Thursday, November 17, 2011

Patricia Barber: The Cole Porter Mix (2008)





Patricia Barber:

The Cole Porter Mix (2008)


Jazz songwriter and pianist Patricia Barber's 2006 album Mythologies, a song cycle based on Ovid's Metamorphosis, is a sprawling work of poetic and musical adventure. Upon its release, it garnered universal acclaim from critics and responsive concert audiences across the United States and Europe. After this rigorous undertaking, Barber could have been forgiven for taking a breather. And on its surface, that seems to be what the Cole Porter Mix is. But in Barber's case, this is far from true. While she claims in her bio that she's been singing his songs for years, and that he's her favorite songwriter, she does anything but a "standard" read on his tunes, though she never undermines their integrity. The album is called a "mix" because Barber has woven three of her own tunes -- written after the manner of Porter's -- into the fabric of the album. Given her austere yet highly original readings of his songs, they fit in seamlessly. She is accompanied here by her longtime backing group of Neal Alger (guitar), Michael Arnopol (bass), and Eric Montzka (drums), with drummer Nate Smith alternating on three tunes, and guest saxophonist Chris Potter appearing on five.

Commencing with the opening number "Easy to Love," with its skeletal bossa nova rhythm (Barber doesn't play in the body of the tune and only contributes a wonderfully economical piano solo), and the relative austerity of her voice, it's obvious this isn't an ordinary standards set. She is faithful to the intent of these songs both lyrically and musically, but she shifts their arrangements in such a way that they are more suited to her deliberately restrained singing voice, and her own vocation as a songwriter. It's the songwriter she is paying tribute to here -- not the tradition. "I Concentrate on You" also carries within it the kernel of bossa, but this time, with her piano fills and artfully incisive manner of accenting, to quote Porter, "how strange the change from major to minor" without invoking the blues (the standard for doing so). Barber's pianism is elegantly idiosyncratic, even enigmatic. Her "cool" singing voice peels away the weight these songs have borne over the years, and instead returns to them their subtlety and gentle sense of humorous irony. There are some wild moments here -- such as the Latin polyrhythms at the heart of "In the Still of the Night," that set up a space for some serious blowing tenor by Potter -- but the spirit of "song" is never compromised. Barber's originals are truly canny, empathic evidence of her true understanding of Porter. "Snow," with its minor-key piano intro opens with: "Do you think of me like snow/cool, slippery and white? Do you think of me like jazz/as hip, as black as night?" The mysterious, dull ache of love and lust in "New Year's Eve Song" evokes the forlorn aspect of Porter but the strange, covert voyeurism of poet Robert Lowell's "Eep Hour": "Will he/peek in the mirror while she/knowing he's watching her tease/stripping the gown with ease/bare as the New Year, she/so in love with her is he..." All the while, the sense of a taut harmonic melody is inseparable from the lyrics, unveiling the secret intent in the song for both listener and singer. The Cole Porter Mix is a very modern form of imitation, as evidenced not only by interpretation but in her evocative compositions too; they mark the greatest form of flattery. But it is also an ingenious manner of reconsidering Porter -- and Barber -- with fresh ears.


Track Listing: Easy to Love; I Wait for Late Afternoon and You; I Get a Kick Out of You; You’re The Top; Just One of Those Things; Snow; C'est Magnifique; Get Out of Town; I Concentrate on You; In the Still of the Night; What is This Thing Called Love?; Miss Otis Regrets; The New Year's Eve Song.

Personnel: Patricia Barber: piano, vocals, melodica; Chris Potter: tenor saxophone; Neal Alger: acoustic guitar, electric guitar; Michael Arnopol: bass; Eric Montzka, Nate Smith: drums, percussion.


Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Gianluigi Trovesi: Profumo di Violetta "All ' Opera" (2008)







Since joining up with ECM as a member of Italian Instabile Orchestra, responsible for 1995's Skies of Europe, reedman Gianluigi Trovesi has created a small but diverse body of work that has stretched the boundaries of composition and improvisation to include sources ranging from William C. Handy to Kurt Weill. Whether in duet with accordionist Gianni Coscia, his curiously configured Ottetto or the chamber trio responsible for the sublime Vaghissimo Ritratto (2007), a defining characteristic has been a fearless irreverence for tradition, all the while making it perfectly clear that his music couldn't come anywhere but from what has come before.

In contrast to the intimacy of Vaghissimo, Profumo Di Violetta is a boldly ambitious—sometimes melodramatic, occasionally humorous and often sublimely beautiful yet never over-the-top—homage to Italian opera and the North Italian provincial banda, the horn-driven (there are no strings to be found) orchestras often heard in Giuseppe Verdi operas. It's a thoroughly engaging hour-long performance that takes popular composer Gioachino Antonio Rossini's statement, "How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers," and makes it a reality. With three primary instruments—Trovesi, cellist Marco Remondini, and drummer Stefano Bertoli—accompanied by the 55-piece Filarmonica Mousike, conducted by Savino Acquaviva—it's a trip through history that's filtered through the present. Trovesi arranges material excerpted from popular Italian operas including La Traviatta, The Barber of Seville, and Tosca, combining it with like-minded original writing and improvisational passages that blur the temporal distance between music spanning four centuries.

There are even hints of modern technology, as the banda performs the familiar "Largo al factotum," from Rossini's Barber of Seville, faithfully, but leaves space for Remondini to solo with a heavily distorted and wah-wah'd cello. Elsewhere the integration of improvisation is more seamless and less jarring, as Trovesi soars over his own "Vespone," one of many original compositions that may be contemporary, but feel completely of a kind with the source material around it.

Trovesi may lean towards the majestic on "Toccata," from Montverdi's L'Orfeo, the playful on "Stizzoso, mio stizzoso," from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's La Serva Pardrona, and the traditionally rooted on the brief, public domain "Antico saltarello," but there's no shortage of haunting beauty on Profumo Di Violetta. Still, it's the narrative arc of Profumo Di Violetta that gives it its weight, as Trovesi's own trifecta of the sparsely elegant "Musa" leads to greater improvisational elan on the more rhythmically propulsive "Euridice" and, finally, grandiose drama on the powerful "Ninfe avernali," where the clarinettist solos with the greatest abandon.

Perhaps most impressive is how Trovesi has taken snippets from so many sources and joined them together into a seamless program that's as much a history lesson in Italian operatic tradition and regional music-making as it is a piece of music to be taken on its own merits. After experiencing the broad emotional range of Profumo Di Violetta, it's possible that those scared off by the often larger-than-life and melismatic nature of operatic vocals will find them more approachable.

Track Listing: IL PROLOGO: Alba; IL MITO: Toccata, Musa, Euridice, Ninfe avernali, Frammenti orfici; IL BALLO: Intrecciar Ciaccone; IL GIOCO DELLE SEDUZZIONI: "Pur ti miro," "Stizzoso, mio stizosso," Vespone; L'INNAMORAMENTO: Profumo di Violetta Part I, "Ah, fors'e lui che l'anima," Profumo di Violetta Part II, Violetta e le alter; ILK SALTELLA GIOIOSO: "E Piquillo, um bel gagliardo," Salterellando, Antico salterello, Salterello amoroso, "Largo al factotum"; LA GELOSIA: Aspettando compare Alfio, "Il cavello scalpita"; L'EPILOGO: Cosi, Tosca.

