LP

 

Those who discount Charles Bradley as a retro act imitating James Brown are missing out on something very special. The sixty-eight year old singer’s latest full length recording, Changes, reveals a mature artist whose vocal powers are undiminished but whose interpretive skills are ever more sharply refined. His accompanists, the Menahan Street Band and Budos Band, create spot-on charts to support Bradley’s singing, at turns muscular and lyrically soulful.

Most of the tracks are originals, and strong ones at that. “Ain’t it a Sin” rollicks rebukingly. “Nobody But You” is a smoothly delivered ballad that explores Bradley’s sweet mid-register before swooping higher to impassioned cries.

What would seem like an improbable source for a cover for Bradley, Black Sabbath’s “Changes,” is instead an album highlight, re-envisioned with supple rhythm guitar, Hammond organ swells, and long, legato horn lines. Bradley delivers the song passionately and expressively, capturing the emotional content of one of Ozzy Osbourne’s signature songs, but placing an entirely individual stamp on it.

Bradley’s Changes is a memorable and energetic outing; recommended.

 

 

by Christian Carey
CDs, Experimental Music, File Under?, jazz

Free Jazz in the iPod Era

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Anthony Braxton

3 Compositions (EEHMH) 2011

Firehouse 12 3xCD/blu-ray/digital

Anthony Braxton: composer, sopranino, soprano, and alto saxophones, iPod;
Taylor Ho Bynum: cornet, flugelhorn, trumpbone, iPod;
Mary Halvorson: guitar, iPod;
Jessica Pavone: violin, viola, iPod;
Jay Rozen: tuba, iPod;
Aaron Siegel: percussion, vibraphone, iPod;
Carl Testa: bass, bass clarinet, iPod

“As a culture, we are slowly moving away from target linear experiences that are framed as stationary constructs that don’t change on repeated listening, to a new world that constantly serves up fresh opportunities and interactive discourse. American people have made it clear that the new times will call for dynamic inter-action experiences.”

  • Anthony Braxton

Compositions 372, 373, and 377 are the next phase in Braxton’s use of recorded sounds as part of the musical fabric of his work. Each of the musicians playing on the recording is not only responsible for their respective instruments; they are each also equipped with an iPod on which they can call up past Braxton recordings to add to the proceedings. While one might expect a fair bit of chaos from this approach, the results are surprisingly focused. Recorded when Braxton was sixty-five, his skills as a player remain undiminished in their vitality and improvisational acumen. Correspondingly, his collaborators possess, to a person, both strong vantage points and enviable chops.

The compositions on display here are filled with swaths of variegated textures. One of the cool things about the addition of the iPods is that different instruments than those possessed by the live cohort get to take solo turns. Thus, we hear voices and piano interject asides amid the vigorous exertions of the players. As a trope on listening in the digital age, with the dangers of information overload and the distractions of an increasingly saturated environment rife with visual and sonic information competing for attention, this current Braxton project is certainly a successful experiment. But the ability of the players to pace their exchanges, exquisitely varying the saturation level of the discourse, also allows listeners a way to recalibrate that is most musically compelling. Recommended.

by Christian Carey