Cru Seu Jorge

When Jorge Bolet died in October 1990 the world lost one of its last ‘great Romantics’. Spirituality, a luxuriant tonal palette, a real sense of architecture, breadth, grandeur, all allied to a prodigious technique – these were just some of the qualities that informed his playing. Now, for the first time, Decca collects all the recordings he made for the label, from 1977 to 1990. Released for the first time and included in this set, is his last recording, a selection of Chopin’s Nocturnes and the Berceuse, recorded just seven months before his death.

This third CD from the dynamic piano trio of Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, and Ches Smith is a delightful surprise–and one of Zorn's greatest achievements. Exploring a wide variety of tempi, moods, and feelings the compositions dive deeply into the parameters of melody, harmony, hythm, and texture, stretching the ballade format to its limits and beyond. The trio, three essential members of Zorn's inner circle, performs with passion, imagination, virtuosity, and a telepathic improvisational interplay at the very highest level. A stunning collection of modern Ballades performed by three of the greatest young musicians in the Downtown scene. Essential!

Featuring four of the most accomplished musicians in the rich firmament of modern jazz, Incerto is one of Zorn’s newest and most exciting projects—a chamber ensemble of striking virtuosity that is capable of covering the full range of Zorn’s deepest passions and wildest fantasies. Their fourth CD is a touching tribute to the magical surrealist painter Remedios Varo. Filled with exotic juxtapositions, lush harmonies, lyrical explorations, and fiery solos, this music is a soulful and quirky homage to one of the world’s greatest alchemical artists.

The newest CD by Zorn’s most recent quartet “Incerto” is a beautiful and moody suite of nocturnes inspired by the night imagery of Shakespeare. Heart wrenchingly beautiful, the music carries you to a lush romantic world of modern lyricism, blending elements of jazz balladry with classical atonality and minimalism into a vibrant new sound world. Featuring four of the most accomplished musical masters out of the Downtown scene—trusted members of Zorn’s inner circle— this is modern chamber music at its very best!

Incerto is the birth of an exciting new modern jazz ensemble featuring the remarkable trio from Suite for Piano (Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder, Ches Smith) joined by the brilliant guitarist Julian Lage. A quartet capable of anything, this is the perfect group to realize Zorn’s quirky compositional twists and turns. The music is wildly varied—maddeningly complex, powerfully driving, heartbreakingly beautiful—and embraces complex meter changes, atonal melodies, unusual harmonies, and bizarre structural complexity. Inspired by Freud, Sartre, and the Uncertainty Principle, the music explores possibilities, probabilities, inevitabilities, and impossibilities.

Now entering a half-decade, Emotional Rescue presents an album that took almost as long to release as the label has existed. Jorge Reyes’ collaborative album with Antonio Zepeda is a masterpiece and therefore, worthy of the time and effort to share.
From cult artist to becoming an essential musical discovery, Jorge Reyes is an example that no one discovered or owns the music beyond the writer and creator.
Growing up in Mexico’s 2nd City, he spent much of his life dedicated to travelling and learning music traditions and instruments. While at University to study Flute, he was involved in several influential bands of the era before going on to travel the world to further his learning, before returning to found the seminal Chac Mool group…

The current popularity of Bach's six cello suites can be traced back to the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals, who was the first to include these pieces in the concert repertoire. The young violinist Jorge Jimenez, also Catalan, is a great admirer of the great cellist, coming only a few kilometres from Casals' birthplace. But Bach's cello suites already attracted attention in the 19th century, in the course of the Leipzig Bach Renaissance around Felix Mendelssohn. The violin virtuoso and teacher Ferdinand David made an arrangement for the violin. Jorge Jimenez uses this edition from 1866 for his interpretation. It contains unusually varied and for that time very precise indications for the performance of the music. For this version, entirely in the 19th century reading, Jorge Jimenez uses a romantic violin and a bow from the period. His extraordinary interpretation of Bach's cello suites is the second part of his series "Rethinking Bach", which Jimenez began with his own highly acclaimed arrangement of the Goldberg Variations for solo violin (PC 10434).

Once you enter the surreal, shaman-spirit filled world of Jorge Reyes, there's no return to the mundane and ordinary so called "new age music". Of course, Jorge would be deeply insulted if you called his creations new age. It's ethnic ambiance with a mixture of ponderous and sometimes sinister sounding electronic manipulations. This album is a fine gem that introduces those spiritually inquisitive to his music…in a sense, it is more or less a complilation of his other numerous works.

Flautist/saxophonist Jorge Pardo is a leading proponent of nuevo flamenco. On his fifth release, he pushes the envelope, presenting jazz standards and pop alongside more traditional compositions. "Caravan" lends itself well to rhythmic interpretations, but the arrangement degenerates midway into a dark-toned muddle. "'Round Midnight" and "Michelle," presented simply with flute and guitar, fare better, coming across as pleasant, "light jazz" renditions. The balance of the compositions are mostly by Pardo, and make his case more persuasively.