Jean-Marc Fessard - Suite for Clarinet / Violin & Piano / Scaramouche - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Peter Jan Marth - Bruckner Symphony 3 [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/13/2007

Polish by birth, Alexandre Tansman settled in France, a major influence on his composition. He was a close associate of Stravinsky, particularly during his war-time exile in America. Tansman favored the clarinet, in particular, among wind instruments.

Pianist Jacky Treason's album Gouache is an eclectic, playful, and often beautiful album that showcases the pianist's lithe, technically adept Jazz skills alongside a handful of guest artists. Jazz pianists reworking modern pop songs has become de rigueur in 21st century Jazz circles, and so Treason's choice to cover Lennon, as well as such radio hits as Justin Bieber's InchBabyInch and Amy Winehouse's InchRehab,Inch isn't in-and-of-itself unique. However, with his painterly, impressionistic style that often brings to mind a mix of such influences as Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea, Treason is an interesting match for this kind of pop repurposing, and his reinventions never sound anything but clever and inspired. To these ends, he turns InchBabyInch into a jaunty sleigh ride of song, with a euphoric '70 's R&B ballad midsection. He also gives InchRehabInch a slow, Horace Silver-sounding Jazz-Funk treatment that finds him moving from piano to Fender Rhodes.