Sds Trio

The name of the group might be immodest, but the combination of pianist Hank Jones, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Tony Williams lives up to its billing. Originally cut for the Japanese East Wind label and last available domestically as an Inner City LP, this swinging but unsurprising session features boppish interpretations of six jazz standards including "Love for Sale," "Secret Love," and "Autumn Leaves."

The first-time teaming of Poland’s dynamic Marcin Wasilewski Trio and big-toned US tenorist Joe Lovano brings forth special music of concentrated, deep feeling, in which lyricism and strength seem ideally balanced. The alliance plays four new tunes by Marcin and one by Joe, as well as Carla Bley’s classic “Vashkar” (in two variations), plus collective improvisations with strong input from all four players; Slawomir Kurkiewicz’s bass skills are particularly well-deployed in the spontaneous piece “Arco”. Joe will be joining the Polish trio for a number of selected concerts in the autumn. Arctic Riff was recorded at France’s Studio La Buissonne in August 2019, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

For this trio set with bassist Niels Pedersen and drummer Terry Clarke, the great pianist Oscar Peterson (appearing at the 1981 Montreux Jazz Festival) performs a medley of "Misty" and "Waltz for Debby," three standards, his own "Cakewalk" and the debut of "Nigerian Marketplace," the first section of an extended suite not yet completed at the time. This is a well-rounded set (reissued on CD) that finds the remarkable Oscar Peterson in typically swinging and prime form.

There is a tradition among Russian composers to write an elegiac trio in memory of a departed friend. It is Tchaikovsky who first introduced this tradition with his grandiose trio in A minor dedicated to Nikolay Rubinstein. Dmitry Shostakovich carried this tradition into the twentieth century with his Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67, dedicated to the memory of his closest friend the musicologist Ivan Sollertinsky. These are the two telling works performed here in their premiere recording by the Rachmaninoff Trio de Montréal

Hasse: Sonatas and Trio Sonatas represents the maiden voyage for decade-old period instrument ensemble Epoca Barocca on the Chandos label. For the occasion, Epoca Barocca has elected to perform six previously unrecorded chamber works of late Baroque composer Johann Adolf Hasse, which have scrupulously been sought out in manuscripts and early prints canvassed from the libraries of Europe.

Young and aspiring musicians devoted to the performance of Baroque music are still having few problems finding composers whose works have remained in the recycle bin of history up until now. Louis-Antoine Dornel was an organist and composer active in Paris in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Much of his music has been lost, but enough records survive to suggest that he was well thought-of in his own day. The set of six suites recorded here was published in Paris in 1709.

Rarely do we feel the presence of Bach so vividly on a recording as we do here with this set of Trio Sonata arrangements, performed by violins, viola da gamba, and harpsichord. What a perfect combination, thanks to Richard Boothby's settings and to the wonderfully synergistic interaction among these very experienced early music players–violinists Catherine Mackintosh (in her best recorded performance in a while) and Catherine Weiss, gambist Boothby, and harpsichordist Robert Woolley.