Darryl Brenzel [Pentasphere] 

This is the third time i've played this disc, and it's slowly growing on me, i bought it on Ebay, probably a couple of years ago, it's good to hear it again, it appeared in my Blog at the end of 2010 [30th December 2010], this is the way to truly delve into Jazz discs, to keep listening to them, not give up if at first you don't like them, and don't worry if you're not liking them either, play it and leave it aside for a year, and then give it another go, in a lot of ways Brenzel is not complex, fairly easy to listen to, and yet there's the danger it would be shallow, still early days on this disc. but i certainly enjoyed it today.

Darryl Brenzel is American i guess, not a household Jazz name, he recorded this disc in 1998, the front cover photograph is a peach [photo by Karin Sigman], actually a black & white shot, but then a couple of coloured filters are added, i guess purple and brown, making a diagonal merging of colours, the whole thing is a great idea, i like the photo, a thoughtful pose, saxophone in hand, notice the 'no admittance' sign!, is there a message here?.

The track that i found the greatest was track 6 'Pentasphere', and this was the same one that i loved a couple of years ago, 

Natalie Merchant [TigerLily] 

Hmmm?, this seems the first time that this disc appears in my Blog, strange, because it's such a fantastic disc, that resides in my top 50 discs of all time, this is Merchant's debut solo album, she formerly belonged to the 10,000 Maniacs, and as far as i'm concerned this is her best album, i saw it at my local Library, and those were the days i mined the Library for possible new musical ventures, i hired it out, and at first i found it fairly ordinary, the whole album sounded very much the same, but only on the last listening before i took it back, did the whole thing click into place and make sense, sadly her subsequent albums have been somewhat disappointing, and i find she's best served by getting a compilation album of her music [17th March 2011].

Natalie Merchant is American, she is now 49, she recorded this album in 1994-1995, the front cover is a fairly average portrait [photo by Dan Borris], a black and white shot, though good use of the hands, and a crazy green and orange colour scheme.

Wow!, nearly every single track was tremendous, if i had to pick 2 of the best, they would be tracks 5 & 8, and here's a synopsis of both,
5 Carnival - Natalie Merchant's Retrospective album that i linked above, has this track on that album, and that's the one i was most impressed with and talked about there, it's truly a fantastic piece of songwriting, a nice drumbeat at the start, using a plethora of different drums [0:00-0:53], a certain Reggae-ish and Jungle drumming track, and with the Bassist helping out, it sound like a Drum & Bass track at first, the intro lasts almost a minute, and Merchant's voice brings in the missing piece in the puzzle, but the Drummer [Peter Yanowitz] gets some very inventive hits in, the verses end after not much more than 3 minutes, then it's a fairly long guitar solo, and the very long vocal outro, the best lyrics, 'the scarlet welcome carpet, that they just rolled out for me', even after the track finishes [5:28], there's a recording of the street, and the very same song on the radio that just finished.
8 Cowboy Romance - For me the best song on this listen, yet not one of my favourites in general, there's of course a certain old style Country feel to the track, especially with an atmospheric use of the violin / fiddle [by Jay Unger], a nice yearning storyline, with the classic line 'you aint been born til you get out of town', an acoustic guitar and piano driven track, very sparse instrumentation, just the trio of guitar / piano / violin, which gives off a certain old worldness, i don't know if the lyrics are autobiographical, sounds like two drifters that can't be tamed, but can they reconcile their wilfulness / independence to team up?, the last words give a certain ambiguousness to the outcome, does he 'escape' at dawn as he sobers up?, a great track of love and loss.

Chopin - 24 Etudes [Tomassi] 

I played this disc for the first time back in early 2011 [15th March 2011], and i called it 'very special' then, and on this second listening i feel even more so, i would say she has inspired individual touches, she does certain things different than anyone i've ever heard, but it's not 'wayward' different, most of the things she does are justified and work, she's great with sonorities, bringing in soundworld ideas that i feel Chopin would approve of, again i notice the jerky rhythms, but these are put to great use, rather than as some sort of handicap, some of the things she does are controversial, slow or fast speeds, jagged transitions, not everything works [No3 is fast, and really quite flat!], but even here there's food for thought, and ideas to think about, a very enlightening set of Chopin's Etudes.

Giorgia Tomassi is Italian, she recorded this disc in 1997, the front cover photograph [by Gian Luca Liverani] is an excellent one, the background wall isn't the greatest of backgrounds, but i love the pose, the hands are especially pronounced, nice colours on the lettering, very well laid out.

