hat(now)ART 141
Christian Wolff
Early Piano Pieces
Steffen Schleiermacher
Total time 73:06, DDD, Barcode: 752156014126
For Prepared Piano (1951) was my first experiment with John Cage’s invention (putting various objects into the piano strings to produce percussive or non-specifically pitched sounds) and a continuation of interest in percussion as such. I had been a friend of John’s, after a brief time as a student, for about a year. But I’d known about the prepared piano earlier from scores in Henry Cowell’s New Music Publications. — Christian Wolff
hat(now)ART 149
Transatlantic Swing
John Snijders
Total time 77:30, DDD, Barcode: 752156014928
Transatlantic Swing is a CD of music rich in elusive connections. Some of the music is ‘transatlantic’ because it’s music by Europeans influenced by the Americas, some because it’s music by an American played by a European. In some way all the music ‘swings’, but no two pieces swing in the same way.There’s also a network of friendships between the composers represented here, although together they don’t represent any one tendency in contemporary musical aesthetics. And there’s a network of shared preoccupations in the music here – the balance between process and fantasy in musical form, the dynamics of sound and silence, the reconfiguration of popular music – but not all these preoccupations occur in every piece. — Christopher Fox
hatOLOGY 657
Clusone 3
Soft Lights And Sweet Music
(Irving Berlin Songbook)
Total time 62:20, DDD, Barcode: 752156065722
Musicians play Irving Berlin because he makes them sound good. The pretty songs make you sound poetic just reading; the tapinflected songs Astaire introduced will bring out your swing if you have any. So what you get with Irving Berlin is melody so strong and self-supporting it keeps its integrity, no matter how stretched or yanked from context. And you get music so common, to America and to jazz at least, musicians may make free with it without losing you. You have, in short, perfect fodder for Clusone 3 – which they knew even before they were approached about doing an unspecified concept album.
While feasting on the individual selections, please note how nicely programmed this disc is. As live, Clusone 3 cut the wide open stuff with tight swingers. You can argue for cosmic implications: the music expands and contracts like the universe. Or you can just say the rhythm’s as natural as breathing: in, out, in, out. — Kevin Whitehead
hatOLOGY 663
Steve Lantner Quartet
Given – Live In Münster
Total time 47:30, DDD, Barcode: 752156066323
Given – Live In Münster, is the Steve Lantner Quartet’s second effort. Its sax-piano-bass-drums line-up invites weight against the measure of classic albums like Misterioso, Black Fire, Giant Steps, and Saxophone Colossus on the one hand, and thousands of rote quartet recordings on the other. Lantner’s contribution falls on the right end of the spectrum by doing exactly what a jazz album must in order to justify its carbon footprint in the 21st Century; it presents a vivid impression of a singular musician with a strong band moving the music forward. Or as Lantner puts it, «I am trying to play jazz music in a language that I think is a natural evolution past tonal/modal sensibilities.» — Bill Meyer
hatOLOGY 670
Joe Morris Bass Quartet
High Definition
Total time 53:25, DDD, Barcode: 752156067023
Listen to the music of Joe Morris and one is immediately struck by a few things. First, there is his sense of rhythmic and melodic articulation; a sense of phrasing brimming with potent energy and focused resolve. Then there is an uncanny ability to balance freedom and groove. Finally, there is his ability to pull it all together in structures that bring out particularly inspired playing by his collaborators…
With this release, Morris and crew cement their status as musicians from a generation who have fully absorbed a polyglot view of the jazz tradition. They have the commitment, experience, and the innate understanding to seamlessly pull from both inside and outside, from swing to freedom. But they also have the dedication and creativity to make it their own. It is how they pull to gether all these disparate threads into a unified vocabulary indelibly stamped with their own sensibilities and personalities that makes this such a riveting statement. — Michael Rosenstein
hatOLOGY 675
Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet
Asphalt Flowers Forking Paths
Total time 44:15 DDD, Barcode: 75215606758
Here’s a group of musicians who are making a commitment to the long haul. They are creating music for the third millennium that is savvy enough to draw on the forking paths of the tradition while finding room for their own individual voices. Get Bynum started on this group and he responds with his usual enthusiastic eloquence. «Whatever balance I am able to strike between tradition and individuality I really owe to the nurturing community of musicians I came up under.» This set is a tribute to that journey. — Michael Rosenstein
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