This journey begins at sunset and ends with the first light of day. In this unforgettable experience we will be accompanied at all times by the beauty and spirituality of baroque art. It is also worth mentioning that this album features the World’s First Recording of the work ‘Adiuvanos Deus’ by the Neapolitan master Gaetano Veneziano.

Miguel Ulla – Countertenor, Percussion
Fernando Reyes – Theorbo

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In discussing musicianship, one often highlights technical mastery. Yet what sets these performers apart is their ability to channel pure emotion into every note. Listen to Roosmarijn Tuenter’s enchanting viola introduction on Woman in Three Stages, Jeroen van Vliet’s tranquil piano on Madonna, Joost Lijbaart’s almost imperceptible percussive textures on Starry Night, and Sanne Rambags’ mesmerizing voice on Dance of Life.

Each moment brims with authenticity and depth, with silence and space as integral as the notes themselves. This is not easy music, yet it flows organically, like amount in stream in springtime. Premiered at the November Music Festival to critical acclaim – “Moments arise where, under the influence of goosebumps and moist eyes, we are driven to the edge of our seats” (JazzProg) – this suite is a deeply moving experience. Thanks to Frans de Rond’s extraordinary recording technique, described as “A Van Gogh painting come to life, vivid and multidimensional” this masterpiece has been immortalized. It offers listeners the rare chance to step into the music and experience it as if standing among the musicians themselves.

Sanne Rambags, Vocals & Compositions
Roosmarijn Tuenter, Viola, Vocals & Effects
Jeroen van Vliet, Piano & Effects
Joost Lijbaart, Drums & Percussion

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The celebration of Yule in Northern Europe harks back to a transition from ancient Pagan Germanic culture to the more formal spirituality of the newer Christian rite. Christmas, as we mostly now call it, gave us hymns, processions and chants, and in between, silence in church. Yule meant a vibrant pre-Christian secularity, with feasting and dancing, the noise of instruments and decorating the house with holly, ivy and mistletoe as a tribute to the gods of earth and air.

Much of the music on this album dates from an earlier time when in a throwback to Yule churches were decorated with Christmas greenery, and at home there would be carols sung round a burning Yule log, the two traditions side by side. But the songs on this album are contemporary performances, a matrix where immaculate a cappella voices meet improvising instruments in a synthesis of secular and sacred. There’s no knowing how the earliest Christmas songs were created, but the first ones must have been passed on orally until someone wrote them down. Writing, then later printing, set the songs free, and some travelled all over Europe, adopted by singers who then made their own versions. New songs were made, but many ancient ones survived the centuries, each new performer passing on their own memories of a song to the next generation. Alongside this oral tradition more formal manuscript collections were created in church and cloister as clerics composed new chants for their own communities.

These historical processes are intertwined throughout this album, which is very much a product of the Trio Mediæval aesthetic; there are medieval compositions from England, arrangements of North European music by Tone Krohn, Anders Jormin and by trio members Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Jorunn Lovise Husan, together with a new composition by Norway’s English composer Andrew Smith.

Trio Mediæval
Sinikka Langeland, Kantele
Vegar Vårdal,  Hardanger, Fiddle & Violin
Arve Henriksen, Trumpet & Organ
Anders Jormin, Double Bass
Helge Norbakken, Percussion

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Percussion is in many ways the most difficult type of instrument for an audio system to get right. The initial transients must be cleanly reproduced, without smearing, and the electronics must have enough headroom to deliver clean power without dynamic compression. Equally important, the ‘bloom’ and decay of instruments like bass drums and cymbals need to breathe and taper off naturally. The Art of Hi-Fi Volume 3: Percussion is designed to give your system a real workout – and showcase it to its fullest potential.
– Paul McGowan

The Art of HiFi: Percussion is Volume 3 in Octave’s new audiophile-centric series of Pure DSD 256 recordings. This edition is designed to meet the challenge of properly capturing and reproducing percussion and will put any great system to the test. With a well-curated collection of music and an expertly designed range of dynamics, this album is sure to be an instant favorite in your music collection. Recorded at Octave Studios in Pure DSD 256 Stereo by Paul McGowan, Terri McGowan and Jessica Carson with mastering by Gus Skinas.

The Art of HiFi: Percussion features a memorable mix of music and world-class musicians. Christian Teele is best known for his work on internationally syndicated radio show E-Town. His two original compositions, Emergence and The Depth are standouts. Michael Wooten and Billy Hoke are both world-touring drummers and have been great friends for decades. Their Drum Battle is an incredibly dynamic track that they created at Octave Studios in an afternoon of collaboration. From Nico Owen‘s Selva that creates a realistic jungle soundscape, Banda Guilha’s two latin samba tracks, Timpani Shorts by Mike Tetreault to an excellent demonstration of jazz drumming and even an example of percussive guitar by Alfredo Muro, Percussion takes us on a unique musical journey that is both fun to listen to and challenging for your system.

