McIntosh Expands Preamp-Processor Line – McIntosh is replacing their single MX150 preamp-processor with the MX151 at $12,500 and a more entry-level MX121 AV control center at $6000. The latter has 7.1 channels, Apple AirPlay and DLNA networking thru either an Ethernet port or a wireless adapter. It decodes all Blu-ray audio codecs, has a wired USB input for playing back music on portable devices, and upscaling of all video sources to 1080p over HDMI and HDMI 1.4a passthru. Other 121 features include Internet radio, Audyssey room correction Audyssey DSX post-processing for front-height and front-width channels, 7.1-channel analog output, six HDMI inputs and two outputs, plus dual-zone AV operation. The MX151 adds full 3D video passthru, assignable balanced inputs and outputs, a dedicated phono section, Lyngdorf’s RoomPerfect room-correction technology, and the ability to play two-channel sources in up to 7.1 channels via Dolby ProLogic IIx or DTS Neo:6 post processing. There is also a new $17,500 home theater bundle with the 121 that incorporates a 3D Blu-ray player and seven-channel amp.

Marantz Plans Two SlimLine AVRs – Marantz will soon be shipping its next generation of SlimLine AV receivers, with one having the brand’s first slim AVR with Apple AirPlay and 1080p video upscaling. The models are the 7.1 NR 1603 at $649 and the NR1403 at $399; both are only four inches tall. The 1603 has DLNA networking, Internet radio, Pandora, and SiriusXM streaming. It adds 1080p video scaling, five HDMI inputs with one on the front, improved system setup, a new GUI and an auto power-off function. Both models feature Audyssey MultiEQ room correction, Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume, plus a front-panel HDMI input and M-XPort, which enables the addition of a stereo Bluetooth adapter. The 1603 adds iPod Digital Direct, which uses the USB port to capture music in digital form from USB-connected iOS devices, and also features multi-zone/multi-source audio. The 1403 lacks networking ability.

It has been the case that sometimes various original jazz musicians have been overlooked by both the general public and their peer group. Larry Willis might be considered to fall into that category despite being on the jazz scene since the 1960s and having developed a singular reputation as a session musician. With this latest release This Time the Dreams On Me, Willis could re-energize this interest as he has delivered a thoughtful and beautifully engineered album.

Recorded in Sacile Italy in November 2011 at the Fazioli Concert Hall on a Fazioli concert grand piano, Willis has put together a sparking effort of ten compositions derived from jazz and popular standards, as well as three  Willis originals. Leading off with the title track “This Time the Dream’s On Me” Willis demonstrates that he has a stylish command of the keyboard. “Sanctuary”, “Blues for Marco” and “Silly Blues” are the three original Willis compositions. On the first tune, there is a cerebral sense of serenity coupled with feeling of water flowing down a stream. As for the blues pieces, both are straight forward  twelve bar compositions, but display that Willis is really at home in this format, as he presents some earthy lines in both tunes.

Now while Willis may not have neither the dazzling technique of an Oscar Peterson, nor the introspective lyricism of a Bill Evans, he evokes a cerebral confidence as he tackles the complexity of a couple of Ellington associated delights namely the Duke’s own “ A Single Petal of a Rose” and the Billy Strayhorn classic “Lotus Blossom”. Two other delectable gems grace the album. Firstly  the J. Moross/J. Latouche  bittersweet “ Lazy Afternoon” and the Kurt Weill story “My Ship”. In each case Willis shows off his passionate renderings and creativeness of these companion pieces, which also showcase the wonderful bold tone of the Fazioli concert grand.

Tackling a solo piano album is no small feat. The performer is left naked to the listening audience where every small fault may be magnified and there is no place to hide. Larry Willis need not fear any such repercussions as he has delivered a virtuoso performance.

TrackList: This Time the Dream’s On Me; Sanctuary; True Love; Lazy Afternoon; A Single Petal of a Rose; Blues for Marco; It Could Happen to You; Lotus Blossom; Silly Blues; My Ship

—Pierre Giroux

This is easily one of the strangest but most fascinating collections of new music I have heard in awhile. I chose to listen to a good chunk of Eleanor Hovda’s music before reading a single thing about her. She is a new name to me and about thirty minutes into the first disc I found myself hearing sounds that reminded me of a little John Cage, a touch of Kenneth Gaburo and certainly some of the spatial music of Stockhausen.  I was even reminded me of a little of the most static slow moving New Age work of perhaps Brian Eno or even Steve Roach. Ultimately, all such comparisons came up short and I realized that Hovda’s music was something very different and very hard to stylize or categorize.

