Ensemble Expos - Chamber Music - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Ensemble Recherche - Chamber Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/08/2005

Brahms String Quartets No 1 & 3 / Borodin Quartet Composer Johannes Brahms Orchestra/Ensemble Borodin String Quartet Quartet for Strings no 1 in C minor, Op. 51 no 1 Written 1865-1873; Austria Quartet for Strings no 3 in B flat major, Op. 67 Written 1875; Austria The distinctive perspective and insight of Russian musicians furnishes an interesting and valid perception of Western European art-music. This recording was made in Berlin, 1993. With the String Quartet in c-minor, Op. 51, No. 1, the Borodin's take a sensible time scale in the Allegro introduction wherein they accentuate the lyrical while de-emphasizing the dramatic, thusly realizing a very apprehensible presentation. The Russians achieve an especially ethereal ambience in the rare Romance. There is a joyous buoyancy with piquant pizzicati in the trio of the Allegretto, and a vivid intensity in the Finale where the lucidity of timing and phrasing aid in aesthetic perception.

Apple Cores is the latest full-length album from New York tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis, Inchone of the fiercest sounds in jazz todayInch (The Guardian) with a Inchpenchant for unbound explorationInch (Pitchfork). Informed by the rhythms and textures of hip-hop and funk while remaining rooted in jazz, Apple Cores was recorded with Chad Taylor (drums/mbira) and Josh Werner (bass/guitar) over the course of two intense, entirely improvised sessions. The album takes it's name and intention from the column that poet and jazz theorist Amiri Baraka wrote for DownBeat in the 1960s. In addition to Baraka, the influence of another jazz giant looms mightily over Apple Cores trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist, Don Cherry. In a testament to Cherry's influence over the music that the trio is playing, Lewis designed each song title as a cryptogram of sorts, making subtle references to Cherry's life and music. Apple Cores further cements Lewis as one of the provocative and prolific musical voices of his generation. It follows his breakthrough with JazzTimes' Album of the Year Jesup Wagon (2021), a dreamlike mosaic of gospel, folk-blues, and catcalling brass bands inspired by inventor George Washington Carver, and Eye Of I (2023), his joyous and exploratory debut for ANTI-.