Martin Miller

The recording process for Frankie Miller’s sixth solo album “Falling In Love”, which was re-titled “A Perfect Fit” for its American release, was a far lower key affair than some of his previous ones…

Frankie Miller’s eighth solo album “Standing On The Edge” was his first away from the Chrysalis label and was also at that point his rockiest and most polished effort. The bar room backing or stripped back blues and soul of the earlier albums being replaced with a polished, sleek and far more rocky production. Musically and arrangement wise this was more akin to Bad Company, Foreigner or even Whitesnake than the old blues and soul feel of its predecessors…

Apart from Grieg, no Scandinavian composer has written for the piano with more individuality and insight than Nielsen. Right from the very outset of his Five Piano Pieces, Op. 3, there is no doubt that his is an individual voice. The first emerges from a Schumannesque innocence to speak with personal accents, but all five are strong on humour and character. Nielsen’s greatest piano music is clustered into a period of four years (1916-20) with his final thoughts in the medium, the Three Pieces, Op. 59 of 1928 being composed in the immediate proximity of his Clarinet Concerto, music that already breathes the air of other planets. With the exception of Leif Ove Andsnes, no pianist of international standing has championed it on record, and apart from John Ogdon and John McCabe it has been the almost exclusive preserve of Nordic artists. True, the American scholar Mina Miller, who edited the autographs for the Hansen edition, recorded a complete survey in 1995 – also for Hyperion. But although Schnabel was the dedicatee of the Suite, Op. 45, he never broke a lance for it on the international scene. The Suite is not only Nielsen’s greatest keyboard work but arguably the mightiest ever written in Scandinavia. Martin Roscoe is right inside this music and guides us through its marvels with great subtlety and authority.

In 1983, it seemed like Eric Martin had it made. Aged 23, but looking like he wasn’t old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes, he was a great singer whose Bay Area-based band was signed to Elektra Records and managed by Herbie Herbert, the guy who had helped make Journey one of the biggest rock acts in America…