Reflections Eabs

Bennie Maupin's Cryptogramophone label follow-up CD to Penumbra both parallels and provides a departure from that excellent effort. What is similar is the softer tone Maupin is displaying in his far post-Headhunters days, refined by experience and cured though wisdom. The music Maupin plays on this beautiful effort is even more subdued, as he collaborates with an ensemble of relatively unknown musicians from Poland. If you've been hearing recent efforts from Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and his ECM recordings with the teenage pianist Marcin Wasilewski and his trio, you hear stark similarities. But further, the recently reissued Maupin epic Jewel in the Lotus, which was also on ECM, is quite different than this ECM sounding project. Old may in fact be new again in some respects, but in this case, new is really new. Maupin offers so much appealing music within the undercurrent, starting with the delicate but paced "Black Ice" and the waltzing title track with Maupin on soprano sax. Separate flute and piano lines are woven into a more somber waltz "Tears," or the sparse, spacy, long "Spirits of the Tatras" with dynamics patiently rendered up and down with lots of piano from Michal Tokaj, who rivals the crystalline musings of Wasilewski on the entire album.

Philippe Petit - Guitar Reflections (1991) {EPM Musique 982262}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 216 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 114 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 99 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1991 EPM Musique | 982262
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Guitar

Petit plays a real solid, soulful jazz style, in many ways like Wes Montgomery. Frankly, however, some of Petit's solos just sound better than Wes's. I don't have the liner notes in front of me, but listening to it, I think the tracks are mostly his own rhythm and solos laid on top of each other. This makes for a surprisingly full sound. If you're a fan of good jazz guitar, this CD will make a great addition to your collection. It's quite accessible, never disappointing or cheesy, and for a CD that doesn't have driving rhythm section it really gets your foot tapping.

Reflections is the solo album of the legendary British musician Chris Norman, released in 1995. Known both for his solo hits in the '80s as well as his hits with the band Smokie in the '70s, Chris Norman is a British soft rock singer with an international following whose career spans several decades. A few years after the success of his 1978 Suzi Quatro duet, "Stumblin' In," he parted ways with Smokie and found solo success with his second album, 1986's Some Hearts Are Diamonds. In the decades that followed, Norman proved himself to be surprisingly prolific, delivering a new studio album every two or three years and maintaining a large fan base in Germany, where his chart success continued into the 2000s.

An apocryphal tale says Juilliard Music Conservatory-trained musicians Michael Kamen, Marty Fulterman, and Dorian Rudnytsky decided in the late '60s in New York that they could make bigger bucks as rock stars than as classical musicians. The results of this legendary experiment were inconclusive. Forming the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, they broke with tradition on their first two albums – 1968's self-titled debut and Faithful Friends the next year – by using classical music instruments in rock songs and using rock instruments on classical pieces…

Stan Getz - Reflections (1963) {Verve 523 322-2 rel 2003}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 208 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 77 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 34 Mb | 5% repair rar | 24bit 96kHz remastering
© 1963, 2003 Verve / Universal | 523 322-2
Jazz / Cool / Saxophone

Though in 1963 some purists considered Reflections to be certain evidence that Stan Getz had sold out and abandoned "real jazz" completely, the album is actually, while perhaps not a masterpiece, an artful and intriguing sidebar to the tenor saxophonist's now celebrated bossa nova period. Getz was always a sublimely smooth and lyrical player who had already recorded in an orchestral setting on the groundbreaking Focus, and had a number one pop hit with Jazz Samba. It was only natural, then, that he would want to combine the two concepts.

No one knows quite when tango was established in Finland, but the style has a long history there – still little known to outsiders – and combines rhythmic interest and yearning melody with a distinctively Nordic melancholy. In this ingeniously curated programme, two Finnish tangos from the 1950s and a tango-based work by Finnish classical composer Aulis Sallinen are woven into a bold tapestry of music from the Eastern Baltic seaboard. Longing, sadness, and a heightened sense of nature infuse all of these works, which also reveal intriguing stylistic connections: the rocking accompaniment of Sibelius’ 'Einsames Lied' seems to prefigure the ‘Baltic minimalism’ of Vasks, Pärt and Zita Bružaité, while Olli Mustonen’s 'Toccata' alternates rhythmic verve with a rich vein of reflective memory. These original compositions are complemented by Robert McFall’s own sensitive arrangements, for a core McFall’s lineup of five strings and piano, and the programme culminates in a truly unique version of Sibelius’s famous 'Finlandia' Hymn.

February 26, 2020, 10 years after the passing of musician Nujabes. Even though a long time has passed, the number of listeners around the world who desire the music of Nujabes continues to grow. During this turbulent world, Nujabes' label, Hydeout Productions, which is still in charge of the band, asked Haruka Nakamura to make a tribute album to mark the 10-year anniversary of his death, saying, 'I want you to move forward 10 years as time stands still.'