Christian Teele (Track 1, 10)
Banda Guiha (Track 2, 11)
Braxton Kahn Trio (Track 3)
Nico Owen, Daniel Lopez, Aaron Reedy (Track 4)
Nico Owen, William Trask, Mario Moreno (Track 5)
Michael Wooten & Billy Hoke (Track 6)
Jessica Carson (Track 7)
Mike Tetreault (Track 8)
Alfredo Muro (Track 9)

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Volume 01: Bass is a disc you can use to not only test out a system’s low end but with some great music that will also really show off what your system can do.
– Paul McGowan

The Art of HiFi Volume 1: Bass, features 10 wonderful tracks each with musically satisfying low-frequency notes that will stretch the limits of your high-end audio system. Bass is the fundamental bedrock of music and Volume 1 gets it right in perhaps ways you’ve never heard before. It’s an extraordinary experience. Bass has it all, from the lowest notes of a massive pipe organ to the system-challenging extremes of a musical synthesizer. All tracks were recorded and mixed in Octave’s new state-of-the-art studios in Pure DSD 256 Stereo by PS Audio’s Paul McGowan and mastered by Gus Skinas. No audiophile’s collection should be without The Art of HiFi Series, Volume 1: Bass.

The Art of HiFi: Bass was put together over a few months of recording in Pure DSD 256 Stereo including a live performance at Temple Emmanuel in Denver. Artists featured on this album include award-winning organist Kenrick Mervine, father of jazz trumpeter, Gabriel Mervine. The opening track, Erase Me, was the work of an up-and-coming young composer and performer, Kaitlyn Williams who began her musical studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where she studied opera before switching her major to jazz studies.

Jazz bassist Seth Lewis featured on tracks 2, and 8. During his time in New York, Seth regularly appeared at well-known jazz clubs including Smalls, Smoke, Dizzy’s Club Coca­-Cola, Cleopatra’s Needle and The Iridium. Drummer Michael Wooten‘s composition Rocky Mountain Rain is one to crank up the volume and enjoy. Wooten was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame twice, once with the band Zephyr and then with Leftover Salmon.

Pianist Tom Amend gets us down into the lowest bass notes possible on Track 9, World Wind. Tom has shared the stage with greats like Jeff Hamilton, Chris Potter, Christian McBride, Julia Dollison, Joey DeFrancesco, Groove For Thought, Deborah Brown, John Fedchock, Louis Hayes, Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan.

Kaitlyn Williams (Track 1)
Seth Lewis Trio (Track 2, 8)
Kenrick Mervine (Track 3, 6, 10)
Michael Wooten (Track 4)
Jeremy Mohney (Track 5)
Kimberly & DJ Sparr (Track 7)
Tom Amend (Track 9)

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La Petite Écurie
Miriam Jorde Hompanera – oboe
Valerie Colen – oboe
Marc Bonastre Riu – oboe, taille de hautbois, basse de hautbois
Giovanni Battista Graziadio – bassoon
Philipp Lamprecht – historical percussion

The post No Strings Attached: Concertos Overture and Sonatas for Oboe Band appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

A lively brew of world music, blues, rock, soul, and jazz ingredients, based on Celtic and West African song-forms, featuring top NY downtown players Marc Ribot (guitar) and Mat Maneri (viola).
– Mark Werlin, NativeDSD & All About Jazz

American drummer-bandleader Sean Noonan has described his Brewed by Noon project as “tribal rhythms by an Irish griot” and added “My goal is to adapt folklore in a modern jazz context, merging storytelling and folk music from bardic and griot traditions.” The basic concept isn’t particularly novel in jazz: what happens when “wandering” folk melodies and grooves from different cultures are communally re-created through improvisation. But the ingredients, the brewing methods, and the spirit of the resulting music, are indeed different.

Recuperating from a near-fatal car accident in 2003, Sean began developing a new project that would blend jazz-punk with west African folk music, and got together again with Senegalese bassist Thierno Camara, an old friend in whose Waaw Band he’d performed years before, to write some new tunes. The first Brewed by Noon album was released independently in 2005, a quartet featuring guitarist friends Aram Bajakian and Jon Madof. He expanded the range of possibilities for this second record by seeking out new collaborators: brilliant downtown jazzers Marc Ribot and Mat Maneri, percussionist Jim Pugliese, Malian vocalist Abdoulaye Diabaté (a griot or hereditary praise singer and younger brother of Kasse Mady Diabaté), as well as Irish gaelic folk/rock singer Susan McKeown and classical and soul vocalist Dawn Padmore (herself of Liberian parentage). The music was created with the assistance of a commissioning grant from the American Composers Forum.

