Art is Art

Twenty-five years on, this album which sounds like nothing before or since, has been majestically re-mastered by multi-Grammy® award winner Michael Graves. Available on vinyl for the very first time, the deluxe CD package contains three previously unreleased bonus tracks as well as instrumental track versions of 11 of the album’s songs.

Recorded live at the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1980, this was America's first taste of the wild abandon that is the Vienna Art Orchestra and expatriate Lauren Newton's glorious vocal instrument. This is a 13-piece big band led by the beautifully weird compositional, instructional, and arranging craziness of Mathias Rüegg. They trash and revere all traditions – both historical and avant-garde at the same time – while using them both along with carnival and circus music, classical forms and fugues, and French salon music. They swing here like a Mingus big band playing "Jelly Roll, But Mingus Rolls Better," with soloists who could care less what the ensemble chart says and vice versa. Newton, mixed high above the prattle, soars with the intensity of a pianist while blowing Jon Hendricks away at his own game. The fun really begins when the ensemble changes tempos two or three times and sections play against each other as in "Concerto Piccolo," even if begun by the lilting line of the title's instrument.

For a few years, I got to travel with these bands—they included me—a dream come true. I’ve tried to take you on a trip with me and Art and the bands while reliving all of it a little—in writing it, in pictures I took, scenes and conversations I recall. And in the music Art asked me to record. About which I feel absolutely safe in saying it: That’s it. That’s jazz.

Modern Art is the prelude recording for Art Farmer prior to his partnership with Benny Golson in the Jazztet, and also foreshadows the classy, tasteful inventiveness that group brought to the modern jazz world two years after this 1958 session. Pianist Bill Evans is in here, just before his pivotal work with Miles Davis on the classic album Kind of Blue, and was the table setter for McCoy Tyner's membership in the Jazztet. Brother Addison Farmer on bass and the great drummer Dave Bailey round out this sterling quintet that specializes in playing music with a subtle approach, which is neither tame nor conservatively lazy. Included on this date is the great Junior Mance tune "Jubilation," perfectly understated in a light gospel, soul-jazz, tuneful melody with both horns wonderfully matched up in balanced unison, side by side.

First edition of a two-part set: a comprehensive compilation of South London art-rockers Art Brut, spanning their early discography, demo takes, alternative mixes and live recordings between 2003 – 2008. Features the debut album Bang Bang Rock and Roll, their second studio album It’s A Bit Complicated. Also includes unreleased live material Art Brut – Live in Paris 2006 and Art Brut Live Form ULU with Horns