The Tales of Hoffmann

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Live In Moers 1976 (2016) {Jazzline ‎N77025}
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© 1976, 2016 Jazzline / Delta Music | ‎N 77 025
Jazz / Hard Bop / Drums

Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers' Live In Moers 1976 is an original master concert recording from Moers Jazzfestival (Germany) retrospectively released for the first time in 2016. Live In Moers 1976 is a part of the WDR's The Cologne Broadcasts series, executively produced by jazz historian Dr. Bernd Hoffmann. Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919-October 16, 1990) was an American jazz drummer and bandleader who made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He then worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.

On this unique and originally programmed journey, the violist Massimo Piva takes the kind of fantasy journey (Fantasiereise) that forms one of the cornerstones of German Romanticism. It is in the context of highly wrought, fantastic tales that Schumann’s style is formed from a literary point of view: Hoffmann's short stories and Jean Paul's novels, inhabited by bizarre characters and surreal situations, are his polar stars. On the musical side, he had an 18th-century heritage of fantasies by composers such as Mozart or C.P.E. Bach to draw upon, in which the notion of the fantasy is still linked to the Baroque idea of improvisation.

The disc contains scenes from some Offenbach operettas such as La belle Hélène, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, and La Périchole as well as some of his lesser known works. While most of the music showcases Ms. Von Otter's talent, she is also accompanied by other soloists and a chorus, all of whom perform exceptionally well. Listeners are not only exposed to lesser known works of this composer, but also to the composer's many talents. When we listen to this music, it is not too much of a stretch to see how he could create the masterpiece of TALES OF HOFFMAN (yes, the barcarolle is included).