Violinist Billy Bang is equally at home whether performing heady, modern-jazz-style improvisation or when churning out a straightforward swing vibe within mainstream contexts. Here, saxophonist/flutist Sonny Fortune, pianist John Hicks, and others lend their wares to this generally invigorating 2001 production. Based upon his Vietnam War experiences, Bang and associates meld Southeast Asian modalities with Western scales and bouncy swing vamps amid a few tenderly executed ballads…
Shchedrin's Carmen Ballet, a hit in the 1960s, still amuses, delights, entertains, and, for some, enrages. It's full of Bizet's great melodies, but instead of a fancy-dress version of great hits from Carmen, Shchedrin's reorchestration features extravagant percussion effects and fascinating original variations. So it's a truly original work in the long line of parody pieces central to 20th century music, including the reworking of Baroque music by Stravinsky, Respighi, and others. Pletnev and his fine orchestra play the daylights out of it, and the engineers make the most of its "hi-fi spectacular" potential. The Concertos for Orchestra are welcome fillers. The first, subtitled "Naughty Limericks," sounds like music to accompany a riotous cartoon. The second, "Chimes," is made of sterner stuff, with some dazzling trumpet and percussion passages in its middle section and an extended finale for bells and a dark-textured orchestra. This is one of those discs you can't go wrong with.
Sir André Previn's entire score for the Vincente Minnelli World War II epic 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse has been fully restored on this limited-edition disc. As the first cut of the film ran in excess of three hours, when it was whittled down to two and a half, much of Previn's soundtrack went with it…
The Dutch are way too hard on themselves. So far, Chandos has released three discs (including this one) in its ongoing Dutch composers series featuring the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, and all three have been excellent. And yet, the writer of the booklet notes treats this music as if listening to it were some kind of penance. He should take a lesson from his English colleagues, who indiscriminately promote any piece of native trash as God’s gift to the world of music. Well, maybe he needn’t go quite that far.