The stories Sean and his band tell in these 10 pieces are exceptionally diverse. There are elements of blues, rock, soul, jazz and improv in various combinations, adding in Celtic and west African song-forms, lyrics, melodic content and instrumental approaches, but all transformed in the process of development. From the funky metaphoric love song to a “Pineapple,” to moral fables about a lost baby elephant in “Esspi” and the presumptuous lord “Massana Cissé,” to the grinding out-rock/jazz interplay of “Scabies” and the spooky hospital lullaby “Dr. Sleepytime,” to the Irish/Malian duet “Noonbrews,” Stories to Tell kaleidoscopically refracts its participants’ cultures, talents and musical experiences into an ecstatic, intoxicating vision, one constantly supported by the energy and direction of Sean’s drumming. And New York, the symbolic melting pot where it all transpired, is paid homage to in the musical rollercoaster “NY.”

Stories To Tell was creatively mixed to 5 Channel Surround Sound. Heard in that format, the often complex instrumental and vocal interplay stands out in great detail even as the listener is immersed in the music.

Sean Noonan’s Brewed by Noon
Sean Noonan, electro-acoustic drumset
Marc Ribot, Aram Bajakian, Jon Madof, electric guitars
Mat Maneri, viola
Thierno Camara, electric bass, vocals (5), percussion
Abdoulaye Diabaté, vocals (2, 3, 5)
Susan McKeown, vocals (3)
Dawn Padmore, vocals (8)
Jim Pugliese, percussion
Thiokho Diagne, djembe

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In 2002 Djabe gave a series of concerts in the then most famous jazz club in Budapest, New Orleans. For eight nights the group played almost totally different sets. The last two nights were unplugged gigs. On November 19, 2002 Saïd Tichiti joined Djabe. These 9 tracks are taken from that show. The set covers the whole career of the band from their first album Djabe to Sheafs are Dancing creating a new and fresh approach of many classic and previously live unplayed Djabe tracks.

Djabe
András Sipos – Vocals & Percussion
Attila Égerházi – Guitar & Percussion
Tamás Barabás – Bass Guitar & Percussion
Ferenc Kovács – Violin, Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Zoltán Kovács – Keyboards
Szilárd Banai – Drums
Said Tichiti – Vocals & Gembri

The post Unplugged Live At The New Orleans [Pure DSD] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

The creative imagination of pianist Chris Gestrin animates this set of contemporary jazz compositions. Trumpetist Brad Turner and reeds player Jon Bentley draw sound paintings on the acoustic-electric canvas of Gestrin, bassist André Lachance and percussionist Dylan van der Schyff. Audiophile Audition described the sonics as “super-clean, detailed and spatially located with great precision…’ear-stretching’.”
– Mark Werlin, NativeDSD Music & AllAboutJazz

Chris Gestrin is a Vancouver-based pianist, keyboardist and composer who might occasionally put you in mind of Bill Evans or Keith Jarrett, if either of those masters were young today and equally at home with the acoustic and the electronic, jazz and ambient.

Stillpoint was his first release on Songlines Recordings, and it stands as perhaps his most personal statement as a jazz-and-beyond composer-performer. His handpicked, versatile quintet, featuring trumpeter Brad Turner and drummer Dylan van der Schyff, creates rich images in sound. From a tender solo piano improvisation to swirling group inventions, a musical narrative of almost cinematic sweep unfolds. Gestrin’s compositions range across jazz, experimental music, new age and world music for their ideas, but this is not “fusion” in any ordinary sense, there is too much originality and panache for that. The multi-channel remix opens on an imaginary environment that connoisseurs of surround sound, whether jazz fans or not, will surely appreciate.

Born just outside Vancouver in 1972, Gestrin graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 1995 with a degree in film composition. He quickly became one of Vancouver’s busiest pianists, keyboardists, effects artists, and soundtrack composers, co-leading or performing in many bands of various kinds, from funk and soul jazz to less categorical combinations of jazz, fusion, ambient, and improv. His trio with bassist Andre Lachance and Dylan van der Schyff has been active since 1996.

Chris Gestrin – piano, synthesizers, sampler, electronics
Brad Turner – trumpet, flugelhorn, electronics
Jon Bentley – tenor & soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, electronics
André Lachance – double bass
Dylan van der Schyff – drums, percussion, electronics
Joseph ‘Pepe’ Danza – percussion (4)
Deanna Newton – voice (11)

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The corridor leads from somewhere to somewhere, and through all kinds of doors you can enter Renaissance halls, Baroque church halls, smoky cellars of jazz pubs, modern rooms, blue or red salons, or even the wide-open natural landscapes of folk music. And it is just such a wide variety of music that this ensemble plays, without any genre restrictions, almost just making music for pleasure, pushing its own boundaries.

Tibor Csuhaj-Barna is a jazz double bass player and composer, and an associate professor (DLA) at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. Over the last 35 years he has been an active performer on the Hungarian jazz scene, compiling and playing on many CDs. He has written music for theatres, choirs, and jazz lineups ranging from duos to big band. Born of a Day by Tibor Csuhaj-Barna is a kind of triptych, consisting of three large units and eleven small movements.

Corridor Bassoon Quartet
György Lakatos
Ivett Bazsinka
Sára Rebeka Tóth
Mihály Duffek

Guest Musician
Tibor Csuhaj-Barna, Percussion (Track 9)

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