Patrice Ruschen

After she mixed post-bop, soul-jazz, and jazz-funk with nimble ingenuity over three albums for the Prestige label, Patrice Rushen moved to Elektra, and with labelmates Donald Byrd, Lenny White, and Dee Dee Bridgewater extended the imprint's commercial reach while continuing to obscure the distinctions between jazz and R&B. Elektra VP Don Mizell promoted the term jazz fusion. Musician James Mtume referred to his similar approach as sophisti-funk. Whatever the category, Rushen was in the top tier. She continually moved forward as a keyboardist, vocalist, songwriter, arranger, and producer with the five LPs – Patrice and Pizzazz, which hit the Top Ten of the jazz chart, followed by Posh and the Top Ten R&B albums Straight from the Heart and Now – expanded and gathered for this boxed set.

This 1998 CD reissues keyboardist Patrice Rushen's first two recordings as a leader except for one selection ("Puttered Bopcorn") from the first date that was left out due to lack of space. Twenty at the time of the earlier set, Rushen showed a great deal of potential for the future, potential that (at least in the jazz world) was unfortunately never realized. Rushen is heard on the Prelusion album heading a septet that includes tenor-saxophonist Joe Henderson (the most memorable soloist), trumpeter Oscar Brashear, trombonist George Bohanon and Hadley Caliman on reeds; the music is essentially advanced hard bop with touches of fusion. The later date has a similar group (without Henderson) and with guest spots for flutist Hubert Laws and guitarist Lee Ritenour. The R&B-ish vocal by Josie James on "What's the Story" hints at where Rushen would be going in the future: straight to the pop market. So overall this CD, which should have served as a bright beginning for the young keyboardist, is practically the artistic high point of Patrice Rushen's erratic career.

This end-of-the-millennium quartet session probably best defines all the inherent contradictions in who ECM attracts to the label – what kind of musician records for them – and what concerns these artists and ECM's chief producer (and creator) Manfred Eicher hold in common. This set, although clearly fronted by Markus Stockhausen and Arild Andersen on brass and bass, respectively, allows space for the entire quartet to inform its direction. Héral and Rypdal are not musicians who can play with just anybody; their distinctive styles and strengths often go against the grain of contemporary European jazz and improvised music. Of the 11 compositions here, four are collectively written, with two each by Andersen and Stockhausen.

Verdi, Wagner, Beethoven, Bach…Germany’s premer jazz bassist Dieter Ilg has instigated several creative projects, in which he has taken the great composers of Western classical music off in new directions. Here, alongside pianist Rainer Böhm and drummer Patrice Héral, his focus turns to Ravel.

French saxophonist Matthieu Bordenave’s first leader date for ECM introduces a new project with German pianist Florian Weber and Swiss bassist Patrice Moret. On La traversée - The Crossing - Bordenave explores musical ground between contemporary composition and jazz, subtly influenced by the innovations of the Jimmy Giuffre 3 with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, who “opened new territory that remains relevant for improvisers today.” The recording of La traversée, he explains, was guided by an approach to trio playing, “in which melodic lines interweave and blossom in the nuances of tones, as each musician follows his intuition.” Bordenave leads the way with his highly distinctive saxophone sound, recently characterized by Down Beat as “light yet textured and authoritative”, establishing that this is music in which space will play an important role. La traversée was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines in the South of France last autumn, and produced by Manfred Eicher.

When Patrice Rushen was being lambasted by jazz snobs for making the switch from jazz instrumentalist to R&B/pop singer, she was also winning over quite a few people. R&B fans didn't care if she was no longer playing long, improvised piano solos with Joe Henderson or Hubert Laws; they loved her singing, and couldn't have cared less what jazz snobs thought of her new direction. Rushen's profile in the R&B world continued to increase with Pizzazz, her second album for Elektra and fifth overall. The song that did the most to make this LP a success was "Haven't You Heard?," a gem of a single that soared to the top of R&B radio play lists and was among Rushen's biggest hits. Many listeners bought Pizzazz because of "Haven't You Heard?," and they quickly discovered that the rest of the album was also excellent…

L'ornementation réalisée avec soin, l'équilibre assuré des formes, l'interprétation loyale et probe n'affrontent que la meilleure concurrence d'autres illustres confrères qui ont abordé Duphly dans diverses anthologies. Ainsi "Les Grâces", avec leurs notes graves surpointées (« il faut les passer avant celles du dessus » précise la partition, créant un expressif effet de retard à la main droite), trouvent-elles un surcroît de sensibilité sous les doigts d'un Gustav Leonhardt ; l'instrument ici utilisé (un Kroll de 1774) manque un rien de finesse pour restituer les charmes subtils de ces trois portraits mythologiques.

Jean-François Dandrieu, though largely forgotten today, was regarded as one of the finest composers of harpsichord music of his time, generally ranked just below Couperin and Rameau. He also produced much worthy chamber music, but only one rather insignificant piece for orchestra. If ever a composer's output were worthy of greater attention – indeed, of a full-scale revival – it is that of Dandrieu. Though his date of birth is not known, documentary evidence places it between September 11, 1681, and January 17, 1682. He came from a well-to-do family and showed rare musical talent in his early childhood. Before the age of 5, he gave a harpsichord concert for Princess Palatine Elisabeth-Charlotte of Bavaria and other royalty. His first teacher was composer and keyboard player Jean-Baptiste Moreau.