Svend Nrinkman

Acoustic Disc has announced the release of David Grisman Quartet with Svend Asmussen Live at Fat Tuesday's in a high definition, download format.

Danish violinist Svend Asmussen, a household name in his own country and Stéphane Grappelli’s favourite violinist, has played with such greats as Fats Waller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, John Lewis and Toots Thielemans. On "Amazing Strings", Asmussen performs in front of a string orchestra accompanied by a jazz rhythm section: actually, Asmussen is the string orchestra, overdubbing all the violin and cello voices. The material moves in and out of classical, traditional and jazz interpretations with Asmussen playing the seldom-heard tenor violin on several of these pieces. Most will recognize Borodin’s Danse des jeunes filles as the pop hit Stranger in Paradise, interpreted here with a lush romanticism.

Stuff Smith, born as Hezekiah Leroy Gordon Smith in 1909 passed away in 1967, one year after this unique recording session. "Violin Summit" featured Stuff Smith, Stephane Grappelli, Svend Asmussen and Jean Luc-Ponty (with pianist Kenny Drew, bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, drummer Alex Riel) in concert on September 30, 1966. It was an unique opportunity to have four of the best violin players together in one concert. The music came off quite well, in large part probably because the four violinists were paired in different sets with all four actually featured together on only one take, "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing".

The idea of building great music from modest or fragmentary means has characterized the work of Nordic composers for generations. In Svend Hvidtfelt Nielsen’s music, that idea finds a particularly exquisite and absolutely contemporary expression. In Toccata the music glances towards a filmic chase-down, whereas Nielsen in Ophelia Dances claims to ‘hear the dancing’ of that fragile character from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The album concludes with Nielsen’s single-movement symphony, Symphony No. 3, which sets in motion a cumulative journey upwards from low to high: a symphonic Tower of Babel, reaching for the heavens.