For a Beatle, Ringo Starr has had a relatively quiet latter-day solo career. After salvaging his tattered reputation in 1992 with Time Takes Time – his first album in nearly a decade and his first in nearly 20 years to serve his legend well – Starr settled into touring regularly with his ever-changing All-Starr Band, documenting almost every tour with a live album, then turning out a new studio album every three or four years…
Zinman's Resurrection is the second release in Mahler's complete series of works for this conductor with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. His Beethoven, Schumann, and Richard Strauss discs for Arte Nova have been a resounding success. The appearance of these Mahler discs on a full-priced label suggests that Sony-BMG Masterworks appreciates their potential to be the definitive Mahler recordings of the current decade.
This group of Domenico Scarlatti keyboard sonatas from an ongoing Naxos series presents what can fairly be called an old-fashioned approach to the composer's music, although that's not to say anything against it. The young Korean American pianist Soyeon Lee harks back to the times when pianists phrased Scarlatti a good deal like Mozart, who himself was viewed through the prism of Romanticism. In place of the percussive harpsichord rhythms and sharp contrasts of recent Scarlatti performances, you get pedal, gracefully shaped phrases, and a smoothing of the edges of Scarlatti's style.
Despite this track record, most likely the reason that the majority of genre fans didn’t know her is because mainstream smooth jazz radio has been flute-resistant for years. They say it doesn’t test well in their demographic research, but anyone who saw Rene electrify the crowd could attest that this is wrongheaded thinking. Given the chance, considering her formidable composing and playing skills, charismatic presence and dynamite looks, she could be a star on the level of Mindi Abair and Candy Dulfer, who makes a memorable guest appearance on one of “No Restrictions” coolest and most melodic midtempo tracks, “Ladies Night Out.
Hermann Bischoff, a pupil of Richard Strauss, was a highly gifted composer and always reaped high praise from music critics and the press, but his compositional output remained relatively small. A mere two symphonies, two shorter orchestral pieces, one and a half operas, and a handful of songs were produced during his lifetime. This disc is the second in a two volume series and presents the recording premieres of Symphony No. 2 and Introduktion & Rondo.
David Zinman’s Mahler has been warmly received in many quarters. He is proceeding through the cycle chronologically and the Fifth will not disappoint those who like their Mahler sane and lucid. Sound quality remains near state-of-the-art even if there seems to be too much hall ambience for absolute clarity this time. The orchestra has been carefully drilled – individual members are named in the attractive, copiously annotated booklet – but it is idle to pretend that Zürich can offer either the characterful solo playing or the corporate weight of Chicago, Vienna or Berlin. That the back inlay and the track-listing misrepresent the work’s tripartite structure matters little.
"The poised polished execution of the Vienna Philharmonic, and … the controlled, tasteful vigour of Bernstein's conducting sets standards of Beethoven playing that recall Toscanini's heyday with the New York Philharmonic." - Fanfare
Toninho Horta has been a reliable sideman and occasionally a leader in his lengthy career playing contemporary Brazilian music. The acoustic and electric guitarist has a quiet intensity that reflects the passion and verve of genius composer Antonio Carlos Jobim. This tribute to Jobim is quite laden with string charts, most done quite tastefully, rarely overarranged, and pleasantly emphasizing a flute section. Horta has an impressive complementary combo of pianist Dave Kikoski, bassist Gary Peacock, percussionists Paulo Braga and Manolo Badrena, special guests as saxophonist Bob Mintzer, harmonicist William Galison, trumpeter Glenn Drewes, Charles Pillow on oboe, John Clark on French horn, and several members of the large Horta family.