Kronos is very excited to announce that the Norwegian record label Kirkelig Kulturverksted (KKV), in association with New York-based Valley Entertainment, will release Placeless on March 1, 2019. ” Placeless is the first collaboration between Kronos and Iranian singers Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat. Recorded in Oslo’s Kulturkirken Jakob in November 2018, the album features 14 songs composed by Mahsa Vahdat to classical poems by Hafez and Rumi and the works of contemporary Iranian poets Forough Farrokhzad, Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari and Vahdat’s husband Atabak Elyasi. Composers Sahba Aminikia, Aftab Darvishi, Jacob Garchik and Elyasi arranged the songs for string quartet.
Tenor saxophonist and flutist Charles Lloyd's music has been a healing force in jazz ever since his historic Forest Flower recording of the mid-'60s with Jack DeJohnette and Keith Jarrett. As fate would have it, he was booked at New York's Blue Note club on September 11, 2001. Lloyd, for those who were lucky enough to see him that week, literally bathed the audience with his Coltranean sounds of love. This double-CD, with pianist Geri Allen, bassists Larry Grenadier and Marc Johnson, guitarist John Abercrombie, and drummer Billy Hart, beautifully captures the serene vibe of the Blue Note engagement. Lloyd's ethereal sax tones sing sweetly over a number of spirituals, such as "Amazing Grace," "Go Down Moses," and the title track, which was written by James Weldon Johnson and was known as "The Negro National Anthem." There's also a mournful rendition of Billy Strayhorn's "Blood Count" and a rejuvenating take on Marvin Gaye's soulful "What's Going On." On all of the selections Lloyd shows that jazz soothes, as well as grooves.
Maryam Akhondy (born 1957) is a classical trained singer from Teheran/Islamic Republic of Iran. She was student of Ostad Esmail Mehrtasch and Ostad Nassrollah Nassehpour, two masters of classical Iranian music. Because of the difficult situation for artists in Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 – especially female artists – she moved to Europe and lives since 1986 in Cologne (Germany).After 1986 Maryam Akhondy started working with other Iranian musicians in exil. With “Nawa” and „Tschakawak“ – both groups of traditional classical Iranian music – she performed in Germany and Scandinavia.At the same time she founded “Ensemble Barbad”, a group with three to five musicians, all classical trained artists. Barbad has been touring all over Europe for the past years…
One of the major voices in the highly political Asian improvisation movement of the 1980s and '90s, baritonist Fred Ho on this memorable CD performs everything from modernized swing and Charles Mingus-influenced ensembles to short solo baritone pieces and selections that mix together Western and Eastern instruments. He utilizes two ensembles: the 11-piece Journey Beyond the West Orchestra (which includes such instruments as the sona, erbu, and san shuen along with more conventional jazz horns and rhythm, plus occasionally the somewhat jarring Chinese soprano vocals of Cindy Zuoxin Wang) and the five-piece Afro-Asian Music Ensemble.
Monkey is a two-part recording of baritone saxophonist Fred Ho's multimedia musical Journey Beyond the West, centered around the Chinese trickster figure of Monkey (à la Coyote in much native American lore) that combines Chinese folk music and instrumentation with jazz. Acts I and III (composed in 1990/1989, respectively) are featured here, with Acts II and IV (both written in 1994) on the companion Monkey, Pt. 2 disc.
I’m honored to discuss this CD. I found Fred Ho’s Monkey: Part One a glorious surprise, and this second section of his musical setting for the trickster tale is no disappointment. The ensemble’s personnel has few changes, notably Francis Wong as tenorist; but its spirit remains dramatic, flexible and visionary as Ho achieves tremendous range from trombone, three saxophones (including his own baritone), bass and drums, and several performers on Chinese traditional instruments.