Eclectic

Pianist and educator David Witten's career has included numerous concert tours in Europe, Israel, Russia, China, and South America. He is the editor of Nineteenth-Century Piano Music: Essays in Performance and Analysis, which includes his landmark analytical study of the Chopin Ballades. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, SUNY Buffalo and Boston University, he is on the faculty of Montclair State University. Witten has chosen four works by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who was born in Florence, but whose ancestry traces directly back to a Sephardic Jewish family that escaped the Spanish Inquisition. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's musical style is filled with colorful harmonies and a penchant for modal melodies. Coming to the United States in the mid-1930s, he found work at MGM and other studios, ultimately composing soundtracks for more than 200 films. This recording features both his early and late piano works – two concert suites from 1924 and works from his later years in California.

Hungarian guitarist Elek Bacisk is a cousin of Django Reinhardt, and has continued his tradition of blending swing and gypsy elements into a coherent, expressive jazz mode.
On his first leadership album, The Electric Guitar of the Eclectic Elek Bacsik, later released as Jazz Guitarist, he was joined by two different bassists and drummers over the two recording sessions: on the first, he was backed by Pierre Michelot (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums). On the second session, Bacsik recorded with Michel Gaudry (bass) and Daniel Humair (drums).

This compilation of songs is not meant as a historic reflection of popular music of the “Arab world.” It is a very personal selection of songs we grew to like at Habibi Funk. It is music that historically never existed as a unified musical genre. We think it’s important to make this distinction and to have the listener understand that the majority of the music on this compilation does not come from the highly famous names of the musical spectrum of North Africa and the Middle East. Instead, the final body compiled for this record consists of some – at least for us – nichey pearls and often overlooked artists; resulting in a diverse range of styles from Egyptian organ funk, disco sounds from Morocco, an example of the lively reggae scene of Libya, political songs from Lebanon, soundtrack music from Alge- ria, a musical union between Kenya and Oman, and much more.

Eclectic Maybe Band is the creation of Guy Segers, a player / composer / producer first prominent as bassist with legendary band Univers Zero, and subsequently active in many live and studio projects. “Again Alors?” is the third release by EMB which brings together detailed studio work with the creativity of real time improvisation. Using different groupings from within a large ensemble cast, which includes many well-known names, Guy has created an album where half the tracks are drawn from live improvisation in the studio and half are created from the ground up with players adding their composed or improvised parts one at a time. In both cases Guy assumes the role of master arranger, taking the improvisations as raw material and sculpting them into finished pieces. This richly detailed new release takes the listener on a journey through rock, jazz, electronic and abstract landscapes packed with detail.