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Myra Melford's studies with avant-bop pianist Don Pullen and idiosyncratic jazz composer Henry Threadgill are reflected in the seamless combination of structure and free improvisation in both her writing and piano playing.
Matthew Shipp has become one of the most distinctive piano stylists operating in the free jazz continuum, recognizable after just a few notes. 4D, his sixth solo piano disc mirrors the format of its illustrious predecessor Harmonic Disorder (Thirsty Ear, 2009) though with pared back instrumentation.
With his fourth solo CD, saxophonist/clarinetist Chris Speed continues his distinct assault on modern jazz as Emit may in fact represent the artist’s finest achievement as a leader thus far.
Marilyn Crispell, solo piano - the Woodstock Concert given on 21 April 1995. Four improvisations by Crispell, a song by Bill Evans and one by Annette Peacock: Await; In Lingering Air: a) How Not to Anæsthetize Desire, b) Time Remembered; Gesture Without Plot: a) Nonetheless, b) Morning Pulses, c) Tune for Charlie, d) Apart; and Empty Sirens.
Here is Braxton at 39 at the peak of his intellectual and musical capabilities. Four of the compositions on this record are designed with respect to the challenge (and excitement) of pulse track structural dynamics. Additionally two impressionistic ballade structures are included.
The early compositions of the internationally renowned Finnish composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara, draw on the Nordic classicism of Sibelius and Nielsen, as well as the influences of Bartók, Shostakovich and folk music. Although, during the 1960s, Rautavaara experimented with avant-garde compositional techniques, the First Piano Concerto, written in 1969 (on 8.554147), marked another significant turning point as the composer sought, in his own words, to evoke "the entire rich grandeur of the instrument." In the Second Piano Concerto of 1989, Rautavaara finds an intriguing accommodation between traditional and more radical elements. His Third Piano Concerto, written in 1998 for Vladimir Ashkenazy, is reminiscent of Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in its austere beauty, while the orchestral fantasia Isle of Bliss was inspired by a poem by the Finnish national poet Aleksis Kivi, depicting the mythical concept of the island paradise.
The Might Handful consisted of five Russian composers following in the tradition of Glinka and Dargomijsky. Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov sought to bring Russian music to the level art of music prevailing in Western Europe. This disc is a collection of piano works by each of the five composers. Such works as Balakirev's Islamey and Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition are not represented here much to benefit of including lesser known works.
“Recorded at the Innovations concert series in Montreal in 2005, this trio teams Evan Parker with the established duo of Benoit Delbecq and François Houle, who have been together for a decade. The pair is known to play a wide variety of music—from classical to world to jazz and improvisation—all of it extremely well. Both technically and temperamentally, they are suited to Parker; the threesome sound well-adjusted to each others' instincts, and should as this was not just a one-off meeting; there are plans for the threesome to tour in 2008. ” – album review on AllAboutJazz.com
