Northern Soul's Modern Monsters

This limited-edition CD, featuring Stan Getz, J. J. Johnson, John Lewis, and Gunther Schuller, presents one of the earliest examples of Third Stream jazz. Written especially for this release are new notes by Gunther Schuller. Recorded March 14, 1955 in NYC. Of the five compositions that were recorded for this album, three were specifically commissioned by Mr. Norman Granz for this date. The remaining two, "Django" and "The Queens Fancy", were older compositions of John Lewis that were specially orchestrated by Mr. Gunther Schuller for this session. The Modern Jazz Society Presents a Concert of Contemporary Music is an album of music composed by John Lewis and arranged and condducted by Gunther Schuller which was originally released on the Norgran label. Allmusic awarded the album 3 stars. The Penguin Guide to Jazz awarded the album a "Crown" of recommended jazz recordings.

This is a strong recording from the Modern Jazz Quartet, with inventive versions of John Lewis' "Vendome," Ray Brown's "Pyramid," Jim Hall's "Romaine," and Lewis' famous "Django," along with cooking jams on "How High the Moon" and "It Don't Mean a Thing." The MJQ had become a jazz institution by this time, but they never lost their creative edge, and their performances (even on the remakes) are quite stimulating, enthusiastic, and fresh.

Hailing from a trio of Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) sessions, Django (1955) contains some of the earliest sides that Milt Jackson (vibraphone), John Lewis (piano), Percy Heath (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums) recorded for Prestige Records. Initially, the combo was part of Dizzy Gillespie's influential backing band and after a change in drummers (to Connie Kay), they continued as one of the more sophisticated aggregates of the post-bop era. The album commences with Lewis' sublime and serene title track "Django," dedicated to the memory of guitarist extraordinaire Django Reinhardt. This musical paean aptly recaptures the essence of Reinhardt's enigmatic gypsy-like nature, especially evident within Jackson's leads, which emerge from the thoughtful opening dirge with a refined, warm tone throughout…

After years of making his own esoteric ambient albums and paying for them by doing dance remixes for pop acts, William Orbit hit the big time in 1998 by co-writing and producing Madonna's Ray of Light album. With his own debut solo album on Madonna's label, he returned to his esoteric pursuits, programming a variety of calm classical pieces into his computer and rearranging them to one extent or another. Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" came off relatively unscathed, but by the time he got to "Ogives Number 1" by Erik Satie, Orbit was mixing in the sounds of a helicopter, as if he were Francis Ford Coppola doing sound design work on Apocalypse Now with the Doors' "The End." Handel's "Largo from Xerxes" remained recognizable, but Beethoven's "Triple Concerto" was largely transformed…

"I'll Melt With You" will forever be the one specific moment that's Modern English's place in pop history, but the album it came from, After the Snow, isn't anything to sneeze at. Indeed, in transforming from the quite fine but dour young miserabilists on Mesh & Lace to a brighter incarnation that still had a melancholy side, the quintet found exactly the right combination best suited for their abilities. Like contemporaries B-Movie and the Sound, Modern English used punk and post-punk roots as a chance to introduce a haunting, beautiful take on romance and emotion, while the contributions of Stephen Walker on keyboard helped make the album both of its time and timeless. That said, the secret weapon on the album is the rhythm section of Michael Conroy and Richard Brown, able to shift from the polite but relentless tribal beat clatter on the excellent "Life in the Gladhouse" to the ever more intense punch of the title track, the album's unheralded masterpiece.

A remake of a special kind. 2024 marks 150 years since the premiere of „Pictures at an Exhibition“. On this anniversary the quartet now presents an extraordinary and progressive interpretation of this timeless masterpiece by Mussorgsky, having always explored innovative possibilities to transform the different genres of classical music, The Modern String Quartet hereby exhibits pictures within the framework of a fascinating contemporary tonal language— so very abstract and modern. A crouched Gnomus scurries through the disharmonious paint blobs of a Jackson Pollock, Baba Jaga skitters through the wild, expressionistic brush strokes of a Wassily Kandinsky. New pictures are hung up, being uncompromising in expression and enhanced by unrestrained imagination.

A remake of a special kind. 2024 marks 150 years since the premiere of „Pictures at an Exhibition“. On this anniversary the quartet now presents an extraordinary and progressive interpretation of this timeless masterpiece by Mussorgsky, having always explored innovative possibilities to transform the different genres of classical music, The Modern String Quartet hereby exhibits pictures within the framework of a fascinating contemporary tonal language— so very abstract and modern. A crouched Gnomus scurries through the disharmonious paint blobs of a Jackson Pollock, Baba Jaga skitters through the wild, expressionistic brush strokes of a Wassily Kandinsky. New pictures are hung up, being uncompromising in expression and enhanced by unrestrained imagination.