East Far Suite

Pierre Bertrand, winner of the Victoires du Jazz 2017 for his latest album "JOY" offers in 2018 an ambitious new project "Le Voyage Impossible", a reinterpretation with his Caja Negra ensemble of the "Far East Suite" by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Pierre Bertrand & Caja Negra is a group placed under the signs of travel and otherness, with the meeting of musicians and singers from aesthetics that usually only rarely meet: jazz and flamenco.

This Swiss Cascavelle disc most adroitly presents the world premiere recording of the orchestral poem Helvetia alongside two less obscure works for viola and orchestra. A highly attractive release, well designed and documented. Enthusiasts of Bloch, the viola and the mountain heights must not miss this.

Any album titled "East Meets West" may raise suspicions of crossover commercialism, and purists may reject this disc as a contrived hybrid of classical and international genres. But violinist Daniel Hope presents a program that is much more than a superficial exercise in multiculturalism, and his selections reveal the exotic impulses that touched many composers in the twentieth century. While Ravi Shankar's Raga Piloo and Swara-Kakali overtly reach westward, particularly in the employment of a violin with the Indian sitar, tabla, and tanpura, Ravel's Tzigane, de Falla's Suite populaire espagnol, and Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances are more dispersed in their regional influences and certainly suggest no connections with Asia.