Gottlieb Garvo

Guitarist, composer, and bandleader Pat Metheny is one of the most successful jazz musicians in the world. He is the only artist to win 20 Grammy Awards in 10 different categories. A consummate stylist and risk-taker, his musical signature melds a singular, euphoric sense of harmony with Afro-Latin and Brazilian sounds, rock, funk, global folk musics, and jazz. His 1976 debut, Bright Size Life, and the self-titled Pat Metheny Group two years later resonated with audiences and critics for its euphoric lyricism, dynamics, and rhythmic ideas.

The closing disc in London Baroque’s survey of the rise and fall of the trio sonata takes us to 18th-century Germany, and includes works by no less than two Johann Gottliebs: Johann Gottlieb Goldberg – who rose to posthumous fame by being associated with J.S. Bach’s celebrated set of variations – and his namesake Johann Gottlieb Graun, violinist and composer at the court of Frederick the Great. Next to them in the list of contents are also more familiar names, such as Graun’s colleague at the Prussian court, C.P.E. Bach, and the ubiquitous G.Ph. Telemann, here represented with an unusually scored trio for violin, gamba and basso continuo. The programme straddles the divide between late Baroque and Classical music, and several of the included works point clearly at what was to come.

This is a highly interesting and entertaining disc, which considerably enhances our knowledge of musical life in Berlin at the time of Frederick the Great. As previous discs show, the increasing interest in the oeuvre of Johann Gottlieb Janitsch is well deserved. His chamber music is a rich source, which performers of our time should explore rather than perform and record the same repertoire over and over again. This disc is a model of creative programming. The inclusion of the pieces by Graun and Krause makes it an even more important addition to the discography.

Atmospheric and serpentine, the two-disc As We Speak finds electric fretless bassist Mark Egan leading his trio through a series of enigmatic and propulsive original songs. An acolyte of the late great bassist Jaco Pastorious, Egan has a lithe touch on his instrument, and tracks such as the leadoff "Spirals" evince a hypnotic, fusion-esque aesthetic. Joining Egan here are the equally superb jazz giants guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Danny Gottlieb. These are three technical dynamos as well as artists sensitive to creative group interplay.