Art Lande

This recording, with the short lived ensemble Rubisa Patrol, may someday be considered as one of the classic ECM recordings of all time - if the company evers sees fit to issue it on CD. Some stunning compositions are present within a restrained, melodic concept, but please don't term it new age. While there is a spiritual quality present, it is not overbearing. Four of the pieces are written by acoustic pianist Art Lande, with the standout track "Corinthian Melodies" a thing of sheer opulent beauty. Trumpeter Mark Isham and Lande are the principal voices in this quartet, and the textures they conjure would set a precedent for what Isham would do for the bulk of his career in scoring for films. Bassist Bill Douglass and drummer Glenn Cronkhite are as sensitive a lower dynamic rhyhmic team as can be. This is contemporary improvised music non pariel, a relaxed, well-paced program that is here to soothe and reassure you.

Paul McCandless is best known for his work as a founding member of Oregon, a pioneer in the genre that came to be labeled "new age." In fact, Oregon's music has always been much more than that oft-maligned label implies, for they combine jazz, classical and world musics into a blend that is at once unique and appealing. McCandless has worked the same terrain with his solo outings, and Heresay is one of his best. There is beauty here, there is polyrhythmic propulsion, there is first-class improvisation. The overall feel is one of optimism and light-heartedness, tempered with a compositional depth of emotion that conjures all sorts of visions in the listener's mind.

There's a 20-plus-year span between electric guitarist Hahn's Brotherhood recordings and this CD. In between he's gone from hippie to tweed suit while establishing the jazz guitar studies program at Wichita State University, taking residence in Portland and Denver, and doing this date in NYC with all-stars bassist Steve LaSpina, drummer Jeff Hirshfield, either pianists Phil Markowitz or Art Lande, and soprano saxophonist David Liebeman for two selections. Hahn's influence on Pat Metheny, John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Mike Stern, and Bill Frisell is clear. He uses a little delay, echo, and reverb, just enough to enhance his improvisations, and when he's technically concentrating, he can easily be coarsely sparse and sharply staccato, elongated from a chordal standpoint, a bit twangy, and consistently tasteful…

Guitarist Will Bernard, a Berkeley, CA native and Brooklyn NY transplant, studied guitar and piano from an early age with Dave Creamer, Art Lande and Julian White, later developing an interest in classical music composition. He received a degree in music from UC Berkeley where he studied with Andrew Imbrie and others. He began playing and recording on an international level as a member of Peter Apfelbaum's Hieroglyphics Ensemble, who made their recorded debut with Don Cherry on “Multikulti” (A&M 1989). Since then, Bernard has participated in a host of boundary stretching groups, ranging from jazz, hip-hop and world music to experimental music, with many stops in between.