Reading the booklet notes indicates that some of what sounded like connections in her music, to me – to my gratification – actually are present. The notes also reveal that Eleanor passed away from an extended illness in 2009. The current collection serves as a bit of a retrospective of her work. Hovda had been a very unique experimental composer for a number of years. She really did study with Gaburo and Stockhausen and with Mel Powell. She also admitted an influence from the music of Morton Feldman and Pauline Oliveros.  As a pianist, she had worked with modern dance companies such as Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham. Hovda had also spent a lot of time studying Japanese music, in particular the concept of “ma” which allows time and space to influence emotion such as that in the development of music. (A related concept is the very basic “eastern” notion that music is – essentially – the organization of sound in time.) Hovda was married to NY Philharmonic conductor David Gilbert, from whom she learned many valuable things about how traditional acoustic sources, such as those in an orchestra, are organized into sound groups and timbral families by all composers; most unusually by the modern composers whose work Hovda had heard with the Philharmonic.

Hovda, herself, also had a strong grounding in the sciences, having worked for a time at a secure physics lab in Maryland charting sound waves as they deflect off the upper reaches of the atmosphere.  This four-disc set of Hovda’s music is a good, somewhat comprehensive, look into her ethos and output. To be sure, this is a very dense, complex set of works to listen to and not all will even attempt to understand what she was trying to do. Her music evolves slowly and the sounds and textures within vary dramatically from the delicate to the strident, from the barely present to the nearly invasive and what rhythmic propulsion exists is very gradual and barely becomes more complex than a pulse. Each of the works contained in this set has some of these very broad characteristics in common. Her use of tone color and some very unusual timbres seems to align with a couple of her philosophies – as quoted in the booklet notes by Jeannine Wagar.  Hovda believed in what she called “sound excavation”; the use of all possibilities when collaborating with one musician at a time and then “excavate” the sound possibilities inherent within each. It is said that, while working in Duluth, MN, at the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, she bought inexpensive student versions of just about every orchestral instrument to experiment with what is possible.

The works in this collection – and there are over four discs – are organized into groups (which serve as titles) around a unifying concept. These central concepts being Ariadne Music, Coastal Traces – Tide Pools 1 and 2, Sound around the Sound and Excavations. The variety of tone color is amazing and includes piano interior, conventional wind ensemble, flutes with double basses, bowed cymbals and shakuhachi.

Eleanor Hovda was, clearly, an original experimental voice in new music. Her music is absolutely not populist fare. Even people who have a great familiarity and liking for “new music” may or may not care for these works; may or may not be able to appreciate what Hovda was doing. Ultimately, I think this is a fascinating look at a fascinating person who may have become better known under different circumstances but whose music definitely deserves the chance to be heard. Kudos to the always daring Innova group for giving us that chance.

—Daniel Coombs

Hamilton Harty (1879-1941), violist, pianist, organist, conductor and composer, constituted what Ned Rorem would consider “a triple threat” in music, a truly imposing figure in Irish cultural history. His 1900 String Quartet in F Major gained him some fame through the Feis Ceoil, a competitive music festival organized by Italian musician Michele Esposito. The fecund imagination and instrumental dexterity of the piece assails and delights us at once, since the opening Allegro has girth and developmental audacity, and the succeeding Scherzo in D Minor exudes a dexterous panache short lived but exuberantly pungent. The B-flat Major Andante pastorale pays homage to Dvorak and Mendelssohn, with luscious parts for the cello of Julian Smiles and Dene Olding’s lead violin. Not surprisingly, the viola part (Irina Morozova) proves no less beguiling in the richly textured melos, suddenly interrupted by the Scherzo as its central section. The last movement Allegro vivace plays as an askew rondo with highly chromatic episodes. Once more, the resonant cello leads the melodic line in figures that approach a waltz form that attracts polyphonic development. Do we hear hints from Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 in D Major? Harty takes a page from Beethoven and Schubert, delaying the true recapitulation by lingering in E-flat Major. The coda provides the Goldner Quartet whiplash effects which they bring off with vibrant aplomb.

Harty composed his F Major Piano Quintet in 1904, ostensibly for a piano quintet competition offered by a wealthy patroness, Ada Lewis-Hill. The scale of Harty’s first-prize-winning piano quintet looms large, much in the grand manner of the F Minor Franck Quintet and the Schumann E-flat Quintet. As audacious as Schubert in his developmental strategies, Harty favors modulations to the subdominant and Neapolitan cadences, evolving melodically and contrapuntally rather than through any formulaic sense of classicism. The jaunty rhythms smack of both Dvorak and Debussy (Golliwog), a hybrid of folkish and jazzy impulses. One violin melody seems about to quote Dvorak’s famous Humoresque, Op. 107. The emotional urgency and passionate flair Piers Lane brings to the fervor of the strings should ensure repeated listening to this tempestuous movement.