There were revelations galore, especially in Etudes 1-2, 4-5, 7-14, 16-17 & 21-24, now that's virtually all of them!, whittling it down to two which were superbly enlightening, i would say 1 & 9 were absolutely terrific, and the last time i played this 4 & 9 were my favourites, so it seems i've got a thing about No9 from Tomassi, i find that the greatest Pianists seem to excel in one certain Etude, seemingly making it their own, Louis Lortie does the same thing with No8, sometime in the future i would love to record a disc with 24 different Pianists on one disc, each taking an Etude that they have made their own, that would make a tremendous disc of music.

Etude 1 [Nicolay Khozyainov] - Nothing special reveals itself at first, a good sustained interpretation, her fingers in the right hand have a bubbly flow that is a beautiful legato, perfecto!, i like the way she creates waves of loud and not so loud, my two favourite interpretations are Louis Lortie [1:55] and Boris Berezovsky [2:00], Tomassi takes [1:50], but it doesn't sound rushed or garbled, it gives it a breathtaking fizz, a great intro to the whole of the Etudes.
Etude 9 [Valentina Lisitsa] - The Ninth is very special, again sounding nothing special at first, but her ability to make the treble outbursts to ring in your ears is incredible, again Lortie [2:07] and Berezovsky [2:11] shave a bit off of Tomassi's [2:19], but Tomassi's little hesitancies are put to good effect, she imperceptibly slows it down in certain sections, and it gives a sense of 'tease', makes you want it all the more, her ability to control those angry little upper treble notes, annoyances at first, then more cries of pain later, i just love the way the dying echo of the first outburst is so weighted [0:47], it gives it such a satisfactory culmination, and the louder tolling later [0:57-1:10], has softer and more hesitant echoes, again nicely weighted to maximum tease, lovely gentle right hand trills right after, i love the way her left hand argues / counteracts the main right hand melody, it's like a gentle muttering of disapproval in the background [1:29+], wow she gets those hesitations just right, she's in no hurry to finish the piece, yet still the whole thing is over too soon, the ending is perfect, a delicious chiming of treble notes [2:06-2:16], and ends in a solitary treble ping, this was the best thing i heard all day.

Various Composers - Piano Encore [Tabe] 

I bought this second hand in a shop in London, and i'nm so glad i did, this has become a treasured disc, i love these piano compilation albums, especially with short miniatures as here, well maybe not that much of miniature, 16 tracks at 72 minutes makes a good 4 minutes each, but it's good to have some strange off the beaten track pieces, Griffes / Balakirev / Liadov / Moszkowski etc, stuff which would be hard to get elsewhere, Tabe gives us a great selection, and Denon is such a great label, very inventive when they get it right, just switch onto random, and let the shuffle of chance bring you something different, this appeared in my Blog this time last year [1st November 2011].

Kyoko Tabe is Japanese, she's now 45, not particularly known in the West, she mainly recorded on the Denon label, stuck in Japan, and even though she's now recorded for Chandos, a lot of her discs are hard to get hold of in the West, she recorded this disc in 1994, the front cover picture is truly excellent, showing Tabe at the keyboard, looking through the lid / workings of the piano, a nice way to frame a photograph, and the lettering includes all the Composer names, a truly wonderful product.

Tabe plays these pieces very well, The piece that i enjoyed the most was track 6, Schubert's Impromptu 3 [D899/3], it's a tremendous piece of music, written in G Flat Major, it used to be my favourite Impromptu, but now that's Impromptu 5 [D935/1], this is so gentle and serene, those wonderful rippling right hand notes, they power the piece, at times they rise and fall in conjunction to the intensity of the left hand playing, usually the accompaniment is in the bass left hand, this really makes this piece special, as the 'background' rhythm is actually mid keyboard right hand, .

Here's Alfred Brendel playing Impromptu 3 [D899/3] on YouTube.

Dvorak - Symphony 9 [Jansons-Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra] 

For some, this Symphony can seem overplayed and overexposed, but not for me, every time i listen to it, the beautiful feelings come flooding back, each and every movement is delight, how can anyone get 'used' to this music?, this is the very first time that i've played this disc, i have quite a number of Dvorak Ninths, and this is another good one to add to the stack, Jansons paces things really well, there's tension and drama there, the sound is a little shrill, but i soon got used to it, another satisfying days music listen.

