David Murray Quartet - Francesca - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Claire Guimond - Trio Sonata [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/30/2008

David Murray is a giant of modern jazz. His saxophone fuses all thegreat things that black music has produced Gospel sounds, freejazz, Afro-Caribbean, blues and soul as well as the beautiful standardsof classic jazz. Murray's colorful tone, unsurpassed intonation,flair for swing, melancholy tones, and improvisational power andingenuity make him one of the most important voices in music today.The newly formed Brave New World Trio congregates style-settingjazz greats with bassist Brad Jones and drummer Hamid Drake.Together they draw from the African-American tradition as well asfrom other cultures and with Seriana Promethea they present animpressive musical statement. InchThe result shows the intuitive level ofunderstanding achieved. Having reached in his mid-60s a level oftechnical mastery where a musician 'can play every note that hehears,' Murray saw this pianoless trio as not just a way to keep thenotes flowing, but a catalyst for total freedom that rare configurationthat allows him to deliver, through the saxophone, Inchmy most freeexpression of myselfInch, writes Derek Schilling in the liner notes.

In the 17th century the city of Liège, capital of an enormous diocese and of a principality within the Empire, was described as a Inchpriests' paradiseInch on account of it's imposing cathedral, it's seven collegiate churches, about thirty parish churches, and it's numerous abbeys and monasteries. This recording does more than justice to two manuscript which provides rare evidence of the polyphonic repertoire in use by the Liège religious orders in the first half of the 17th century Grand livre de chœur de Saint-Lambert and Livre d'orgue des frères croisiers. The fifty-odd 4- to 8-part motets assembled in the Grand livre de chœur are by the hand of Liège composers from the first half of the 17th century who, with the exception of Gilles Hayne, were all active at the cathedral. These motets illustrate the permanence of the rite in honor of the patron saint of the diocese, Bishop Lambert, and other acts of devotions in favor in Liège at the time. Following the traditional of the evening office, the vespers presented here alternate psalms and antiphons and end with a Magnificat with a particularly rich tonal texture. Sayve's Magnificat for double chorus, preserved in the national library at Ljubljana, here receives it's first recording. Drawing on extant sources of composers who all maintained a link with Liège, the Polyharmonique and Concerto Imperiale ensembles, under the direction of Alexander Schneider et Fabien Moulaert, here offers a program remarkable for it's great stylistic and musical coherence.