Harty’s favored viola leads off the scherzo Vivace, a pentatonic tune that literally quotes from the Schumann Piano Quintet. In diatonic harmony and fabricated “Irish” melos, the piece could have been penned by a playful Percy Grainger. But for purely heartfelt, romantic music of the soil, we have to audition the Lento in A Minor. With the tell-tale flattened seventh of the relative key of C, the music assumes a distinctly Irish affect. The A Minor and its relative C Major compete for dominance throughout this impassioned song, the periods seemingly lifted from Tchaikovsky’s workbook, especially in his A Minor Piano Trio. Whether Harty wants us to construe him as Irish or Russian becomes a real puzzle by the movement’s late pages, where Lane and the Goldner layer the song in multiple octaves and in triplets, a sentimental Slavic evocation, if ever one could be synthesized. The piano part near the coda might nod as well to Edvard Grieg as well to the thick urgency of Cesar Franck. A host of Russians parades in the last movement Allegro con brio, colorfully and exotically presented in bold terms that, in the second subject, seem lifted from Tchaikovsky’s ubiquitous B-flat Minor Concerto, and in the same key. Despite any sense of imitation or borrowing, Harty’s natural emotional effusion and plenum of ideas keep the music running at a brisk and fluent pace, almost too rich to be contained by prescribed forms, a truly sweeping gesture brilliantly executed.

The Quartet in A Minor, Op. 5 (1901) won first prize at the Dublin Feis of 1902.  Its spirit immediately invokes Brahms or Schumann: it features Harty’s preferred viola part in an opening movement Allegro non troppo that sounds alternately aggressive and lyrically melancholic. The textures, in arco song and pizzicato, move through contrapuntal treatment that indicates a great deal of growth on Harty’s part since his 1900 opus in F Major. The Scherzo is marked Vivace sempre leggiero and presents us with a jig in 9/8 with a trio section in 2/4. The Goldner negotiates its canny metric shifts with Irish élan, a folksy hop-and-skip that assumes a poignant affect in the trio. The third movement, Lento, again attests to Harty’s power as a melodist, and the second subject will appear cyclically in the Molto vivace of the Finale. The evolving song of the slow movement, cast as a concertante part for first violin and supporting strings, easily suggests the influence of Dvorak. The Finale presents a busy series ideas, starting as a bucolic jaunt that becomes a progressively intricate and colorful waltz, moving to a chorale in a far-away F-sharp Minor. By the end of this debonair subtle moment of chamber music, we are convinced that Harty’s mastery of the medium promised many more riches.

—Gary Lemco

(Marzette Watts – tenor & soprano saxophone, bass clarinet; Byard Lancaster – alto saxophone, flute, bass clarinet; Clifford Thornton – trombone, cornet; Sonny Sharrock – guitar; Karl Berger – vibes; Juni Booth – bass (track 3); Henry Grimes –bass; J.C. Moses – drums)

The music and life of painter, multi-instrumentalist, soundtrack composer, experimental filmmaker, audio engineer and political activist Marzette Watts remains largely unknown to most people. During his short time as a leader he only released two albums, including one with avant-garde vocalist Patty Waters (Marzette Watts Ensemble, 1968, out of print) although there is more of Watts’ music which has never been issued. Watts’ brief sojourn in New York City’s 1960s loft music community did little to elevate Watts’ stature in the post-Coltrane jazz scene, even though he hosted loft parties and performed with several prominent jazz artists including Don Cherry, Archie Shepp and Byard Lancaster. Thanks to the ESP label, though, Watts’ debut, Marzette Watts & Company, has been remastered and reissued on compact disc and also high-quality digital download. This review refers to the CD version, which has new liner notes and photos.

Like most if not all ESP records, Marzette Watts & Company takes some time to appreciate and most likely will be enjoyed by fans of likeminded artists such as Albert Ayler, Julius Hemphill and Sonny Simmons. If not already an enthusiast of the avant-garde jazz idiom, this album probably won’t change your mind. That said, Watts’ three-track, 37-minute outing has a stellar line-up and intriguing moments which confirm that revolution was in the air at the time this 1966 recording was made. Alongside Watts (who plays tenor and soprano sax and bass clarinet) is Byard Lancaster (who adds alto sax, flute and also bass clarinet), guitarist Sonny Sharrock, vibraphonist Karl Berger, bassist Henry Grimes (Juni Booth takes the bass on the final track), Clifford Thornton (trombone and cornet) and holding everything steady is drummer J.C. Moses.

