Re-issues From MPS

This article was first published at Blogcritics

As if the recent reissues of music by a roster of major American and German jazz artists from the archives of Südwestrundfunk (Southwest Broadcasting) weren’t gift enough, along comes MPS Records (Musik Produktion Schwarzwald) with their Kultur Spiegel series and the promise of the current release of 25 remastered albums and by the end of the year the digital release of their entire back catalogue. Among the names scheduled for release are Lionel Hampton, Billy Taylor, Count Basie, Sun Ra, and Stephane Grapelli, and that barely scratches the surface. American jazz artists found an eager and appreciative audience as well as a vital jazz scene in Germany after the Second World War, and the positive atmosphere often brought out the best in them. There are certainly some gems soon to be made available.

And the MPS recorded sound is top rate. They are known for the quality of the sound on their discs—pianogreat Oscar Peterson listened to one of their recordings of one of his sessionsand exclaimed: “I never heard myself like this before!” 

Great musicians, fine sound—sounds like a combination that’s hard to beat.

For example, Jim Hall, certainly a name that belongs near the top of any reasonable list of great jazz guitarists shows his stuff in a 1969 trio recording, Jim Hall in Berlin: It’s Nice to Be With You. Working with bassist Jimmy Woode and drummer Daniel Humair, he runs through a set of eight tunes ranging from the Jimmy Webb pop winner made famous by The Fifth Dimension, “Up, Up And Away” through a swinging take on the standard, “My Funny Valentine” to Duke Ellington’s classic “In A Sentimental Mood.” The Hall set includes three originals, “Young One, For Debra,” “Blue Joe,” and “Romaine,” as well as the album’s title tune written by his wife Jane Herbert. It is a fine set showing off the guitarist in his many moods and a welcome addition to the Hall discography.

Then there’s piano master Hank Jones perhaps unfortunately best remembered as Marilyn Monroe’s accompanist when she sang “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden who shows up in an excellent trio recording of his own, Have You Met This Jones? Recorded in 1978, he plays with Swiss bassist Isla Eckinger and German drummer Kurt Bong, both of whom rise to the occasion. Indeed he plays three tunes he had previously recorded on his 1955 release, The Trio where he was joined by bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Kenny Clarke, “There’s A Small Hotel,” “We’re All Together,” and “Now’s The Time,” and the new versions hold their own.

The set also includes his brother Thad’s “Portions,” Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” and the jazz standard many of us will always associate with jazz broadcaster Fred Robbins, “Robbin’s Nest.”

These are two fine albums, and from what MPS has available, it looks like there is plenty more to come.

Music Review: Oscar Peterson - Unmistakable

This article was first published at Blogcritics.

However Sony Masterworks and Zenph Sound Innovations managed to do it, and I'll do my best to try to explain it, the release of Unmistakable a collection of what they are calling "re-performances" by deceased jazz piano virtuoso Oscar Peterson has produced some remarkably fine music.  The great Oscar Peterson died in December of 2007 at the age of 82 after a long productive career, so while the album makes use of some of his unreleased recordings made in the '70's and 80's, it is not Peterson who is doing the "re-performing."  What we have here is the result of the application of modern technology to artistic innovation, and if this is any example of what the technology is capable of, there will be a lot more coming.

Those readers only interested in good music played brilliantly and not much concerned with how it was recorded and those who think the whole thing is just too spooky can skip ahead to the next paragraph.  According to the Zenph publicity, the company "uses computer software to transform recorded music back into live performances, replicating what was originally played but with vastly improved sound quality.  They start with video recordings as well as some privately recorded performances.  Then as their website describes it: "We transform musical performance into data and then render it into sound, which can be used in completely new ways. Our proprietary platform expresses musical performance as malleable data. Rendered from this data, audio content is liberated from “frozen” recordings—creating immersive and interactive capabilities comparable to those of high‐resolution computer graphics."  I leave it to you to decipher what that may mean.

What you see if you are in the room with the piano is the various keys moving as if being struck by invisible fingers.  What you hear is some very fine music. The piano is programmed to play the particular piece just as it was played by the original performer. .  Zenph has already used this technology to create re-performances by Rachmaninoff, Glenn Gould and jazz legend Art Tatum.  Of course, exactly how this is accomplished is still Zenph's little proprietary secret Had the technology existed back in the day, we could have re-performances of Mozart, Beethoven or Franz Liszt.