Mariss Jansons is Latvian, he's now 69 years old, he recorded this disc in 1988, the front cover photo [by Paul Huf] is an excellent studio portrait of Jansons, nice and sharp and clear, nice dark background which makes the lettering stand out, but too many different types of font in the lettering creates a garbled look, though good use of colours.

What a lovely experience, the first movement was dynamic, and of course the second movement is beautiful and touching, but it's the third movement Scherzo i liked the best, boisterous and loud, and yet still has touches of introspective poetry,.

Here's Herbert Von Karajan conducting the third movement Scherzo on YouTube.

Iris DeMent [My Life] 

This was a great disc to buy, one of those purchases where i was purposely trying to branch out into new genres, trying to get away from the usual stuff i always get, i would certainly classify this as Country first, but it also has elements of American Folk and Gospel, she has a real southern twang to her voice, she comes from Arkansas originally, and she was influenced by old time hymns in the Church she grew up in, so there's a lovely Gospel flavoured subject to things, maybe not necessarily religious in words, but in her observations and themes, for someone not exposed to DeMent, the first time listening to this album might give a strong indication of negative things, certainly death and sin, and regret and purposelessness, but i find it very positive and upbeat, that through the hard times there's fortitude to stand tall, in the title track DeMent laments, 'My life, it's tangled in wishes, and so many things that just never turned out right', it's a real theme of the album, it's certainly very realistic looking, instead of kidding ourselves that life's one happy go lucky round of good memories, this disc also appeared in my Blog in 2010 [25th May 2010].

Iris DeMent is American, she's now 51, she recorded this disc in 1994, the front cover photo [by Kelley McCall] is a bit naive, a photograph made to look like in a photo album, and a theme throughout the booklet, using old photo's of DeMent, like the one on the back.

It was tracks 4-6 that were superb, and i guess it's the middle one that hit me the most, called 'No Time To Cry', each of the three verses deals with a tragedy, whether it's her Father dying, an ambulance siren, or the bad news on the television, the 'solution' is to keep busy, life has a tendency to make you cynical, you're older and you just haven't got time to cry, a very acoustic song, her voice really shines out of the instrumentation, she plays acoustic guitar herself, the verses are great, dripping with sadness, and when the chorus comes in, there's an upbeat determination and fortitude to stubbornly endure, her voice rises into a major key, it's a great moment each time the chorus comes in, in the last verse the instrumentation quietens down, and it enhances her voice, and of course it heightens the power of the song when the instruments comes back in with force later in the verse, also i love the way DeMent treats the outro, she ad-libs 'no time to cry' three times, you can hear the way she accentuates things differently, a great way to finish a great song, one of her greatest compositions.

Here's Iris DeMent singing 'No Time To Cry' on YouTube.

Bellini - Soprano Opera Arias [Anderson/ Rescigno-Orchestre Philharmonique De Monte Carlo] 

Most Opera Singers make recital discs of a selection of Composers, except where such a Composer is prolific [Mozart / Rossini / Verdi / Wagner/ Puccini], but with Bellini you haven't got much to choose from, which is why discs like this are rare, however they're also very welcome, the only gripe i have about this disc is the length, at only 54 minutes long, at least the famous 'Casta Diva' from Norma could have been added?, Bellini had a tendency to write long arias which are spun out really well, and that's one reason that this only contains 5 tracks / arias, you wouldn't get this from Mozart, Bellini's arias are long drawn out, and extremely lyrical, plus he had a penchant to use solo woodwind instruments as almost soloists in a lot of his introductions, and he is a master at creating mood that way, i love the deft way he can at times push aside the Opera stars, and indulge in a nice bit of being an orchestral Composer, elevating an instrumentalist as a star for a short while [consider the Oboist in the middle movement of the Brahms Violin Concerto, almost stealing the show], i played this a couple of years ago, you can read my thoughts in my Blog here [28th September 2010]. 

June Anderson is an American Soprano, she is now 59, she made this disc in 1987, i like the front cover photograph [by Steve Bicknell], a soft focus portrait, there's a certain glow to the face, and the lettering is in red and black, nice swirly writing.

Of all the pieces on this disc, it was the music from La Sonnambula that i loved the most, the closing scene and final aria of Amina is fantastic, it seems to have the lot in its three sections, . 

Here's June Anderson singing the three sections of the finale of La Sonnambula on YouTube, [Oh! Se Una Volta Sola / Ah! Non Credea Mirarti / Ah! Non Giunge].