Wooden Tomasz Stańko Quintet

Quite possibly the best album to feature the talents of Chico Hamilton and Eric Dolphy - a set recorded at a time when Dolphy was an up-and-coming player on the west coast scene! Although Chico Hamilton had recorded with unusual reed players before, Dolphy brings a depth of soul and spirit to this album that's missing from a lot of Chico's earlier work at the time - a style that still holds onto some of the measured qualities of the Pacific Jazz work by the Hamilton group, yet which also opens up into some of the darker corners that Dolphy would explore more on his own recordings of the 60s. The group also features some great guitar by Dennis Budimir and cello by Nathan Gershman - but the real standout aspects of the set come from Dolphy's work on flute, alto, and bass clarinet.

The playing is strongly Romantic in character, emphasizing the violent contrasts and almost painful expressivity of the score; the ensemble can deliver feathery, near-inaudible pianissimos and powerful fortissimos with equal presence. Intonation is more or less flawless, and ensemble work is superb with all five parts often being equally audible with no loss of coordination. On each repeated listen I find new details springing out of the texture. There are occasional miscalculations—the cello pizzicati at the start of the adagio are a bit too prominent, though the reverberant acoustic (recorded in a church) could also be partly to blame—but for the most part everything is well judged.

Listeners who think they know Schubert's popular Quartettsatz in C minor and String Quintet in C major should try this 2008 recording of those works by the Artemis Quartet. The driving Quartettsatz beginning the disc is justly famous for inaugurating Schubert's maturity as a chamber music composer, but the tender Andante following it here is a rarely recorded fragment that would have furnished the Quartettsatz with a slow movement had Schubert completed the movement.

Captured during a pivotal, trailblazing period of his five decade career, pianist Hal Galper had come off the road with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet looking to establish his new working band. Pulling in Michael & Randy Brecker, whom he had recorded & worked with in the early '70s, along with bassist Wayne Dockery and drummer Bob Moses, Galper set up Sunday matinees at NY's Sweet Basil jazz club for a year to woodshed the group concept and new compositions. In the studio, 1977's "Reach Out" displayed an astonishingly original collective, all matching Galper's chance-taking, high-spirited, free-wheeling approach to music making. 1979's "Speak with a Single Voice" captured the energy of the quintet live, but on this 1977 Berlin Jazz Festival performance, the band shifts into an other-wordly overdrive. From the opening salvos of Galper's "Now Hear This," the mission is defined - jazz giants, in the prime of their youth, set free to blow, pushed to the limits by Galper's facility, full-bodied sound, and fertile imaginatio.

A fine showcase for Chico Hamilton as a triple-threat artist: drummer extraordinaire ("Miss Movement," "Trinkets," etc.), vocalist ("She's Funny That Way," "The Best Things in Life Are Free," "Where or When"), and, of course, leader. His vocals are reminiscent of Nat King Cole, with subtleties all his own, and his drumming is just as impressive amid its own set of superlatives, many of which are shown off on the Hamilton originals "Happy Little Dance" and "Trinkets." The other members of the group, Wyatt Ruther (bass), Eric Dolphy (flute, reeds), Dennis Budimer (guitar), and Nathan Gershman (cello), get their own moments to shine, on "Newport News," "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)," etc. Hamilton also brought in a full reed section for several numbers here, in acknowledgement of his own appreciation of the classic 1940s big-band sound…

Schubert’s famous Quintet needs little introduction, and is certainly the most famous work named after a fish. The commission came from Sylvester Paumgartner, wealthy mine-owner by day, amateur cellist by night, who not only suggested Schubert use his song, ‘The Trout’, for a set of variations, but also requested the unusual line-up of violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano. Unusual, but not unique, since Hummel had set the trend with his effervescent E flat Quintet and Paumgartner intended to feature the two pieces together in one of his regular soirées.

Their recording of the American Quartet and String Quartet No. 13, Op. 106 (Gramophone Award - Recording of the Year), elevated the Pavel Haas Quartet among the finest performers of Antonín Dvorák's music. This position was subsequently confirmed by a recording of the composer's quintets, made with the violist Pavel Nikl, a founding member of the ensemble, and the pianist Boris Giltburg, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. The album received the most coveted classical music accolades (Gramophone Chamber Award, BBC Radio 3 Record Review Discs of the Year, Diapason d'Or, etc.). While recording the Dvorák quintets, the logical idea of a Brahms album was born.

For his third record, the Finnish keyboard virtuoso Aapo Heinonen has created a refreshingly unique sound, a relaxed whirlwind of fusion-grooves, Latin swing and modal-jazz-melodies - all embedded into stimulatingly complex arrangements.