Watts composed the three pieces, which range in length from 7 ½ minutes to just over 19 minutes. The ten-minute opener “Ia” is a wall-of-sound tapestry, where everyone solos, and pushes and prods themselves and each other. There is no main theme or chord progression. Improvisations are sandwiched between other improvisations and its every man for himself, or so it might appear at first listen. There is some order, though, chiefly because of J.C. Moses’ rhythmic backgrounds and spare but solid fills. Berger is as fluidly radical as he later became on his own records, but here he is often underheard, and thus underappreciated, due to the mixing. When he is given room, his single-line technique provides a flexible groove. The second cut, “Geno,” has a soulful undercurrent. Watts and Lancaster’s doubled saxes illuminate the tune’s understated essence, where the ensemble has more opportunity to maneuver. There is still an atmosphere of many instruments all talking at once, but the heated conversation has an ebb and flow missing from the first piece. Sharrock’s instinctive sense of applied aggression is heard to the fore, where his skittering characteristic note clusters bring a degree of sublime intensity. Every idea imaginable seems represented on the epic “Backdrop for Urban Revolution,” a 19-minute excursion which marries contemporary art (Watts was an accomplished if essentially unknown painter before emerging as a musician), political involvement (Watts was ejected from Alabama as a college student for attempting to register black voters) and anti-war protest (the Vietnam War was starting to become an issue by the time Marzette Watts & Company was produced). The saxophones scream and undulate, Sharrock’s guitar weaves edgy statements and the occasional bass clarinet furnishes a low-end lilt which moves from accessibility to unpredictability. Thornton also shows his restless imagination, which fit in so well when he backed Sun Ra and Sunny Murray. While Thornton also is somewhat lost amid the throng, his multitude of tones is expressive, stimulating and above all, alive. Sharrock is Sharrock, utilizing feedback and distortion in ways which Hendrix later expounded on independently. Among the chaos and clash, Moses again is the glue which holds all of the complexity together, forming a rhythmic retaining wall so nothing falls apart. Marzette Watts & Company offers a glimpse into the past when an undervalued subdivision of American jazz music was shaped and formed. For those who are interested, there is a 29-minute promotional video which includes an audio interview with album producer Bernard Stollman and some of Watts’ material. Watts’ music was designed for those with open ears and preserves the ability to provoke and perturb. Sadly, four of these musicians are now gone (Watts passed away in 1998, Sharrock in 1994, Thornton in 1989 and Moses in 1977), so this is music which will never be echoed again.

TrackList: Ia; Geno; Backdrop for Urban Revolution.

—Doug Simpson

(Jazz 1 Sverige ‘72 and Swedish Television 1972-1973: Maffy Falay – trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, Indian flute; Bernt Rosengren – tenor saxophone, silver flute (tracks 3, 5); Salih Baysal – violin; Gunnar Bergsten – baritone saxophone, Chinese flute; Ove Gustafsson – bass; Okay Temiz – drums, darbuka; Akay Temiz – darbuka. Sevda Live at Jazzhus Montmartre Featuring Salih Baysal: Maffy Falay – trumpet, piano, darbuka; Salih Baysal – violin; Gunnar Bergsten – baritone saxophone; Ove Gustafsson – bass; Okay Temiz – drums, darbuka)

This remastered two-CD/DVD Sevda boxed set is a time capsule as well as one of the few documents which showcase both Swedish and Turkish jazz as they co-existed in the early 1970s. Sevda: Exclusive Collector’s Edition gathers together 1972 live material from the group Sevda (which is the Turkish word for love), an ensemble of Turkish musicians who resided in Sweden and Swedish artists with a likeminded broad outlook on what jazz could be and what non-jazz influences might go into jazz. While most jazz fans outside of Sweden and Turkey never heard Sevda, the band was one of the first which attempted to fuse Turkish musical tradition and jazz, and thus is musically and historically important.

