The Yekaterinburg Philharmonic Choir approached one of the heights of the Russian sacred music - Sergei Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigil (1915). “It was completed in less than two weeks,” the composer wrote about it.
Remarkably, whether he's playing an impressionistic ballad, a hard bop classic or a free original, Denny Zeitlin sounds like no other. He has the technique and harmonic knowledge to execute anything his fertile imagination conjures up. His music resonates with joy and honesty. Denny Zeitlin's first album, Cathexis, recorded in 1964 with Cecil McBee and Freddie Waits was an instant critical and commercial success with Zeitlin hailed as a new and original voice of the piano. Later in 1964, Denny assembled another amazing trio with Charlie Haden and Jerry Granelli and released the album Carnival. Zeitgeist was recorded over 1966 and '67 and documented the end of the trio with Haden and Granelli and the beginning of one with Joe Halpin and Oliver Johnson, two brilliant musicians who died young.
It wasn’t until the end of the 1920s that professional duo-piano teams became a regular part of the concert scene with the emergence of Bartlett and Robertson, followed by Vronsky and Babin a bit later, and finally, in 1936, Luboshutz and Nemenoff.
As measured by cultural impact and mass popularity, Bruce Springsteen’s 1984-85 World Tour was the apex. Considering its stunning scale, playing multi-night stadium stands, it’s easy to forget that 1984 was a rebirth of sorts, the start of a new era as much as a continuation of what came before it. On the biggest tour of his career, Springsteen was rebuilding the engine while the plane was flying.