Aramaic nt

Immortal Memory is a collaboration between vocalist Lisa Gerrard and Irish composer Patrick Cassidy. Billed as a cycle of life and death and rebirth, Immortal Memory is better described as an orphaned film score. Cassidy's warm arrangements allow the former Dead Can Dance singer to step out of the dark medieval world that she's called home for nearly 20 years – though there is much of that world within these castle walls – and focus on the simplicity of love, faith, and loss with a grace that's bereft of the icy perfection of her previous work. Gerrard, whose voice has aged like the finest oak, displays an almost supernatural mastery of the material. Her effortless contralto wraps itself around the ten Gaelic, Latin, and Aramaic spirituals like an evening prayer, making each stunning entrance the equivalent of audio comfort food.

John Zorn & Masada - Dalet (1994) {DIW Records Japan DIW-923 rel 1997} (Volume 4of10)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 102 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 45 Mb
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© 1994, 1997 DIW Records Japan | DIW-923
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Klezmer / Post Bop / World Fusion / Ethnic Jazz

This is the fourth in the series of John Zorn's 10 Masada quartet albums (plus, as far as I know, one live recording released by Jazz DCOR and few more released on Zorn's own label, Tzadik). The four musicians of Masada quartet (John Zorn - alto sax, Dave Douglas - trumpet, Joey Baron - drums, Greg Cohen - bass) are all masters of their instruments. They have recorded the ten albums in only a few studio sessions, all of which feature very, very passionate and inspired playing. All of the albums are beautifully played, with exquisite sense for measure and taste, the musicians bringing their instruments to the edge of possible (and beyond, as it often seems, it's awesome!) but their virtuosity never being self-serving. Many compositions sound like folk themes, there are a lot of emotions, a lot of melancholy or sense of longing, but also some 'smoking', joyous faster tracks.

Selected by ECHO (the European Concert Hall Organisation) as one of its Rising Stars of the 2009/10 season, the Swedish clarinettist Emil Jonason has become increasingly visible on the international music scene. For his first disc on the BIS label he has chosen to record a concerto written for him by his compatriot Christian Lindberg, composer, conductor and legendary trombonist. As Lindberg remarks in his own note on the work, the soloist was involved at all stages of the compositional process.

Franz Liszt was 67 when he composed his Via Crucis, yet it did not receive its first performance until 1929, 43 years after the composer’s death. This work of his mature years is in 15 sections, retracing the Stations of the Cross that mark the stages of Christ’s Passion, from being condemned to death to being laid in the tomb. Combining Gregorian chant, the Lutheran liturgy and the Latin, German and Aramaic languages, the Via Crucis shows real formal originality. A devout believer, Liszt gives us here his most important sacred work. He composed several versions: for mixed choir, soloists and organ (with the organ part optionally transcribed for piano), for piano solo, organ solo, and two pianos.

It would have been groundbreaking enough for the Israeli Ofra Haza to have performed an album of Yemeni Jewish songs. But when she and producer Bezalel Aloni added synthesizers, drum machines, and a generous helping of dance beats, they ended up creating one of the seminal records of world music–one of the very first ethno-techno releases whose reverberations extended into dance clubs around the globe, most especially with "Galbi." While its contemporary sound might make it seem shallow, there really is a lot of depth here, the lyrics coming from the poetry of 16th-century rabbi Shalom Shabazi. Along with fellow spirits like Dissidenten, Haza helped pave the way for Transglobal Underground, Natacha Atlas, and Banco de Gaia.