Sevda was formed by two Turks: multi-instrumentalist Maffy Falay (a trumpeter who also uses flugelhorn, piano and Indian flute) and drummer Akay Temiz, who both played with other people, notably Don Cherry as well as other artists and bands. Sevda’s core quartet also included two Swedes: baritone saxophonist Gunnar Bergsten and double bassist Ove Gustafsson. Guest violinist Salih Baysal was also often used; and other artists also occasionally joined in. When Sevda was conceived, Turkish inspiration in jazz music was not well known. The most famous title up to the early 1970s was probably Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” based on Turkish folk music Brubeck heard while on tour. The same traditional melody also appears on Sevda’s tune “Tamzara.” Some listeners might mistakenly assume “Tamzara” melody is borrowed from Brubeck, which is incorrect.

The set’s first album, Jazz 1 Sverige ‘72, is a 47-minute Swedish radio station recording, when Sevda was enlarged to a septet with the addition of Bernt Rosengren (tenor sax and flute and also an alum of Don Cherry) and percussionist Okay Temiz, who plays the darbuka, a hand drum with a sharp tone which is utilized in a manner akin to a tabla in Indian music. Opener “Taksim” is a brief primer, a solo violin improvisation where Baysal extemporizes on a traditional Turkish folk melody. That slides into “Hicaz Dolap,” where hand percussion is introduced, engendering a slight Indian essence similar in some ways to Shakti’s material with L. Shankar. Jazz kicks in on the aforementioned “Tamzara,” where Falay’s piano takes the initial lead and drums, Rosengren’s flute, the bass and the horns are then heard. The irresistible main theme is employed to fine effect throughout the 11-minute piece. There is also singular interplay between trumpet and the two saxes. Bop sways through the high-swinging “Batum,” where the musicians nod to muses such as Dizzy Gillespie (Falay toured with the Dizzy Gillespie Reunion Orchestra prior to co-creating Sevda). Parallel energy spins through other bop-balanced tunes such as “Karadeniz” (highlighted by Rosengren’s airy flute) and “Makadonya.” The album concludes with two tracks which are spiced by Turkish flavoring, “Çifte Telli” and “Karşilama,” where Baysal returns on violin and Sevda soars with abandon.

“Taksim,” “Çifte Telli” and “Karşilama” are repeated during the 46-minute second CD, Sevda Live at Jazzhus Montmartre Featuring Salih Baysal, recorded a week after the radio production. Here Sevda is pared down to the primary quartet with Baysal as guest. Baysal is a significant participant during this performance. He expands “Taksim” into a nearly ten-minute excursion with rhythmic phrasing, tuneful chords and incessantly flowing statements. He continues in an equivalent manner on the violin/hand percussion duet “Misket,” which is similar in tone and feeling to “Hicaz Dolap,” and the correspondingly structured “Ya Mustafa,” where drums, piano and bass gradually enter. The Turkish musical touchstones are more pronounced, with none of the Western or bop vestiges heard on the first record. Often there are no horns and for the duration the self-taught Baysal is demonstrably the leader, revealing his unique musical viewpoint.

The all-region DVD is the same concert as Jazz 1 Sverige ‘72, but here viewers can see Sevda’s interaction. The color set-up is well presented and the clarity of the older, pre-digital film is engaging: there is some video streaking where studio lights glare off the brass instruments but it does not detract from the presentation. The three-camera arrangement provides motile and mobile images. The cameras pan, zoom in to tight close-ups on all instruments, and long shots display the band and the sparse television studio audience. The Dolby 2.0 sound is clear and crisp. Hippie-era clothing and haircuts timestamp the proceedings, but the only negative visual is a very young rather spastic dancing girl who can be spotted at the edge of the stage in the wide shots: an odd complement to the show. There is also a brief, annoying audio buzz during the closing credits.

Although the Sevda boxed set was released late last year, the collection probably fell well under the radar of most jazz fans, so this is a good time to reappraise or discover Sevda’s contributions to jazz and to what Don Cherry dubbed world music (in which he meant jazz which tapped musical resources outside of the jazz norm). The group’s history and chronology are finely detailed in a 16-page booklet with liner notes, photographs and complete credits, as well as related text which accompany both CDs. For those interested, the Sevda musicians are still active. Falay split up Sevda but is still a part of Sweden’s ever-growing jazz scene and is a hero in Turkey. Okay Temiz sustains his wide-ranging musical horizons and is a prominent world music player who has worked in several idioms. Gunnar Bergsten is one of the top Scandinavian baritone saxophonists and is a respected composer, soloist and leader. Ove Gustafsson has maintained his presence in the Swedish jazz community, with credits on numerous jazz releases.

