Viva 2007

Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Concerto for violin and large orchestra (1950) is an established masterpiece by one of the most significant (but little known) postwar German composers. Hungarian Peter Eötvös has emerged as a strong and original voice of the late twentieth century, and his Cap-Ko (2005), a concerto for acoustic piano, keyboard, and orchestra, deserves a place beside Zimmermann's concerto. Czech composer Martin Smolka's Walden, the distiller of celestial dews (2000), for chorus and percussion may not prove to have the durability of the other pieces, but it exposes a creative imagination with the potential for more substantial work……..

Stephen Eddins @ AllMusic.com

As is well known, the Third Reich drove many of its gifted composers into exile, to early deaths or to the concentration camps. But a significant responsibility devolved on another group, who became ‘internal exiles’, remaining in Germany, but refusing to become cultural ornaments of the Nazi regime. Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905–1963), in Bavaria, consistently kept the spirit of modernism and human commitment alive in his own work.

Chris Potter's quartet Underground should be looked upon as one of the many facets in the saxophonist's prismatic view of contemporary jazz. Certainly the band is oriented toward a progressive jazz image with the electric guitar work of the brilliant Adam Rogers and Craig Taborn's witty and pungent Fender Rhodes keyboard. Assumedly the concept of Underground harks somewhat to the fusion of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea. But Potter's vision with this combo goes beyond those static and funkier values, entering a wilder, unabashed, and fierce aggression that cannot be corralled. In live performance at the storied Village Vanguard nightclub in Greenwich Village, you expect and receive long drawn-out compositions, extended solos especially from Potter, and new music tried out as audience experiments.

Although not the owner of conventional high-level vocal skills, Bardot invested her frivolous songs with a contagious sense of playful fun, and a refusal to take the music or herself too seriously. Certainly some of the tunes – and their breathy delivery – capitalize on her iconic sex kitten persona. But the guileless joy she projects is reminiscent of some of the early work by France Gall (one of the finest '60s French pop singers), though Bardot's voice is less girlish and more adult in tone.