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Anat Fort
A Long Story
ECM 1994
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The three years we've had to wait for the
release of jazz pianist Anat Fort's ECM debut were worth it. Her long
musical journey, which mirrors her worldly migration from classical music
studies in her native Israel to a decade playing jazz in New York City, is
characterized by profound introspection. The recording is seamless, held
together by three variations on "Just Now," a unifying leitmotif written
just two days before the recording session. While the other musicians –
Perry Robinson (clarinet, ocarina), Ed Schuller (double-bass), and
legendary pioneer Paul Motian (drums) – had worked with and around each
other for years, the recording session marked the first time they all made
music together with Fort. Motian, in fact, was so impressed with Fort's
music when he first heard it years ago that he introduced it to ECM's
visionary, multi-award winning producer Manfred Eicher, who then signed
Fort up.
All four musicians are brilliant, their
high-flying excursions having as much in common with easy listening fare
as my Jewish mother had in common with the Pope. (Both share a common
propensity to guilt trip, but that's another story). Tracks range from
Fort's gentle "Lullaby," written in her student years, to "As
Two/Something ‘Bout Camels," a reflection on the escalation of
Palestinian-Israeli hostilities that is as far from the sound of gunshots
as one can possibly imagine. I urge you to check out this simultaneously
mystical, modern, refined, and mellow album.
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Henryk Górecki:
String Quartet No. 3: …songs are sung
Kronos Quartet
Nonesuch 104380-2
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With the mournful sounds of a funeral dirge,
sometimes resigned, sometimes prescient with dread, Henryk Górecki's third
string quartet, …songs are sung, finally reaches us. Commissioned by
the Kronos Quartet in 1992, not long after the irrepressibly adventurous San
Francisco foursome had commissioned, premiered, and recorded the composer's
first two string quartets, the work was first delivered in spring 2005, over
ten years after its completion. Górecki cannot explain why he held back so
long from releasing it to the world.
Perhaps the work's inescapable dread, which to
these ears presages the current resurgence of fascism that parallels the
scourge that engulfed the composer's native Poland during World War II,
proved too frightening to the composer. A similar dread and pain can also be
heard in Górecki's haunting Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs")
of 1976. That early, riveting response to fascist brutality brought the
composer international attention in the early 1990s after Nonesuch released
a recording by the London Sinfonietta and soprano Dawn Upshaw.
Not that …songs are sung is without
beauty or consolation. Beauty in fact abounds, sometimes when violins
double, sometimes in soft, heart-touching repetitions that may induce a
trance-like state of reverie. Even the opening dirge has a rocking component
that, as keys modulate, sometimes morphs into a consoling lullaby.
Soon after the third string quartet's New York
premiere in March, 2006, Kronos founder David Harrington wrote to Górecki: "Without any question, …songs are sung, for me, is one of the most
lyrical, poignant and far-reaching works ever written for string quartet
that I am aware of… It is music so personal that in its performances one
feels the audience listening in to one's very own soul and life. For me,
...songs are sung is the very sound of my own personal grief and yet
acts as a balm for this grief. I carry your melodies inside me for weeks
after each performance." That says it all. |
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Vusi Mahlasela
Guiding Star (Naledi Ya Tsela)
ATO0032
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Renowned South African
singer-songwriter-poet-activist Vusi Mahlasela's second album is filled with
one beautiful song after another. Singing in English and Zulu, his throaty,
soulful Afro-pop delivery lends itself to a wide variety of styles. Most
outstanding are the retro-ballad "Everytime" (with Jem and the Hlanganani
Brothers) and the profound "Sower of Words," a lament for a famed promoter
of Black Consciousness, late poet and writer Ingoapele Madingoane (featuring
fabulous vocals by ATO label honcho Dave Matthews).
Mahlasela has a mellowness about him that
enables him to sing about struggle and freedom with an unforced clarity that
eschews preachiness. His praise for female freedom fighters in "Song for
Thandi" and "Thula Mama" is balanced by his get-down, spirited delivery of a
party song made famous by Miriam Makeba, "Pata Pata." Guest artists, in
addition to Matthews and Jem, include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Allman
Brothers guitarist Derek Trucks, Australian didgeridoo player Xavier Rudd,
South Africa's "Black Moses" Ngwenya of the Soul Brothers, and several South
African choirs. Their joyful participation shows respect for a freedom
fighter who performed at Nelson Mandela's inauguration in 1994 and currently
serves as an ambassador to Mandela's 46664 Foundation, raising global
awareness about HIV/AIDS. Don't miss this wonderful, soul-touching album. |
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Deuter
Koyasan
New Earth Records NE 2703
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Koyasan, a sacred mountain in Japan whose
eight points are believed to represent the eight petals of the lotus, is
home to over 100 Buddhist temples and shrines. It also serves as inspiration
for this sacred album of "Reiki Sound Healing." Created by serene New Age
master (and Reiki practitioner) Deuter, the album was recorded on shakuhachi,
koto, flutes, and electronic keyboards in Santa Fe, near Deuter's home in
the nearby mountains. I have already praised so many of Deuter's albums that
someone unfamiliar with his music might think I'm in his employ. Rather, I
find myself grateful for the elevation I experience when I play his music.