Personnel: Gianluigi Trovesi: clarinets, saxophone; Marco Remondini: violoncello; Stefano Bertoli: drums. Filarmonica Mousike: Savino Acquaviva: conductor; Valentina Noris: flute 1; Maurizio Beltrami: flute 2; Lidia Bressan: flute 2;Daniele Cugini: piccolo; Luigi Rapetti: oboe 1; Matteo Donadoni: oboe 2; Giuseppe Cattaneo: English horn; Ugo Gelmi: bassoon 1; Marco Taraddei: bassoon 2; Beatrice Cattaneo: clarinet 1; Luca Garavelli: clarinet 1; Alessio Carrara: clarinet 1; Pierluigi Brignoli: clarinet 1; Federica Salvia: clarinet 2; Stefano Rossi: clarinet 2; Gaudenzio Cattaneo: clarinet 2; Maurizio Biava: clarinet 2; Silvia Banchetti: clarinet 3; Alberto Locati: clarinet 3; Simona Cuter: clarinet 3; Francesco Chiapperini: clarinet 3; Eugenio Capponi: clarinet 3; Luca Bonaldi: piccolo clarinet; Roberto Bergamelli: bass clarinet; Claudio Acerbis: contralto saxophone 1; Michele Margosio: contralto saxophone 2; Dario Zanni: tenor saxophone; Mario Mafeis: baritone saxophone; Rocco Guerini: trumpet 1; Roberto Maffeis: trumpet 1; Fabio Brignoli: trumpet 2, flugelhorn solo (9), trumpet solo (21); Alessandro Salvi: trumpet 2; Daniele Pezzoli: trumpet 3; Stefano Carrara: trumpet 3; Diego Ottolini: trombone 1; Davide Biglieni: trombone 2; Maurizio Bazzana: trombone 3; Gianluca Tortora: trombone 3; Simone Maffioletti: trombone 3; Allesandro Valoti: horn 1; Franscesca Acerbis: horn 2; Frederica Bergamelli: horn 2; Fulvio Comminelli: horn 3; Francesco Peracchi: horn 4; Fulvio Pezzoli: horn 4; Adamo Carrara: euphonium; Mauro Cadei: tuba; Davide Viada: tuba; Fabio Pagani: tuba; Diego Bombardieri: percussion; Raffaele di Diola: percussion; Michaelangelo Donadini: percussion; Matteo Verzeroli: percussion; Paolo Pezzoli: percussion.




Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Bill Evans: Loose Blues (1962)








Bill Evans: Loose Blues (rec 1962-Released 1982)


Loose Blues is an album by jazz pianist Bill Evans released on the Milestone label featuring performances by Evans with Zoot Sims, Jim Hall, Ron Carter, and Philly Joe Jones recorded in 1962. It was recorded for the Riverside label, but eventually dropped mostly because of Riverside forthcoming bankruptcy and the pressures of Verve producer Creed Taylor - he wanted Evans on his Verve label.So the project was shelved, and released posthumously only in 1982 as MCD-9200-2, after having been rediscovered in the Fantasy Records vaults. This was, in fact, believed to be a lost album since Keepnews couldn't find the master reels of the session dates, except for a take of "Loose Bloose". However, after a thorough research, he did succeed in finding the reels "stored in poorly marked tape boxes".[2] The material was then assembled by Keepnews and Ed Michel. "Fudgesickle Built for Four" was named by Evans himself - who dug puns - and was a reference to "a bicycle built for two", a line from the popular song "Daisy Bell". Keepnews, recalling the sessions, stated that "My Bells", which is characterized by difficult tempo changes, took 25 takes to be recorded properly.

The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow states "Due to some difficulties during the recording process (none of the sidemen were familiar with the often complex numbers), the results were originally shelved and lost for a couple of decades. This CD reissue shows that the music was actually much better than originally thought... It is a pity that Evans and Sims (a logical combination) never did record together again"

Track listing

All compositions by Bill Evans
"Loose Bloose" - 7:07
"Loose Bloose" [alternate take] - 5:34
"Time Remembered" - 6:02
"Funkallero" - 6:13
"My Bells" - 5:24
"There Came You" - 5:52
"Fudgesickle Built for Four" - 4:31
"Fun Ride" - 5:15

Tracks 1-4 and 7 recorded on August 21, 1962; tracks 5, 6, 8 recorded on August 22, 1962.

Personnel

Bill Evans - piano
Zoot Sims - tenor saxophone
Jim Hall - guitar
Ron Carter - bass
Philly Joe Jones - drums