Otta Songbook (2020)

Jens Søndergaard has always had a large and faithful audience. There is a good reason why he has always had a tightly packed calendar. The audience loves the warm radiance of Søndergaard and the beautiful and melodic play on the saxophone.
Now he has recorded The Brubeck-Desmond songbook, which is a return to the music that has gotten so many into the Jazz. Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond are two of the most iconic composers in the history of Jazz. When you hear Jens Søndergaard interpret their repertoire with his regular quartet, it is difficult not to just sit back and enjoy how simple and elegant it can be done…

Italian songbook é un progetto discografico che inizia adesso per declinarsi in altri album nel tempo. Un album doppio diviso in due parti che nasce con l'intento di raccogliere le più belle interpretazioni di Mina in italiano. Non solo i suoi grandi successi di una carriera lunga e straordinaria che continua ancora oggi, ma anche le cover fatte da Mina dei grandi pezzi di autori e cantautori come della tradizione della musica italiana. Un Canzoniere con le più belle canzoni che tutti conosciamo con alcune perle da riscoprire prese dalla vasta produzione discografica di Mina. Una canzona inedita per ogni album e delle fotografie inedite arricchiscono le prime due uscite di questo progetto.

Mark Masters has arranged the music of many great composers over the years including Clifford Brown, Lee Konitz, Gary McFarland, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington and even Steely Dan. On Night Talk, Masters takes on the music of Alec Wilder. The 9 piece Mark Masters Ensemble features the great baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan throughout on this wonderful excursion through Wilder’s songbook. Wilder once said, “I don’t believe the layman has any notion of the miraculous chain of events which occur when a jazz musician plays.” Night Talk exemplifies those events and they are truly miraculous!

„Totschläger“ isn´t exactly „Nachthymnen part II“, still there are plenty of equally majestic moments. The atmosphere captured on this new release has also opened up from the strictly apocalyptic darkness which contemporary Black Metal more and more embodies almost exclusively, to let those 1980s Metal influences in which have almost been buried in the 90s - be it the the melodic guitarwork or the uplifting, „into the battle“ kind of parts, which were always present in the old days. Therefore, the whole broad spectrum which 90s BM once offered, has been resurrected for „Totschläger“. Riff-based heaviness like the opener Gomhorra Rising (the verses composed as a bow to Euronymous´ eternal regency for such style), slow melancholic hymns like Guiding The Namelss, or ultra-fast devastation like Terrorkommando Eligos - a song which puts every self-declared Panzerführer right into primary school. Modern symphonic libraries and orchestral samples have been shunned, instead, old-school keyboards bring back an ancient BM feeling, but there is more, almost Power Metal style influences on Orkblut and Tartaros Tides, and rest assured, the complex, sophisticated or progressive strength of ABIGOR is also blazing through at any given moment.

A 3-CD set, “Looking Through A Glass Onion” assembles these disparate strands into one cohesive package, with the studio day trippers, the cultural pranksters, the genre-benders, the folk club stalwarts and the hair-down-to-his-knees prog-rock brigade all grooving up slowly to the starting line.