TrackList:
CD 1: Taksim; Hicaz Dolap; Tamzara; Batum; Karadeniz; Makadonya; Çifte Telli; Karşilama.
CD 2: Taksim; Misket; Ya Mustafa; Çifte Telli; Köçekce; Oyun Havasi; Çadirimin üstüne; Karşilama; Çadirimin üstüne (da capo); Naciye; Kürt Ali.
DVD: Sevda Love Part 1; Sevda Love Part 2

—Doug Simpson

Italian maestro Piero Coppola (1888-1971) retains a strong reputation for his willingness to champion new and audacious scores of the first third of the 20th Century. His athletic style and rhythmic vigor set him in a rank quite high, if not on a plane competitive with Arturo Toscanini. Producer and restoration engineer Mark Obert-Thorn has resuscitated several of Coppola’s excursions (rec. 1933-1946) into Romantic repertory, particularly the Schumann scores upon which Coppola lavished considerable affection.

While the Schumann 1841 “Spring” Symphony (rec. 11-12 July 1946 in Kingsway Hall, London) has enjoyed prior issue via the Dutton label, this Pristine incarnation proves exceptionally strong, vibrantly alive with the conceits of Spring and the joyful energies that inform Schumann’s paean to rebirth in nature as well as to the early conjugal days of his recent marriage to Clara Wieck.  Coppola treats the opening trumpet “summons to life” as the prime mover in the entire first movement, the pacing and sonic definition quite the model for the Leonard Bernstein inscription with the New York Philharmonic some twenty years later. As the songful Larghetto proceeds, we can already hear intimations of the famous slow movement of the C Major Symphony. Coppola’s execution of the wily Scherzo and its two trios proves extremely deft, and he takes a lovely breath in the midst of the concluding Allegro animato e grazioso finale to allow the flute its poignant solo. The music trips lightly and lovingly, its exuberant flourishes regaining the spirit of invocation in the opening Andante’s fanfare. The coda pulsates with brilliant, erotic energy, a fine testament to the natural sympathy between composer and interpreter.

The Schumann 1850 “Rhenish” Symphony (rec. 7-8 November 1933) sets a high standard for efficient and controlled virtuosity. The sense of pageant manifests itself throughout the first movement Lebhaft, the often contrapuntal energies layered with meticulous clarity despite the blazing tempos, the luminous figures more than not indebted to Beethoven‘s Eroica. So often, the drooping figures in Schumann’s melodies point quite immodestly to the Brahms Third Symphony opening. I find the acoustic of the Salle Rameau in Paris rather dry, but the grand scale and muscularity of the playing well compensates for the cramped resonance. The ensemble may occasionally betray the nasality typical of French instrumentalists, but the conception runs a nice balance between Italian fleetness and German depth, not far from a Carl Schuricht reading of the score. The ensuing Scherzo enjoys a fluid motion tinged with a hint of solemnity, a combination that will swell with massive dignity in the Feierlich movement that invokes the Cologne Cathedral. The Nicht schnell movement basks as a bucolic interlude before three trombones set the tone of the mighty slow movement in E-flat Minor. The glorious finale Lebhaft in E-flat Major moves with sudden flights of fanciful running figures, the trumpet work adept and lithe. The sheer hustle of the movement indeed means to rival Toscanini for precision and fluid elegance of execution; with the reappearance of the “cathedral” motif the scale of sound increases in texture and intensity most impressively, and the coda resounds with spiritual victory.

Coppola recorded the Parsifal orchestral excerpts 6 November 1933 also a Salle Rameau, Paris. The Paris Conservatory Orchestra seems pinched in sound as a Wagner ensemble, but the devotional ethos of the music strides forth, beginning with the Act I Transformation Music. Other than Coppola, I could not easily name potent Paris conductors of Wagner in this era, unless Eugene Bigot, Roger Desormiere, and Albert Wolff contributed substantially to the genre, of which I am unaware. Coppola’s Introduction to Act II certainly conveys a mysterious atmosphere. Thin and reedy strings rather enervate the effect of the Act III Prelude, though the melodic line remains taut, and the brass work redeems the effort. The final sequence of Transformation Music affords us some fascinating harmonies, at times they point to Debussy’s Martyrdom of St. Sebastien.

Coppola inscribed two convulsive excerpts from the Richard Strauss Salome 20 March 1934, each section having been devoted to the attempt by Salome to seduce John the Baptist, his rejection of her, and his subsequent consignment into the cistern-cell. Elements of Wagnerian harmony sneak into the seduction scene, grotesquely erotic on its own terms; what Joseph Conrad might have deemed “the fascination of the abomination.” These last two sides certainly warrant the price of admission, if confident and stylish versions of Schumann were not motivation enough to pursue this fine restoration.

