Rene Girad

Dick Katz, Derek Smith, Rene Urtreger - Jazz Piano International (1957) {2013 Japan Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series 24bit WPCR-27217}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (image)+CUE+LOG -> 189 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 96 Mb
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© 1957, 2013 Warner Japan / Atlantic / Rhino | WPCR-27217 | Jazz Best Collection 1000 Series
Jazz / Bop / Cool / Piano Trio

Features 24 bit digital remastering. Comes with a description. An unusual global session for Atlantic Records – an album that has John Lewis presenting work by three other musicians that he feels are ripe for wider discovery! The set's got some killer work from Rene Utreger – a key Parisian player in the postwar years, working here with dexterity that's almost at a Bud Powell level! Dick Katz is also featured on the set – with some nice colors and tones in the mix, similar to some of the work he'd go onto do for Atlantic and other labels. And perhaps the least known here is the British player Derek Smith – stepping out with a lyrical style that's captured surprisingly well here – and which makes the record a key addition to Smith's catalog.

The real prize in this jam packed nine-CD set is of course the incandescent recording of Giulio Cesare with some of the most phenomenal singing on record by Larmore, Schlick, and Fink. When this came out it created quite a stir, given it is about as complete as it ever has been, and filled with Jacob’s searching and trend-setting conducting. While it won’t displace favorites of yesteryear, those recordings are of a different era and style altogether, and here the opera comes together in a manner fully redolent of what Handel must have envisioned.

Saul is one of Handel's largest oratorios; its rich orchestration includes trumpets, trombones, timpani, harp, and carillon. René Jacobs certainly wrests every drop of color from this luxurious array of instruments, particularly in the choruses, which are gloriously grand but also extremely exciting. In Nos. 20-24, where the populace (with maddening relentlessness) praises David above Saul to the incessant jangling of the carillon, it's easy to understand why the king objects to the unseemly revelry. Handel's music wonderfully suggests both the joyous celebration and seeds of jealousy being planted in Saul's mind. Similarly, Jacobs' careful choice of colors for the continuo part makes the famous "Dead March" far more solemn than it often sounds, an appropriate introduction to Handel's "Elegy on the death of Saul and Jonathan".

First seen at La Monnaie in Brussels on 13 May 1998, this production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo seen through the eyes of Trisha Brown and René Jacobs has become an operatic classic in a few short years. This is doubtless because it offers a total symbiosis of music, text and movement – described by the critic of the Daily Telegraph of London as being ‘as close to the perfect dance opera as I have ever seen’. Or to quote Gilles Macassar in Télérama: ‘In the pit and onstage, the Brussels production has only one watchword: mobility, nimbleness, dexterity. The singers run, fly, whirl like dancers defying gravity. From the flies down to the footlights, the whole theatre is under a fantastic spell.’ For Christophe Vetter, on ConcertoNet: ‘This Orfeo can be seen again and again with immense pleasure. . . . René Jacobs’s conducting continues to arouse admiration for its precision, its stylistic rigour, its inexhaustible inventiveness and its feeling for the contrasts so vital to this repertoire.’

Rene & Angela's obvious enthusiasm and for-real emotions make listening to Street Called Desire a pleasure. The uptempo numbers aren't jokes – the throbbing beat on "I'll Be Good" is mind locking, but the two ballads, "You Don't Have to Cry" and "Your Smile," are outstanding. What makes them work is their unpredictability. No particular or predetermined pattern is set. No attempt is made to divide the lines and choruses equally; each singer unselfishly contributes what's necessary. "Smile" is mostly Angela until Rene repeatedly chants "No other love can light my life, no one can make things right, 'til my baby smiles." Rene has more juice on "You Don't Have to Cry," matching alternating verses with Angela, who gives an incredible performance on the heart-stopping ballad. Rene's brother Bobby Watson (formerly of Rufus) co-produced the sides with Bruce Swedien.

Saul is one of Handel's most action-filled, fast-moving oratorios; an opera in everything but name only. It has been lucky on disc–both Paul McCreesh (Archiv) and John Eliot Gardiner (Philips) have led superb readings, and Joachim Carlos Martini leads a good performance on Naxos, which is a bargain. Now René Jacobs and his remarkable Concerto Köln come along and offer a truly majestic reading, filled with real drama and beautiful, precise singing and playing. Tenor Jeremy Ovenden sings Jonathan with nobility and faces down Saul in Act II with style and power. David is sung by countertenor Lawrence Zazzo, and he's as good as the best-recorded competition (Andreas Scholl, Derek Lee Ragin). Emma Bell is ravishing as Merab; Rosemary Joshua makes a fine Joshua.