Insight February 2011

Angela Hewitt has applied the same intense study to Chopin's Nocturnes and Impromptus as she does to any composer's keyboard works. The result is a set of pieces lovingly played and appreciated, with personally felt emotion. The most outwardly emotional displays, as in the Nocturnes, Op. 15, are never wildly loud and always return to an introverted state afterward. In the Nocturnes she uses little touches of rubato so frequently as to almost stretch the melodies out of shape, as in Op. 9/1, but she plays many of the Nocturnes a tick faster than other pianists so that they stand up to that kind of manipulation better, and she never slows down to fit in ornaments. Her ornaments always fit right into the melody, both in her timing and her phrasing, and are feathery soft.

Marc Bolan - Marc Bolan at the BBC - Radio Sessions And Broadcasts 1967 -1977 (2013) {6CD Box Set Universal 534 309-2}
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© 1967-77, 2013 BBC Worldwide / Universal Music | 534 309-2
Rock / Glam Rock / Proto-Punk / Folk Rock / Freakbeat / Psychedelic / British Invasion / Mod

This set is said to combine all of the surviving BBC recordings with previously unreleased sessions taken from BBC Transcription Discs, off air recordings made on reel-to-reel tape recorders and the occasional cassette tape. The box contains 16 previously unreleased Tyrannosaurus Rex tracks, and over 20 T.Rex tracks never before issued. There are also a dozen interviews many of which have never been commercially available. The 117 track box set kicks off with some June 1968 John’s Children recordings and the curtain closes at the end of disc six with a couple of T.Rex tracks broadcast on the David Hamilton show, less than a month before Bolan’s untimely death.

Tubby Hayes - The Complete Tempo Recordings 1955-1959 (2012) {6CD Box Set, Acrobat Music ACSCD6002}
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© 1955-59, 2012 Acrobat Music | ACSCD6002
Jazz / Bop / Hard Bop / Saxophone

This whopping six-disc set comprises the early bop and hard bop solo output of tenor saxophone giant and bandleader (as well as a pianist and vibraphonist) Tubby Hayes, one of a handful of players who put British jazz on the map in the 1950s. Admired by American and European players alike, he stands as one of the great masters of the horn, period. Some of the other notable players that recorded with him during this historic period are trumpeters Jimmy Deuchar and Dickie Hawdon, bassist Pete Blannin, drummers Lennie Breslaw and Tony Crombie, and, of course, saxophonist Ronnie Scott, to name a few.

Big Satan - I Think They Liked It Honey (1997) {Winter & Winter 910 005-2}
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© 1997 Winter & Winter | 910 005-2
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Creative

Tim Berne (alto and baritone saxes) has been at the forefront of progressive jazz since the early '80s. On this release, the artist regroups with longtime musical associates Marc Ducret (electric guitar) and Tom Rainey (drums) for a truly mesmerizing set that rings with ominous overtones and intricately constructed fabrics of sound. Over the years, Rainey and Ducret have supported Berne-led dates, and here the trio pursues a fire and brimstone approach that packs a walloping punch. On pieces such as "Bobby Reconte une Histoire" and "Dialectes," the band melds shuffle grooves with complex unison choruses and linearly devised progressions amid slight shifts in strategy.

Apart from Grieg, no Scandinavian composer has written for the piano with more individuality and insight than Nielsen. Right from the very outset of his Five Piano Pieces, Op. 3, there is no doubt that his is an individual voice. The first emerges from a Schumannesque innocence to speak with personal accents, but all five are strong on humour and character. Nielsen’s greatest piano music is clustered into a period of four years (1916-20) with his final thoughts in the medium, the Three Pieces, Op. 59 of 1928 being composed in the immediate proximity of his Clarinet Concerto, music that already breathes the air of other planets. With the exception of Leif Ove Andsnes, no pianist of international standing has championed it on record, and apart from John Ogdon and John McCabe it has been the almost exclusive preserve of Nordic artists. True, the American scholar Mina Miller, who edited the autographs for the Hansen edition, recorded a complete survey in 1995 – also for Hyperion. But although Schnabel was the dedicatee of the Suite, Op. 45, he never broke a lance for it on the international scene. The Suite is not only Nielsen’s greatest keyboard work but arguably the mightiest ever written in Scandinavia. Martin Roscoe is right inside this music and guides us through its marvels with great subtlety and authority.

These performances derive from two quintet concerts in Germany: early, 1953 (first 5 tunes) and December, 1961 (remainder). Dizzy is in prime form on both occasions. The first band (his undistinguished New York group of the time, Bill Graham with a few short bari solos) stays in the background, allows Diz to shine. The second quintet carries more weight with Lalo Schifrin (piano), Leo Wright (alto), and Mel Lewis subbing on drums. Schifrin was just coming into prominence as Dizzy's musical director, and he brought a lot of Latin energy and authenticity into the band. He had premiered his tango "Long Long Summer" a few weeks before at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Schifrin also takes some virtuosic piano solos. Typically an understated accompanist, Lewis steps forward and stirs things up though he doesn't actually solo…