—Gary Lemco

(Melissa Stylianou – vocals; Pete McCann – guitars; Gary Wing – bass; Rodney Green – drums; Jamie Reynolds – piano; Anat Cohen –  soprano saxophone 2,5, clarinet 9, bass clarinet 4,11;  James Shipp – percussion 2/4/5/10/11; Yoed Nir – cello 4/10/11)

Melissa Stylianou has a lovely clear lyrical voice with an interesting way of delivering a lyric. However whether she is a jazz singer, or someone who can sing jazz, is not evident on her latest release Silent Movie. While she does offer some tunes that have a jazz following and her accompaniment are all jazz players, we end up with an album of stories without a jazz-based theme.

The twelve tracks on the album are an eclectic mix of tunes from the pop world, some jazz flavoured standards, and originals by Stylianou, each one arranged to show-off Stylianou’s beautiful vocal range. The  instrumental theme for the 1936 Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times was “Smile” and this leads off the disc to position the musical subject. A rather dreamy version compared to most other interpretations but nevertheless quite effective. Oftentimes, one can find some guidance as to the artist’s  musical intent by a careful reading of the liner notes. However Stylianou seems to have been caught up in the “less is more” school of information, and very little can be gleaned from these brief renderings other than the recording is “a collection of small stories…(of) everyday life”.

The epitome of the pop singer-songwriters are James Taylor and Paul Simon with Stylianou using “Something in the Way She Moves” and “Hearts and Bones” to conjure up musical ideas in an expressive way that draws in the listener. She easily gets on top of the tricky lyric lines in the Simon composition. While only on five of the tracks, multi- instrumentalist Anat Cohen, slips in and out of the musical conversation with ease, happily adding her unique offerings to buoy up those cuts on which she plays. Her concise solo on “Folks Who Live on the Hill” gives some added lustre to Stylianou’s empathetic reading to the tune.

Stylianou’s own co-written compositions “Silent Movie”, “Hearing Your Voice”, and “First Impressions”  while nicely presented, are slight affairs unlikely to find a wider audience, although the title track written with her husband and pianist Jaime Reynolds has some welcomed intimacy. Capping the album is the Johnny Mercer/Henry Mancini oft-recorded “Moon River” from the 1961 hit movie Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Stylianou’s thoughtful rendition gives new meaning to the romantic lyric.

This  is an attractively recorded and arranged album that frames Melissa Stylianou’s beautiful voice. However there is a sameness to the pacing and content that detracts from the well-intended concept. Perhaps on her next project, she will deliver a disc that swings and is less introspective.

TrackList: Smile; Something in the Way She Moves; Silent Movie; Onde Ir; Hearts and Bones; Today I Sing the Blues; Hearing Your Voice; I Still Miss Someone; Folks Who Live on the Hill; First Impressions; Swansea; Moon River

—Pierre Giroux

Beethoven’s last five quartets are the touchstone for any string quartet; the ensemble has simply not “arrived” until it begins to tackle them, unless they are a specialist group of some sort like the Kronos. And the great five are exceedingly open to a huge variance in interpretation. More than any of the other Beethoven quartets, these last ones inhabit a universe of such supreme and wide ranging philosophical and musical concepts that it is possible to bend the material to such an extent that two opposing performances may almost sound like different pieces.

With these criteria in mind a devoted listener is easily justified in having multiple versions of this music in his or her collection, music that justifies “more than one” much more easily than other works. Beethoven’s extraordinary range of dynamics and emotion make it almost impossible for definitive readings to exist at all—any new or established reading of consequence adds to the bottomless pit of interpretative knowledge. Having said that, I do have a favorite one that has achieved a degree of critical consensus over the years: the Tokyo Quartet’s RCA set. This performance by the original quartet was given superbly smooth sound that garnered all of the pent up emotion present in these pieces, and gave the works a decidedly romantic flavor that I think is very apropos. After all, despite the multitudinous arguments so commonly found in conservatory classrooms about whether Beethoven was a classicist or romantic, these last quartets send us so far into the future that the answer would seem self-evident, and the Tokyo plays them for all they’re worth.

The Cypress Quartet is not quite on that level—few are. And I don’t get an intensely romantic feeling from these readings, though they are far from stoic or cold. In fact there is a lot of sinew on the bones of these performances, and the sound in general that the quartet relies on might best be described as “robust”—it has an overinflated feeling to it that highlights the middle section of the range and seems weakest on the top. Yet this type of tonal aggregation also lends itself to an orchestral style of playing that is by no means out of place in this music. Beethoven stretches the quartet to its limits, though even at the most dynamically vibrant moments you never feel the need to expand into the orchestra, which for me is one of the reasons why the orchestral-arrangements ultimately fail. Beethoven could have gone this route had he wished, and there are no reasons given anywhere that suggest he might have done this.

