Gabrielle Goodman - Until We Love - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

A brilliant composer and an incredibly inspired and proficient jazz pianist, Abraham Barrera is a name to remember. Although his capacity for creation seems to know no boundaries and he composes and performs non-stop, he pours his soul in each project and it often becomes an obsessive journey in the search for his vision. This recording documents the collaboration of three of the most relevant jazzmen in Mexico's musical scene; along with Aarón Cruz, at the double Bass and Hernán Hecht at the drums, Barrera's music acquires a dimension of depth that can only be obtained by years of uninterrupted complicity onstage and at the studio. Each piece in this album tells part of the unique story that is Abraham's own very Mexican life and his Lebanese roots. The title of the album, InchNasser,Inch is a family name, so mid-eastern melodic references abound; a sophisticated palette that blends very well with an evident interest in contemporary sonorities. A production that refers us to the greats, an emerging international jazz performer with a unique compositional voice... What more could we ask for?

Gabrielle Goodman - Travelin' Light [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/01/2005

... o night of love, descend upon us... That motif from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde sets the musical and lyrical mood for the selection of pieces and poems in the Feininger Trio's programme, performed for the first time at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival. Love and death the goal in selecting the poems was to find a mood similar to Schubert's Notturno and Chopin's Piano Trio Op. 8 texts that could establish a lyrical dialogue with those pieces. How can we grasp the great subject of love and death? How can we associate language with music, but without relegating language to a subordinate role? How can a series of poems tell their own story while at the same time highlighting the expression conveyed by the music, which is still the precondition for this musical-poetical programme? Following Schubert's Adagio (later renamed Notturno), the theme of love is addressed in Ingeborg Bachmann's poem Erklar mir Liebe (InchExplain love to meInch) and in Rilke's Liebes-Lied (InchLove SongInch), which features metaphors associated with string music. Allegro con fuoco is the tempo marking of the first movement in Chopin's Piano Trio, Op. 8. It is paired alongside Elke Lasker-Schuler's poem Du spieltest ein ungestumes Lied (InchYou played me a wild songInch).