Jorge

The current popularity of Bach's six cello suites can be traced back to the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals, who was the first to include these pieces in the concert repertoire. The young violinist Jorge Jimenez, also Catalan, is a great admirer of the great cellist, coming only a few kilometres from Casals' birthplace. But Bach's cello suites already attracted attention in the 19th century, in the course of the Leipzig Bach Renaissance around Felix Mendelssohn. The violin virtuoso and teacher Ferdinand David made an arrangement for the violin. Jorge Jimenez uses this edition from 1866 for his interpretation. It contains unusually varied and for that time very precise indications for the performance of the music. For this version, entirely in the 19th century reading, Jorge Jimenez uses a romantic violin and a bow from the period. His extraordinary interpretation of Bach's cello suites is the second part of his series "Rethinking Bach", which Jimenez began with his own highly acclaimed arrangement of the Goldberg Variations for solo violin (PC 10434).

First released in 1967, O Bidú is Jorge Ben's fifth full-length album. It is in many ways a typical album for Ben in the '60s, full of sweet, sincere, and mainly upbeat songs, with the music mixing samba with elements of bossa nova, swing, pop, and soul. Compared to many other works by Ben, the string and horn sections are used very sparsely. The tone of the album is set right from the start with the catchy opening track "Amor de Carnaval," one of the best songs Ben has ever written. "Frases," with its soft groove and neat lyrics, and "Toda Colorida" are two other highlights on this highly enjoyable album, whose only real flaw is its brief playing time (only just over 31 minutes).

Flautist/saxophonist Jorge Pardo is a leading proponent of nuevo flamenco. On his fifth release, he pushes the envelope, presenting jazz standards and pop alongside more traditional compositions. "Caravan" lends itself well to rhythmic interpretations, but the arrangement degenerates midway into a dark-toned muddle. "'Round Midnight" and "Michelle," presented simply with flute and guitar, fare better, coming across as pleasant, "light jazz" renditions. The balance of the compositions are mostly by Pardo, and make his case more persuasively.

In 1996, the young violinist Jorge Jimnez heard Bach's Goldberg Variations for the first time in Glen Gould's famous version on a simple cassette recorder. Since then, this wonderful composition has not let him go. At first he resigned himself to the fact that as a violinist he would never be able to play this work. But over time he realised that several voices can sound at the same time on the violin, as Johann Sebastian Bach exemplifies in his six famous partitas and sonatas for solo violin. Finally, he set to work and began to transcribe one of the most complicated piano pieces of the Baroque into a piece for solo violin.

Once you enter the surreal, shaman-spirit filled world of Jorge Reyes, there's no return to the mundane and ordinary so called "new age music". Of course, Jorge would be deeply insulted if you called his creations new age. It's ethnic ambiance with a mixture of ponderous and sometimes sinister sounding electronic manipulations. This album is a fine gem that introduces those spiritually inquisitive to his music…in a sense, it is more or less a complilation of his other numerous works.