Lira Vic Bang

Jordi Savall - La Lira d'Esperia: La Viele Medievale (1996) {Auvidis E 8547}
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© 1996 Auvidis / Astree | E 8547
Classical / Chamber Music / Medieval Fiddle

Savall's notes make it clear that his intention was not so much to re-create a musical performance of the time as to pay tribute to the jongleurs in pieces that re-create ``a certain art of sounding the bow.'' The re-creations draw on what have become almost stereotypical melodic and rhythmic figures of the music of the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures of the Middle Ages, periodically spiced, as in the Danza del viento, with spiky rhythms that could plausibly have originated in modern jazz improvisation.

Jordi Savall & Pedro Estevan - La Lira d'Esperia II: Galicia (2014) {Alia Vox AVSA9907}
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© 2014 Alia Vox | AVSA9907
Classical / Chamber Music / Medieval

Exactly 20 years ago (in 1994), after several years of research, experimentation and concerts, we recorded our first CD devoted to La Lira d’Espéria, performed on my three early instruments – the Rebec, the Tenor Fiddle and the Rabab (Rabel morisco) – with the indispensable percussion of Pedro Estevan. The idea was to announce the music and instruments featured in the recording using the evocative ancient names of Lyra and Hesperia. It was an obvious choice, as the whole recording was devoted to the medieval repertory for bowed instruments and consisted of music from the various Christian, Jewish and Arabo-Andalusian cultures that existed in ancient Iberia and Italica.

In Baroque opera the dramatic figure of Gaius Julius Caesar received a considerable amount of attention from librettists and composers alike, and not just from G.F. Handel working with Nicola Francesco Haym. With Giulio Cesare, a Baroque hero, Raffaele Pe creates a full recital devoted to the Ancient Roman warrior and Dictator of the Republic, drawn from operas spanning the length of the eighteenth century.

Edmond Hall, James P. Johnson, Sidney De Paris, Vic Dickenson - The Complete Blue Note Sessions (1985) {4CD Mosaic rec 1941-52}
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© 1941-52, 1985 Mosaic Records / Blue Note | MD4-109
Jazz / Early Jazz / New Orleans Jazz / Swing / Dixieland / Stride

To say that this limited-edition six-LP Mosaic box is overflowing with classics is an understatement. Included are a variety of small-group sessions (with overlapping personnel) from the early days of Blue Note. The Edmond Hall Celeste Quartet has five songs that are the only existing examples of Charlie Christian playing acoustic guitar; clarinetist Hall, Meade Lux Lewis (on celeste), and bassist Israel Crosby complete the unique group. The king of stride piano, James P. Johnson, is heard on eight solos; other combos are led by Johnson, Hall (who heads four groups in all), trumpeter Sidney DeParis, and trombonist Vic Dickenson (heard in a 1952 quartet with organist Bill Doggett).

Jazz fusion from a man who has performed live and/or on recordings with jazz guitar legend Pat Martino, Dave Fiuczynski, Allan Holdsworth, Andreas Oberg, Scott McGill, David Torn, and more.

Sammy tips his hand by calling his acoustic album Lite Roast, the very title suggesting that these low-key renditions of old tunes are designed for smooth consumption at a coffeehouse. And he's not wrong! Strumming a 12-string while accompanied by Wabos guitarist Vic Johnson, Hagar approximates the kind of intimate atmosphere that can be found anywhere there's an open mike…