Category: Tracks

Nexus and the Iris Chamber Orchestra conducted by Michael Stern

As Garry Kvistad, one of the members of the percussion quintet Nexus, reminded me at the release party for this new Ellen Taaffe Zwilich disc on Naxos, there is no such thing as a percussion instrument with an indeterminate pitch. Every instrument has a pitch, but most composers who write for percussion ignore this and accept whatever the pitch of the percussion instrument used in a performance happens to be. Not so, says Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who worked meticulously with Nexus’s extensive instrumentarium of percussion instruments from around the world. But none of these instruments are used for effect or to conjure some sort of tourist exoticism. Rather, Zwilich emphasized the pitch capabilities of a family of instruments not usually treated as melodic and created a piece where every resulting pitch is carefully worked out. The result is one of the most melodious and harmonious of percussion concertos and one of Zwilich’s most exciting compositions to date. I was thrilled that this remarkable piece, which is also very exciting to watch, was part of NewMusicBox’s first-ever Webcast of an orchestral concert a little over a year ago, but I’m even more thrilled that it’s finally available on CD. Now if only I could hear it live. Wherever you are, demand that your local orchestra programs this blockbuster piece!

—FJO

Have you ever seen old celluloid film catch fire and burn itself up while projected on the big screen? What would music sound like melting in such a way? Listening to jazz violinist Matt Maneri’s lastest release in his Blue Series, I can’t help but conjure the image as the recorded line moves in and out of warped focus. The somber melody stoically stumbles forward seemingly unaware of its rapid deterioration, while overlaid are the frantic beats of T.K. Ramakrishnan’s unsinged tabla playing. Appropriately, perhaps, the piece comes to no audible resolution, as if the tape simply burned away entirely and left no trace of what once was there.

—MS

Bagpipes, theremin, and the accordion…some instruments are simply disadvantaged, i.e. people really hate them. But when used in certain settings, even these ugly ducklings can sound like swans. So what do you do with an organ that sounds almost as crunchy as Elaine Stritch’s voice? The Ken Clark Organ Trio decided to play some rather swanky, yet downright gritty jazz. But it’s not all rasp here—actually the overall impact is one of cool restraint. It’s not something I would call cheap, as suggested by the track’s title “K Mart Special,” but there is definitely something tawdry going on here—almost sexy, but in a really creepy way. Let’s just say is something like the gap between Lauren Hutton’s teeth or Cindy Crawford’s mole and just leave it at that.

—RN

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas

Charles Ives wasn’t the only American whose true passion, despite extreme success in business, was to compose music completely not of its time. Son of billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty, Gordon Getty went into the family business to please his father, but what he really wants to do is compose music, which is principally vocal and in a willfully 19th century tonal language. “Passion and ideals are what move me, and they were central to the pre-modern ethic,” Getty explains in the notes contained in the lavish booklet that accompany a new CD devoted to his music. Young America, a 2001 cantata for chorus and orchestra to texts by Stephen Vincent Benet and the composer, here performed by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, shows all bets are off when trying to make generalizations about 21st century American music.

—FJO

Sometimes, CDs take all the fun out of my favorite artists. It’s as if the studio mic and the repeat take drain all the life out of music that when it’s heard live rips your heart right through your ribcage. Jenny Scheinman and co. quite successfully skirt that inclination to strangle the music, and instead relax into spinning tales through melodies rather than words. The sleeve art by Molly Barker sets the listener up for a world of comforting sound and, like rereading a favorite novel from childhood, the music does not disappoint. Even when things sound like the road is a little scary ahead, there’s always the hint that better times are coming soon. The band all comes together to close the disk with “June 21” and plays us out into the sunset. From the sound of things, these guys had a very good summer of the sort even Huck Finn would approve.

—MS

The primordial sound of flute and percussion is the subject of this CD which ranges from traditional tunes and J. S. Bach to Lou Harrison, here represented by his Concerto No. 1 for flute and percussion. Whatever preconceived notions you may have about concertos are best ignored when considering this sensual stripped down utterance. The melismatic flute lines snake through the delicate percussion accompaniment with a ritualistic feel. The perfect soundtrack for your next séance.

—RN

Manhattan School of Music Opera Theatre conducted by Steven Osgood

Lee Hoiby is still very much with us; he turns 80 next year and is still going strong as a composer. Yet listening to the first-ever complete recording of his 1964 Turgenev-inspired opera A Month in the Country, featuring a libretto by legendary San Francisco theater director William Ball, is a total blast from the past. A protégé of Gian Carlo Menotti, Hoiby matured as a composer in a directly communicative pre-“everything is ironic” era when a large-scale musical work could be considered a major newsworthy event. The notes even describe a review of the opera’s premiere by the Woman’s Wear Daily! (Could you imagine such a thing nowadays in an era where the only music stories in the media seem to be Britney had a boy or Madonna fell off a horse?) Hoiby’s mid-century neo-realism perhaps explains the opera’s lack of an overture. But how then to explain the intense octet near the end of the opera which Paul Hume, the critic who once incurred the wrath of Harry S. Truman, called “a supreme moment in opera” and something of “overwhelming beauty.” Times indeed have changed.

—FJO

Ron Blessinger, soloist

Hang around one of those blue Yves Klein paintings long enough and you’ll eventually hear a fellow museumgoer say, “a four year old child can do that.” Robert Kyr’s second violin concerto might elicit the same response. With pentatonic melodies that rise and fall over a ground bass with the regularity of ocean tides, the work is deceptively simple. Swathes of canonic counterpoint constantly shift hues between an orchestra of Western instruments and a Balinese gamelan, adding a deeper geographical dimension to Kyr’s extended title “On the Nature of Harmony.”

—RN

If you needed proof that artistically and intellectually interesting new music can make you want to sway your hips, too, Uri Caine’s latest is sure to be a welcomed addition to your collection. Caine (keyboards) with Zach Danziger (drums and percussion) and Tim Lefebvre (bass and guitar) update ’70s schwank with a host of new electronic beats and the contributions of an impressive list of guests. On “Murray,” Bootsie Barnes (saxophone) and Ruben Gutierrez (clarinet) enter the fray, and the group lays down a track that boasts a palette of sexy city energy without losing its head. Things wind down to blend seamlessly into after hours chill of “bE lOOse,” featuring vocals by Barbara Walker.

—MS

A 12-tone equal temperament purist listening to Chris Murphy’s disc of solo violin compositions might gasp at what sounds like horrible intonation, but a microtonalist like me just blisses out on hearing all these off-intervals in even more off contexts. Sure, there are Middle Eastern-inspired riffs where microtones are completely idiomatic, and a gospel inspired track where Murphy’s pitch inflections make his solo violin performance of what is typically vocal music all the more convincing. But microtonal mambo is either downright kooky or just plain out of tune. I think it’s cool!

—FJO