Brahms / Stokowski - Sinfonien 2 & 4 / Philadelphia - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Swiss-born pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier is one of the most internationally renowned jazz pianists, at home in both concert halls and jazz clubs. A formative figure on the contemporary jazz scene for 20 years, she is known for her ability to combine two different worlds - the detailed chamber music of her European roots and the experimental sounds of the jazz scene in New York, where she has been at home for all this time. She released her first and so far only solo album in 2007. And so it's high time for another testimony to the art of her solo playing, which is as playful as it is intense, and as rooted in tradition as it is searching and adventurous. InchAt the same time, in her solo music too, one can hear that Sylvie Courvoisier is an artist who never revolves only around herself. The immense spectrum of her pianistic expressive power and the broad width of her compositional imagination is shaped by her constant curiosity about perspectives other than her own. Thelonious Monk, Geri Allen, Olivier Messiaen and, most recently, Igor StravinskyInch, writes Julia Neupert in the liner notes. She adds InchOn this album, not only do we hear the multi-faceted self-portrait of one of the most remarkable pianists of our time. Sylvie Courvoisier also shares with us her conviction that playing alone does not mean being alone.Inch Album Tracks 1. La Descente Des Alpages (For Julian Sartorius) 2. Hotel Esmeralda (For Hugo Pratt) 3. Chilling (For My Three Cats) 4. To Be Other-Wise (For Amy Sillman) 5. Preluding (For Conlon Nancarrow) 6. Soliloquizing (For Wadada Leo Smith) 7. Scooting (For Oliver Messiaen) 8. Twirling (For Ned Rothenberg) 9. Edging Candytuft (For Mary Halvorson) 10. Twisting Memories (For Sarah Turin) 11. Frisking (For Henry Cowell) 12. Ballade for My Dad

Brahms / Knappertsbusch - Sym 2 & 4-Knapper [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/01/2012

All in their twenties, these four young men are currently at the top tip of the Swiss jazz scene. District Five has taken time off after their debut album, the antithesis of short-term project culture. Now, with Decoy, they do justice to the album's title, throwing us a seductive bait. The aim behind the album is to transcend conventional jazz and offer a statement; it was to sound different from the experience of District Five live, using the possibilities of studio recording to mine the wealth of electronic-based sounds the quartet hears around them. Whether flowing calmly along or sweeping weightlessly through the expanses of ambient soundscapes, whether the concentrated energy of free improvisation shatters the song structure or eruptive clusters of sound and hard-edged grooves emphasise the physical aspects of the music, in the club-friendly anthem 'Maths', the multi-layered sound art of District Five is compellingly direct and builds up a hypnotic momentum. Album Tracks 1. Berlin 2. Crypto Clone 3. Reminiscence 4. Maths 5. Decoy 6. Recall