Anthony Braxton, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and a true giant of creative music, in 50 years of career had never played in a duo with a harp; and that's exactly what happened at the AngelicA Festival in 2018. Expressing himself through a wide range of mediums, from solos to large orchestras to multimedia projects, and drawing inspiration from a wide range of influences, from John Coltrane to Karlheinz Stockhausen, Anthony Braxton has created a unique music system which celebrates the concept of global creativity and shared humanity. Harpist Jacqueline Kerrod, of South-African origins, has performed as part of prestigious classic-contemporary line-ups such as Modern Ensemble and Talea Ensemble.
In 2003 Anthony Braxton Quartet went on a European tour which has become legendary. The members of this quartet were Kevin O'Neil on guitar, Kevin Norton on percussion and Andy Eulau on bass. The concept of the tour was to perform jazz standards and during the tour the quartet performed over 60 different ones. The results of the tour were two 4-CD sets entitled 23 Standards (Quartet) 2003 and 20 Standards (Quartet) 2003 released by Leo Records. Both sets received tremendous critical acclaim. Reviewers noted that Braxton performed jazz standards in an entirely new way. Rather than echoing, aping or diminishing the tradition he was reinventing it making both the past and present much richer than it was before. Now we are releasing the remaining 19 standards (no duplication with previous volumes), totalling 4.5 hours of music. The set is a must not only for Braxton's followers but for all jazz fans at large. Limited edition 500 copies.
Anthony Ventura is the only big-band instrumantalist who could rightly rival the orchestras of Paul Mauriat & James Last. The only reason why many of our contemporaries have not heard of Anthony Ventura & his orchestra is because the albums that were released originally, many years ago, in the vinyl version, are no longer burnt into cds by the big record companies today. Since most people nowadays no longer own a record/vinyl player - it's all cds & more in today's days - these wonderful albums are fast disappearing with the mists of Time. Ventura's music selections are marked by style, romance & sophistication and by his harmonious & nostalgic melodies of very familiar tracks that have trickled down to us through the decades. ~ Sherna Bhumgara, Amazon
Anthony Gomes is a familiar face to anyone following the modern blues scene. He has been carving out his own space as an unapologetically rock-influenced bluesman and songwriter since first coming to national attention in the late 1990s. He is that rare artist able to take the Zen simplicity of blues music, fuse it with the rush of rock and roll, and write memorable new songs that exist somewhere between creative geniuses Willie Dixon and Billy Gibbons. He stands his ground as a creative artist, not a derivative history lesson, and is eager to push the blues back into the mainstream.
On June 18, 2021, the Tri-Centric Foundation and New Braxton House Records will release Anthony Braxton's "Quartet (Standards) 2020", a 13-CD deluxe box set documenting Braxton’s European tour in January last year. Armed with a songbook of over one hundred tunes, Braxton crossed the Atlantic and assembled a stellar ensemble of British musicians – Alexander Hawkins on piano, Neil Charles on bass and Stephen Davis on drums. The box set comprises sixty-seven tracks culled from nine evenings of performances in London, Warsaw and Wels representing decades of American music, from the Great American songbook to Paul Simon via music by jazz luminaries including Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Andrew Hill, Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter, and many more.
With a career spanning more than three decades, composer and multi-instrumentalist Arjen Lucassen has firmly established himself worldwide as driving force in progressive rock. While best known for his rock opera project Ayreon, the multi-talented Dutchman also regularly embarks on musical side projects such as Ambeon, Guilt Machine and Star One. Arjen’s side projects all explore different aspects of his musical personality, with each new release being a creative reaction to the style of its predecessor. Star One is no exception.
The first Star One album, Space Metal (2002) was Arjen’s reaction to his previous project, the relatively soft Ambeon. After releasing the first few Ayreon albums, Arjen had noticed that many others were following in his footsteps and releasing their own rock operas…
For twenty-first century ears accustomed to every type of music imaginable, it can be hard to hear Gesualdo's later madrigals as the shocking and revolutionary pieces they are or imagine the reaction of their original audiences, but sometimes the music is so supremely odd that it inevitably elicits a double-take. This is sometimes the result of Gesualdo's brilliant/cavalier disregard for the late Renaissance conventions of harmony, tonality, and voice leading, but just as often it's the intensity of emotional affect in his response to the texts, which can create music that seems alarmingly disjunct, even schizophrenic, in its mood swings. In any case, Gesualdo is a composer who's most appealing to listeners who like wild rides and lots of aural surprises.
Braxton had long been fond of working with improvising wind ensembles. In fact, the earliest incarnation of what would become the World Saxophone Quartet appeared on his landmark Arista album, New York, Fall, 1974. So his collaboration with the ROVA quartet, perhaps the most important practitioners of the form after the WSQ, came as no surprise…
The superbly consistent quality of the Third Book of songs by John Dowland suggests that the earlier issues, First Book and Second Book also recorded by Anthony Rooley and the Consort of Musicke, were no mere flashes in the pan, but set the tone for the whole series.
Composer Anthony Cheung releases All Roads, a follow up to FCR215 Cycles and Arrows. Featuring performances by the Escher Quartet, violinist Miranda Cuckson, soprano Paulina Swierczek, and pianists Jacob Greenberg, Gilles Vonsattel, and Cheung himself, All Roads encapsulates Cheung's penchant for drawing on broad sources of inspiration and filtering them through an incisive and discriminating compositional process to produce substantial, structurally airtight works.