Nocturne

Vangelis’ music is synonymous with space—the symphony Mythodea was composed for NASA’s 2001 Mars mission, and his 2016 album, Rosetta, was borne from the Rosetta mission to explore a comet. Here, he performs 11 original works on piano and accompanying synthesizer, inspired by nighttime and his passion for space, including the beautifully lilting “Through the Night Mist” and delightful “Nocturnal Promenade.” The film composer also visits some of his most renowned soundtracks, with contemplative reworkings of "Main Theme (From ‘Chariots of Fire’),” “Love Theme (From ‘Blade Runner’),” and “Conquest of Paradise (From ‘1492: Conquest of Paradise’).” But it’s his pared-down arrangement of Movement 9 from Mythodea that’s the star of the show.

This unique album is a wonderful snapshot of American jazz in an orchestral setting. Most classical music aficionados are familiar with George Gershwin and his works such as Rhapsody in Blue, but there are also a number of less-famous composers who wrote around the same time who are no less brilliant. These composers also interacted with and influenced each other. For example, James Price Johnson also wrote a rhapsody, entitled Yamekraw, Negro Rhapsody, which is a sophisticated work full of tempo changes, varied rhythms, and various moods and character. (William Grant Still orchestrated this piece.) Yamekraw swings and is syncopated, giving it a very dancelike feel, and the Hot Springs Music Festival Symphony Orchestra does an excellent job bringing the music alive without ever making it rigid. Not only do it play beautifully on this first piece, but also through the rest of the album, where it truly captures all the moods jazz pieces require while never losing strong classical technique. It is much to conductor Richard Rosenberg's credit that all of the pieces have energy and good musical taste.

The story goes that flautist/bandleader Christophe dal Sasso, in his tireless quest for new sonorities for his arranging tasks, absorbed the lessons of saxophonist Dave Liebman's treatise A Chromatic Approach to Jazz Harmony and Melody. Onstage some time later with a big band at Paris's Sunset nightclub, he applied those lessons to an arrangement of Woody Shaw's "Little Red Fantasy ; and who should be in the audience but Liebman himself, who hears something oddly familiar in the group's sound. Liebman would sit in with the band, thus beginning a collaboration whose fullest fruition is this disc.

When Pogorelich did not make the finals of the 1980 Warsaw Competition (where they play exclusively Chopin), his response was to sign with Deutsche Grammophon for his first recording and he made it an all-Chopin affair. From his stunning opening take on Chopin's Sonata #2, to a Funeral March restored to its grandeur, to the breaktaking final moments of the Scherzo #3, Pogorelich announced to the music world that he'd arrived.

Lynn Stokes & The Sol Surfers is a project consisting of Texas-based musician Lynn STOKES and SOL SURFERS, the latter a band assembled by Stokes in 2007 where the aim of the band is to play and record original compositions. Stokes is an experienced musician himself, and has been handling guitar duties in a number of bands and projects since the 70's; and in the last few years he's released a few solo albums as well. For the release of the 2008 production "Terra Nocturne" Stokes opted for the use of the moniker Lynn Stokes & Sol Surfers though; perhaps to make a distinction between his other solo productions and this work, as his solo albums explore rather different musical landscapes…

Antoine Hervé (20 January 1959 in Paris) is a French composer and pianist. Hervé studied composition at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique. Between 1987 and 1989 he was director of the French National Jazz Orchestra. He has played with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Chet Baker, Randy Brecker, Cab Calloway, Louis Sclavis, Martial Solal, Michel Portal, Carla Bley, Didier Lockwood and Daniel Humair.