Journey From William Henry Gates Iii TO Bill Gates

Joe Henry announces reissue trilogy of three of his most celebrated albums ‘Civilian’, ‘Blood from Stars’ and ‘Invisible Hour’, which will be released through earMUSIC. In 2024, Joe Henry is set to release three of his most acclaimed studio records for the first time on vinyl via earMUSIC, featuring a special selection of unheard bonus tracks as well as intimate demos and live recordings from his personal archives.

The music of William Byrd has been something of an obsession for the members of Phantasm, featuring on their early recordings Still Music of the Spheres (1996) and Byrd Song (1998), as well as their 2004 collection The Four Temperaments. Here they return again to the Elizabethan composer with the benefit of nearly two decades’ performing experience, to gather together his complete output for viol consort, bar the fragmentary or spurious works. Spanning some 40 years of Byrd’s life, this is a condense but subtly varied album of styles: courtly dances interleave with cryptic spiritual and devotional works – fleeting expressions of the recusant Catholic’s unwavering faith – and variations on popular Tudor songs, like the magnificent tour de force, Browning. Among the finest works are the Fantasias, which range from lush-textured six-part tapestries to the laconic three-part pieces, haiku-like in their poetic expressivity. Throughout them Byrd retains the ‘Angelicall and Divine’ qualities that his contemporaries remarked upon – qualities that Phantasm captures perfectly in this collection.

For this duet set from the 1975 Montreux Jazz Festival, Bill Evans alternates between acoustic and electric pianos while Eddie Gómez offers alert support and some near-miraculous bass solos. The audience is attentive and appreciative - as they should be, for the communication between the two masterful players (on such songs as "Milano," "Django," "I Love You," and their encore, "The Summer Knows") is quite special.