Although it is not mentioned anywhere on the outside of this CD, this session is very much a reunion. Trumpeter Don Cherry is reunited with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins from the early Ornette Coleman Quartet and, most importantly, tenor saxophonist James Clay. Clay, who after playing with Cherry in Los Angeles in the 1950s and doing a few recordings moved back to Texas, had been in obscurity for decades. Fortunately, his playing is quite strong on what turns out to be a surprising bop-oriented session. Comprised of superior standards, a few group originals and three Ornette Coleman tunes (including the classic "The Blessing"), this set is quite accessible and finds all of the musicians in top form.
Shoko Nakagawa (中川 翔子, born May 5, 1985 in Tokyo) is a Japanese tarento (media personality), actress, voice actress, illustrator, and singer. Also known by her nickname Shokotan (しょこたん), she is best known as the presenter of Pokémon Sunday.
There’s something about the title of “Pure Mode,” prologue to Mat Maneri’s first solo album, Trinity, that describes his abilities just right. Like the nine improvisations that follow, it jumps off of a prewritten motive (in this case, by Matthew Shipp) and offers us a four-stringed experience like no other. Maneri goes unplugged this time, feeling out the forest of richness already ingrained into the wood and gut at his bow. He stews in every design for what it’s worth and walks along a slippery melodic slope as if it were dry and even ground.
Born on the 9th November 1989, Sofia Portanet entered this world kicking down walls - now kicking new walls and barriers, Sofia has reinvented Neue Deutsche Welle for a new generation. Singing in English, French and German Sofia has been taking their sound international with performance in USA and Europe since singing to Anglo Berlin based label Duchess Box Records (Gurr, Laura Carbone). Since releasing her debut single Freier Geist in 2018 and has become one of the most critically acclaimed newcomer artists in Germany with praises such as "Best newcomer for 2019" from Klaus Fiehe (1 Live) and "Germany's next big popstar" from Lauren Laverne (BBC 6 Music).
"This is Ryan" continues to confirm that trumpeter Ryan Kisor is more than a "young lion, a label he received after winning the Thelonious Monk Competition back in 1990. At the still young age of 32, he is continuing in the tradition of the modal-minded trumpet players who preceded him, sounding like he comes from the direct lineage of the great Woody Shaw. His excellent trumpet technique, especially clear in the upper register, makes possible seamless solo lines. "This is Ryan" features compositions by three major trumpet players from the '50s-60s: Kenny Dorham's "Una Mas, Don Cherry's "Art Deco and Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma". The CD also includes four solid Kisor originals: "Waiting for Brown, a hard driving modal tune; "Maiden Lane, a smooth flowing ballad; "Dirty Ernie, a hard swinger; and "Solitaire," a swinging waltz…
“Everything works to illuminate the music," wrote The Times of Love and Death, Martin James Bartlett’s debut recital on Warner Classics. The young British pianist has now recorded two celebrated rhapsodies for piano and orchestra, both from the ‘art deco’ period of the 20th century: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. His partners are the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Joshua Weilerstein. The album is completed by seven shorter Gershwin and Rachmaninoff pieces for solo piano – as written by the composers themselves or as arranged by the American virtuoso Earl Wild.
With its majestic themes soaring upwards like gothic pillars and its brilliant chorales and fanfares glowing like stained – glass windows, Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 is the most monumental of his orchestral works, a cathedral in sound that grows out of pianissimo murmurs. Coming after the triumphs celebrated by the composer’s Seventh Symphony and Te Deum, the Eight was considered by Bruckner as the artistic climax of his career. Cleveland‘s Severance Hall is the venue for this performance. This hall, an eclectic yet elegant mix of Art Deco, Art Nouveau, Classicism, Egyptian Revival and Modernism was inaugurated in 1931 and is still hailed today as one of the world‘s most beautiful concert halls. The Cleveland Orchestra, founded in 1918, began its ascent to the upper ranks of the world‘s ensembles after it moved to Severance Hall in 1931.