Legacy & (next) Legacy are the brand new musical projects by Paolo Fresu. New compositions for celebrating three anniversaries: his 40-year-old Quintet his 20-year-old Devil Quartet and his 22-year-old Duo with Uri Caine 3CD Box Set & 3 LP Box Set limited, coloured and hand numbered. Both signed by Paolo Fresu.
At the beginning of the '80s, trumpeter Paolo Fresu attended the Siena Summer Jazz Seminars and amazed Enrico Rava with his creativity, talent, and technique. Over the next ten years, he became a major player on the Italian scene, first with his own quintet (which is still going), then branching out in a variety of projects. After finishing his Conservatory studies, he became a teacher at the same Jazz Seminars in Siena; he lives half the year in Paris, from where he coordinates the major Time in Jazz Festival he created in his hometown…
Free Country is a collection of old American Country and Appalachian tunes arranged in unusual, sometimes radical, ways. Simply put, this body of work is my sonic view of the experiment known as America- not the billboard, but the underbelly.
For this very special release in The Book of Angels series, Zorn has brought together five of the most acclaimed musicians in modern jazz to perform nine of his most distinctive and lyrical compositions. Truly a jazz supergroup, these five master musicians explore Zorn's beautiful and exotic tunes with profound melodic and harmonic knowledge and a depth of feeling that is a joy to hear. One of the most breathtaking CDs in the entire Masada series—a touch of the sublime from the beautiful new Masada Quintet!
This is the final chapter of a trilogy of albums in which I explored and arranged popular songs. The entire project was made in collaboration with vocalists Theo Bleckmann and Kate McGarry, pianist Gary Versace, and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. For the first recording, Songs I Like A Lot, I selected the majority of the songs for the album. Many of the songs I chose were from my childhood, and as I started to really listen to them again, I was surprised by how well I actually knew them. The second recording, Songs We Like A Lot, is composed primarily of songs that Theo and Kate liked and chose for me to arrange. Uri Caine held down the piano chair on this recording. And for this third and final recording, Songs You Like A Lot, we asked listeners to nominate their favorite songs for me to arrange. We then had an internet-wide vote on a list of nominated songs, and I chose (with the help of Kate, Theo and Gary) from the top 20 most popular songs.
Bug Music is a tribute to the music of the Raymond Scott Quintette, the John Kirby Sextet and Duke Ellington, headed by the remarkably versatile clarinetist Don Byron. Raymond Scott's legendary compositions feature eccentric song titles (including, on this set, "Siberian Sleighride," "Tobacco Auctioneer" and "War Dance for Wooden Indians"), complex and thoroughly composed arrangements ~ AllMusic
Don Byron is the quintessential clarinetist of the modern mainstream, and this is a tolerably good example of his work as an improvisor, composer, and bandleader. Byron swings and grooves well in a conventional sense, yet his slippery phrasing runs clear of rhythmic cliché. His tone is clear and pure, as well, but what's even more important than his considerable instrumental skill is the manifest originality and inspiration that drives his art.