Spiritual music takes many forms, from the Gregorian chants of the Middle
Ages to African drumming and Tibetan throat singing. Among New Age
musicians, Deuter's continually affirms his role as a supreme channel for
spiritual energies by unfailingly creating expansive and healing music. |
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Andy Palacio & The Garifuna
Collective
Wátina
Cumbancha CMB-CD-3
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Andy Palacio is a rare breed – one of the
relatively few 250,000 Garifuna ("Black Caribs") worldwide who speaks his
native language. A descendent of shipwrecked West African slaves who in 1635
found a new home amongst the native Indians of what is now St. Vincent
Island in the Caribbeans, Palacio was raised in the Garifuna stronghold of
Barranco, Belize. Surrounded by Garifuna music and traditions since birth,
he had no idea that his culture was threatened until, at age 18, he met an
elderly Garifuna in Nicaragua who was astounded to discover that someone so
young could still speak the Garifuna language. Ever since, Andy has
dedicated himself to preserving Garifuna culture and fostering pride in
Garifuna young, making music while sometime holding various posts in the
Belizean Ministry of Culture.
Wátina is the end result of a meeting
between Palacio, who started out performing a commercial form of Garifuna
music, and Ivan Duran, founder of Stonetree Records. Duran convinced Palacio
to produce a more authentic music by embracing the soul and roots of
Garifuna culture. Together they created Wátina, whose memorable,
upbeat title track – paradoxically about the suffering of the poor – paves
the way for 11 other irresistibly tuneful songs. Recorded in a thatch-roofed
cabin by the sea in Belize, with four months spent honing arrangements, the
album represents a union between authentic inspiration and modern
sensibility. Unique Garifuna drums and rhythms, and lyrics about struggle
and survival further distinguish a disc graced by Palacios' gritty, soulful
voice and acoustic guitar. This one is for real. |
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Beverly Sills: Made in America
Deutsche Grammophon DVD B0007999-09
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Brooklyn Diva Beverly Sills (née Belle Miriam
Silverman) began her radio career at age 3. Four years later, she appeared
in her first movie (singing Luigi Arditi's soprano coloratura vehicle, "Il
Bacio"). Nicknamed "Bubbles" after she sang in a Brillo soap commercial at
an early age, she steadfastly progressed from memorizing every note of the
same scratchy ‘78s by soprano Amelita Galli-Curci that first helped
introduce me to opera to triumphing in New York and La Scala.
This DVD, superbly written and produced by
John Walker, intersperses priceless interviews on vintage TV talk shows
(Tonight, Merv Griffin, and Dick Cavett) with footage of Sills in all phases
of her operatic career. There are even black and white cameos of Sills
singing Verdi in 1955, when she was only 26 years old. The production is
such a joy that it can serve, not only as an introduction to opera, but as
testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. It took Sills nine
auditions to be accepted by New York City Opera in 1955. In the end, it
wasn't the high notes that got her in – it was the by any means possible,
cut-to-the-navel gown. Even after making an indelible impression in the 1958
premiere of Douglas Moore's opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe – the black
and white clip of her 1962 TV appearance with Moore, voicing one of the most
phenomenally free high Ds you will ever hear in "Willow, where we meet
together," is worth its weight in tears – it took until age 37, when she
overwhelmed in the role of Cleopatra in the New York City Opera Company's
production of Handel's Julius Caesar, for the world to take notice.
From then on, Sills went from one triumph to
another. Although her voice peaked shortly after her catapult to fame – I
recall a 1972 San Francisco Opera performance in Lucia when she
cracked on a high E flat – she retained much of her disembodied,
floated high tones until soon before she retired from opera in 1980. Beyond
the cheerful personality lay a remarkable vocal radiance that spoke
simultaneously of joy and pain; the shimmering beauty of her iridescent head
tones invariably split one's heart in two. Far more than an operatic
travelogue, this compelling program, complete with some classic hairstyles
that variously inspire wonder and disbelief, is a must for anyone – ANYONE –
who cares an iota about the communicative mysteries of the human voice. |
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Fritz Wunderlich: Life and Legend
Deutsche Grammophon DVD B0007476-09
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In 1966, lyric tenor Fritz Wunderlich was at
the height of his fame when, after a day relaxing with friends at a hunting
lodge, he fell down the stairs and died. In nine more days, he would have
been 36, and immersed in preparations for one of the most momentous debuts
of his short career.
Born into a musical family in Germany, Fritz
lost his father at an early age. The surviving Wunderlichs made it through
the Nazi era by traveling from village to village as peripatetic musicians.
The experience seems to have imbued young Fritz with an indefatigable drive
to succeed. From such hardship perhaps derived the fearless purity of tone
and seemingly unstoppable strength of vocal ascent that continue to serve as
ideals for virtually every aspiring lyric tenor.
The unique qualities of Wunderlich's voice – a
powerful, effortlessly soaring stream of sound whose gleaming timbre almost
mystically radiated the vibrations of love – are amply in evidence in this
video portrait. So are the devotion and admiration he inspired in
colleagues, critics, extended family, and vocal connoisseurs. As long as you
can abide a German soundtrack with English subtitles, the combination of
professional video and endearing home footage makes for compelling viewing.
Interviews with such current and retired singers as Christa Ludwig,
Anneliese Rothenberg, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Brigitte Fassbinder, Herman
Prey, Thomas Hampson, and Rolando Villazón add to the value, as do
assessments from a wide range of discerning critics and music professionals.
Most revelatory is the DVD's chapter on
lieder, which shows Wunderlich initially stumbling, then succeeding in
mastering the intimate art of song. His last recording, of his final lieder
recital (available on Myto), reveals a singer so transported by passion that
errors in intonation pass for nought. Wunderlich was preparing for his Met
debut in Don Giovanni– perhaps a bit reluctantly, as both the story
line and one of the invaluable bonus interviews suggest – when his tumble
cut him down in his prime. Postulating why he went so soon or how much more
he could have accomplished seems beyond the point, given the enduring beauty
of what he left behind. |
- Jason Victor Serinus
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