At any rate, while Peterson was still alive back in 2007 representatives of the company met with him to show him how their system worked.  At the time they used the recorded re-performances of Peterson's idol, Art Tatum,  to let him hear what their process sounded like, and "hearing his hero playing live again after all the ensuing years brought Peterson to tears."  It impressed him enough that he spent the afternoon working with the team from the company and listening to some re-performances of his own playing.

After Peterson's death his wife helped with the selection of songs for this album. Of all the material made available to the team, they selected performances from two different concerts:  a mid '70's  concert at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, NY and a 1980's concert from Munich.  They also used a performance from the CBC TV series Oscar Peterson and Friends.  The actual recording contains 16 re-performances, eight in stereo and the same eight repeated in binaural stereo for earphones.  It is  as beautiful a recording of solo piano jazz as you are likely to hear.

The songs are all classics.  The album begins with "Body and Soul" and a signature speeding romp through "Back Home Again in Indiana."  It ends with the Benny Goodman theme, "Goodbye."  In between there is a Duke Ellington medley that starts with "Take the A Train" and includes "In a Sentimental Mood,"  "C Jam Blues," "Lady of the Lavender Mist" and "Satin Doll" among others.  Gershwin's "The Man I Love," Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse's "Who Can I Turn To," Victor Young's "When I Fall in Love," and Dizzy Gillespie's "Con Alma" round out a very strong album.

Music Review: Sir Roland Hanna - "Colors From a Giant's Kit"

This article was first published at http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-sir-roland-hanna-colors/

Back many more years than I would care to remember, I took a college music appreciation course called "Piano Literature of the Romantic Period."  Neither a pianist myself, nor even particularly knowledgeable about music in general, I thought it was time to learn something about the music written for an instrument I had always loved to listen to.  The course turned out to be a comprehensive introduction to some of the most thrilling music ever written—some of it for piano and orchestra, most for solo piano.  There is something about the solo piano in the hands of a skilled artist playing the works of master composers that can paint emotional colors like no other instrument.  Think of Rubenstein playing Chopin, Lang Lang playing Beethoven. 

If this is true for the classical piano, it is no less true for the jazz piano, where the artist is as much a creator as he is a performer.  Sir Roland Hanna is just such an artist.  Let me begin by acknowledging my ignorance.  I had no knowledge of Hanna, until one day an album of his arrived as they say "over the transom," but once I had listened, it was clear I had been missing a truly exceptional talent.   Colors From a Giant's Kit is a collection of fourteen solo tracks recorded by Hanna before his death in 2003.  While Hanna may not have the achieved the same kind of public acclaim as some of the more noted jazz pianists—the Keith Jarretts, the Oscar Petersons, the Monks—a little surfing makes it clear, that he is what is known in the trade as a musician's musician.  The people who know know about Hanna.  He has played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra and Benny Goodman's band among others.  He has accompanied singers like Sarah Vaughn and Al Hibbler.  He has composed works for the piano and orchestra and has soloed with some of the major classical orchestras in the country.  This was a pianist that deserved a lot more attention.

The album is a diverse mix that shows the range of Hanna's musical interests.  There's nice little traditional blues and a modernist take on the old time rag in his own composition, "20^th Century Rag."  He takes "Cherokee," the swing classic made famous by Charlie Barnet, and first turns it into a romantic ballad before making clear he can swing it as well.  He jams his way through jazz standards like "Robbin's Nest," "In a Mellow Tone," and a richly evocative version of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life."  There is an almost impressionistic take on Coltrane's "Naima." Then there are his own compositions: the album's title song is an upbeat romp.  "Natalie Rosanne" is a sweet ballad.  "A Story Often Told But Seldom Heard" is an eight minute tone poem with echoes of classical modernism.

And in a way this may be the most compelling thing about both Hanna's playing and his composing.  His work reverberates with echoes of the classics from a variety of traditions.  Throughout the album you hear the influences of not only "Piano Literature of the Romantic Period," not only of Liszt and Rachmaninoff, but Satie and Gershwin and probably a bunch of others as well.  He takes these influences and mixes them with Scott Joplin and Duke Ellington and he produces something all his own.  As some of the more experimental voices in modern jazz go, he may be a little tame.  He may be a little too traditional.  But for anyone who finds themselves thrilled with that Romantic piano music, Sir Roland Hanna (the Sir by the by according to Wikipedia is an honorary title bestowed on him by the president of Liberia) is someone you will want to get acquainted with and Colors From a Giant's Kit is a good place to start.