Technically the Cypress is on top of things, and I hear nothing in these performances that indicate the quartet should have avoided these works. In fact there are many good things, even intriguing things about these readings that I find quite attractive, especially the penchant for taking chances and not being afraid to let their enthusiasm show. There are no revelations here but none are needed—excellent performances speak for themselves, and the Cypress point of view is one that traverses the darkness and the light inherent in this music. Not a first choice—the Tokyo remains—but one that I feel certain I will return to often.

—Steven Ritter

I had never heard of Italian composer Raffaele Bellafronte until hearing this disc. The opening paragraph of the booklet notes by Ennio Sparanza describes Bellafronte as “…outspoken, resolute, linear…” and his music as that which does “… (not) strive to please, that does somersaults in the air…” (Et cetera.) To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive. The given description left the expectation that Bellafronte’s music would be rough, harsh, complex or any other set of adjectives implying I probably wouldn’t like it. But I kind of do.

To be sure, Bellafronte’s music is not the “usual” concert hall fare. In fact, it nearly defies description. For example, the opening work, a brass quintet entitled Nights in Broadway has a kind of jazz feel to it but with some really unusual and unpredictable rhythmic patterns behind it.  There are some minimalist elements in the scoring (as Sparanza points out) but really all three movements feel like an interpretation of some New York street mayhem and it works. The Gomalan Brass ensemble plays very convincingly.

The very jazz-tinged feel continues with Midnight Players for clarinet, cello and piano. This is a very nice piece with a sort of smoky, unsettled, tense feeling throughout and a very cool clarinet line! The overall feel is kind of dark, jazzy with some nervous energy, but I thought it made for interesting listening. (Incidentally, to the production editors at Stradivarius Records, the piece is listed on the CD label as “Midnight plays” and again, as such, in the booklet track listing. Yet, Sparanza’s notes call it Midnight Players – which makes more sense to me. Which is it?)

The piano sonata, Desaccòrd, is a true three movement sonata work with some strange, but attractive harmonies and more of that somewhat schizophrenic fine line between jazz and academic modernism at work. I felt the same way about the work for violin and harp, Blue. This is a very ethereal, strange, delicate nocturne type of piece wherein a very beautiful but “troubled” violin line is supported by some eerie and nearly alien harp arpeggiations. I did find it oddly attractive.

Passi for flute, alto saxophone and piano is similar to Blue in that the solo lines of the winds are both individually interesting but work together quite well in a weaving contrapuntal way, almost vying for the most attention against a piano line that also periodically comes in with some interesting melody. This work, too, has some jazz touches but rides the line between the expected and the wildly unexpected.

Cristalli di sale for guitar and harp floats in and out of a clear B minor tonality and features some of the same type of small rhythmic cells that populate some of Bellafronte’s other works. A bit more abstract, in my estimation, than the others in this collection, this work is still interesting because of the textural similarities between guitar and harp.  Oasi alla mente may be the most abstract work in this collection. Scored for flute, violin, cello and piano, it drifts in a nearly atonal way and feels like improvisation in many ways. The propulsive middle section is filled with tension and more nervous energy. It is an interesting work to listen to but also a bit of a tough, heady listen.

This collection ends with Arakathalama – the title being a completely made up word intended to sound mysterious.  This work for clarinet, guitar, bandeon and double bass has some things in common with Midnight Players in that there is a real edgy feel to most of it that – none the less – has a genuinely jazzy feel and (once again) some very nice clarinet parts!  I actually enjoyed this work a great deal and the Filharmonici di Bussetto are great players!

All performances on this disc seem very solid and the recording is clean and lively. In trying to research Raffaele Bellafronte and his music, it became clear that he is one of Italy’s better known and most cutting edge composers of new music and is, indeed, well versed in the genres of contemporary classical as well as jazz. His style is very unique and really does defy categorization. I think that this collection is a good place to get to know his music which I do characterize as a bit tense, a bit unusual but with a progressive jazz gene and not unpleasant.  It probably isn’t going to appeal to everyone but it is certainly worth checking out and forming your opinion. I do think that the package labeling needs to be precise and the booklet notes are a bit dense and wordy. But, hear and read for yourself.

—Daniel Coombs