David Hazeltine George Mraz Trio Manhattan [chesky Sacd 310] {studio Master 2496}

Clarinetist David Orlowsky is widely recognized as a musician of tremendous expressiveness and depth, and is acknowledged worldwide as one of today's leading interpreters of the clarinet repertoire ranging from Mozart to Golijov to klezmer. An exclusive Sony recording artist, David has recorded eight discs which have received three ECHO Klassik awards and won him a large and devoted following. David Orlowsky has appeared both as a soloist and with his trio (the David Orlowsky Trio) at a number of major festivals and venues, including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, Gidon Kremer’s Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, the Philhamonie Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Carnegie Hall, with orchestras such as the Netherland Radio Philhamonic Orchestra and the German Chamber Orchestra.

The fifth volume in the Concord Duo Series matches pianist Adam Makowciz and bassist George Mraz in a concert at the Maybeck Recital Hall; both musicians are virtuosoes originally from Eastern Europe who found fame in the U.S. On what is very much a duo set, Mraz gets nearly as much solo space as Makowicz. Their repertoire mixes together six fresh renditions of standards with four of the pianist's complex originals and the harmonically advanced music (which features plenty of close interplay) has enough variety to continually hold one's interest. ~Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

When it comes to combining jazz with European folk idioms, the Scandinavians haven't quite got the monopoly. George Mraz and Emil Viklický have been creating their beautiful blend of jazz and Moravian music for years, although this is their first purely duet album. In their hands the two idioms seem made for each other. The first of these 11 pieces could almost be a kind of blues. Mraz, long a US resident, is one of the most famous bassists in jazz, while pianist Viklický is one of the Czech Republic's top film composers.