Category: Tracks

At the Still Point of the Turning World, There the Dance Is

Network for New Music

A long piece of music—clocking in at nearly 22 minutes—deserves a lengthy title. Voila, Gerald Levinson’s At the Still Point of the Turning World, There the Dance Is. Don’t expect to experience any boredom while listening. Constantly alternating between agitated passages and subdued moments of repose, the work’s pacing is mesmeric. Unison playing takes a dominant role here, as textures shift and blend together. At times, I can’t help hearing strong echoes of Messiaen’s Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum.

—RN

Un lunes por la mañana

In the past couple of years, Jorge Liderman has become one of the most frequently recorded composers. There are now four different all-Liderman CDs in circulation. While his violin/guitar arrangements for Duo 46 of 46 (hmmm) medieval Sephardic songs drawn from Issac Levy’s Chants Judeo-Espagnols might not be the definitive introduction to his compositional style, these miniatures make for great listening, both in whole or in part. Many display some of his signature metrical techniques as well, such as “Un lunes por la mañana” which juxtaposes a violin riff in duple time with a guitar ostinato in 13/16. Try counting that one!

—FJO

Everybody Says The Same

Hilmar Jensson, guitar; Chris Speed, tenor saxophone; Skuli Sverrisson, bass; Jim Black, drums

Is it a free jazz record for indie rockers? A rock album for experimentalists? Yes, and a bit more, so we could get stuck playing the adjective game for a while here. But no matter what dashified moniker we ended up with, the music itself is interesting and friendly, so why not avoid the muddling of descriptors and just invite it over for a spin. On “Everybody Says The Same,” Chris Speed keeps his sax contributions rather soulful and slightly left of center stage, leaving Black a sizable share in the action against a garage-rock backing of guitar and bass.

—MS

Gemini

Mary Lou Williams’s twelve-movement Zodiac Suite is arguably her most important extended instrumental composition. Originally composed for and recorded by her piano trio in the spring of 1945 and expanded for big band later that year, it is a curious jazz parallel (not to mention a great alternative) to similarly inspired works like Tchaikovsky’s Seasons or Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Of course, in order for it to have the kind of afterlife that music by Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi has, others have to take up the cause. This is precisely what pianist Geri Allen, bassist Buster Williams, and drummer Billy Hart do as “The Mary Lou Williams Collective” on Zodiac Suite: Revisited in their recreation of the original trio version. There are many treasures to savor throughout this nearly 50-minute performance, but I have a particular soft spot for Gemini; must be the time of the year.

—FJO

Serenade for Betty Freeman and Franco Assetto

Who can resist the raw beauty of Lou Harrison’s music? The composer’s gamelan works possess an even stronger allure, mixing hints of exotic tunings and timbres with direct melodies flitting around this hypnotic accompaniment. In Serenade for Betty Freeman and Franco Assetto, Harrison himself weaves the melodic line, performing on an Indonesian vertical flute called a suling, backed by the Gamelan Sekar Kembar. The brief serenade shows the power of innocence and sincerity, proving that the simple things in life are usually the best.

—RN

Concertino

The University of Iowa Center for New Music; David K. Gompper, conductor; Mark Weiger, obeo

Program notes can be dangerous. Think not? How do the phrases “protracted cadenza for oboe” and music with a “decided ‘edge’ ” make you feel? Are you running towards or away from your CD player? I was left felling both ways, which basically left me stranded in the middle of my apartment holding this disc in my hand. Not very useful. Whereas if I’d just put in on and settled in, I wouldn’t have gone through any anxiety whatsoever. Okay, yes, sometimes program notes really do help the first-time listener out, but Rands’s composition does not require preparatory instructions. The piece opens with a sensual tour of the oboe before meeting up with the rest of the ensemble to spin filigreed passages that, whether they sound edgy to you or not, will expand beautifully in your ear and are perhaps best heard unhindered by the adjectives of the English language.

—MS

Flute Concerto

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, José Serebrier, conductor; Jeffrey Khaner, flute

Using a slippery harmonic language pioneered by the likes of Debussy, Ned Rorem’s Flute Concerto shimmers with a nostalgic, yet timeless sense of beauty. At moments the soloist’s part dips up and down the register like harp arpeggios, always landing on its feet as gracefully as a cat. Composed only four years ago, the concerto proves that Rorem hasn’t lost a bit of his musical prowess.

—RN

The hour is striking so close above me

Knowing Brad Mehldau’s work as a jazz pianist little prepared me for his opulent and somewhat aphoristic art songs for voice and piano, for which Mehldau accompanies soprano Renée Fleming on a new Nonesuch disc. Mehldau’s lush fin-de-derriere-siècle might sound a little anachronistic in these early years of the 21st century, but given that he’s setting poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, any other approach would probably not have done proper justice to the words. Besides, at this point anything goes, right? So don’t worry about the particular vintage and just enjoy the wine.

—FJO

A Performer’s Objective Is To Put Everyone To Sleep

Rich West, drums, accordion, pieces; Dan Krimm, electric bass; Bruce Friedman, trumpet; Emily Beezhold, electric piano, Korg ms2000; Lynn Johnston, saxophones, clarinets

The liner notes for this disc are basically intriguing scraps of anecdote and scores that look like they were originally constructed on cocktail napkins. There’s really no telling, but that may or may not be all the instruction these talented musicians got. Rich West’s five-player band mixes up winds, brass, electronics, and percussion in a sort of zoo of an album, and though the players may be generally penned in under West’s directions, I’d be cautious of tossing them any peanuts. To illustrate this track, West confesses, “‘Come to my gig,’ I tell my girlfriend. ‘You can take a nap.'” And though the piano lulls us, anyone who can sleep to a lullaby that is also colored with tweaking electronics and scronking sax clearly took an Ambien before the set.

—MS

Track 2

Ever had a tough time deciding on the perfect title for a piece? The minimalist-noise outfit New Humans conquered the situation by embracing the problem. Each track carries at least 25 possible names, but hey, with hand silk-screened cover art and a limited edition release—the vinyl edition is glow-in-the-dark!—we’re cool with the, um, artistically done alias overkill with regard to the album’s four tracks. And speaking of overkill, those familiar with the band-cum-art-collective’s debut release might be scratching their heads for the first 15 minutes, wondering where the ultra-subdued, almost pristine, droning à la early synth music is coming from. Then, suddenly, timbres turn hard-edged on track 3, which we’ll call “virtually any shape or line repeated often enough will produce a pattern of some sort” or “self-sabotage.” Both monikers shed light into the New Human’s modus operandi: conceptually based minimalism vs. the entropy of noise aesthetics. The sonic results are mesmerizing, revealing both the beauty repetition can hold and its insidious underbelly, conjuring pep rally cheers that border on chants to Der Führer.

—RN