Jason Moran - Refraction - Breakin Glass - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Shards is a oneness of performance and transformation, transformation as performance. As Jason Moran and Marcus Gilmore play, BlankFor. Ms records micro fragments of time and sends them back to his collaborators sped up, slowed down, reversed, broken into ever tinier grains of data and smeared into a sparkling blur. Moran and Gilmore receive glimpses into their immediate past, or even further back in time, like they're playing into a broken mirror - not just cracked in it's visual plane, but in the sense of it's shards shattering time and light, showing them past and future. Album Tracks 1. Shard I 2. Tape Loop a Echo 3. Shard II 4. Shard III 5. Barbershop 6. And the Pieces Are Falling 7. Shard IV 8. Shard V

The new album of double bassist and composer Jaromir Honzak is a live recording of an eight-part suite for jazz quintet and orchestra performed by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra and Honzak's all-stars Czech jazz quintet, composed of David Doruzka (guitar), Lubos Soukup (saxophone, clarinet), Vit Kristan (piano, rhodes), Martin Novak (drums, percussion). The suite was performed within the concert series of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra InchNew HorizonsInch which combines jazz and symphonic music. The suite entitled InchBlues of a String Hanging in the WindInch was written by Jaromir Honzak and based on the composition of the same name, which he created back in 2008 for a string and jazz quartet on the occasion of a special Jazz concert at the Rudolfinum. A year later, it appeared on Honzak's studio album InchLittle ThingsInch (Animal Music, 2009). Tomas Sýkora, pianist, composer, arranger and curator of the New Horizons programme, was in charge of the arrangements for the orchestra. Jaromir Honzak says about the piece InchI have never been drawn to a large cast in music before, I have always been a type of chamber musician. So here I said to myself that I will try to think as InchchamberlyInch as possible when working for a symphony orchestra. As usual, I first decided to learn from listening to similar works, or even to study some scores, but in the end my usual routine prevailed, based rather on my intuition. Our subsequent cooperation with Tomas was very efficient and pleasant. Tomas was great not only as an unusually skilled and fast orchestrator, but also as an empathetic and helpful assistant.Inch Jaromir Honzak gave the individual parts suitable names that are meant to help the listeners grasp the music. The atmosphere and storytelling of the album, which arises when listening to the music, is also evoked by the artwork of the Japanese artist Kotone Ut

Sam Cave writes in the album notes InchFor every note the guitar can play there are an infinite number of tone colors waiting to be coaxed from it's body.Inch This is demonstrated very well in this collection of very new works, which extend the tone palette of the guitar in many ways, from the still, almost mantra-like' Refracted Meditation III by the performer, to complex and thickly-textured works by Fox and Murail, two distinctive sonatas by George Holloway and the almost alien soundworld conjured up by Horatiu Radulescu in the only work which introduces electronics (taped sounds) alongside the pure acoustics of the guitar. The contrast between Cave's sparse, single line interspersed with gentle chords, and Murail's transfer of spectral cluster technique, is exceptional. Sam Cave is quickly becoming established as one of the leading exponents of new music for guitar, with performances at leading venues around the UK and Europe. He has performed dozens of world premieres in the last decade as soloist and as a member of the Octandre Ensemble. As a composer, his works have been performed in eight countries by some of the most exciting soloists and ensembles of today. Sam plays a 'super-concert' guitar by Dutch luthier Jerome Hilhorst.