M. Castello & G. Picchi - Castello & Co: Venetian Sonatas for Winds & String - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Juno Award winning pianist James Gelfand is a well know figure on the Canadian jazz scene and in the world of soundtracks for movies and television. Along with his new trio consisting of bassist Morgan Moore and drummer Jim Doxas, he now offers a great new album titled Ground Midnight, in which Gelfand uses different types of compositional devices to give a conceptual vision to each of his compositions and arrangements. Gelfand's fingers can certainly fly on the piano and his trio can groove, but the thematic and rhythmic structure of the compositions never gets lost. This is a ground-breaking album that will delight music aficionados! James Gelfand has performed on more than 40 albums, with 10 under his own name. He has received six Juno Award nominations for both solo albums and collaborative efforts, and a Juno Award for the album The Merlin Factor, on which he performed and contributed his compositions and arrangements.

A tireless explorer of territories off the beaten track, Gaetano Nasillo has already addressed Venetian music with a memorable album devoted to composer and 'musico di violoncello' Antonio Caldara (A356). This new album brings us back to Venice to discover cello virtuosos and sonatas between Vivaldi and Tartini. 'In the late seventeenth century the bass member of the violin family underwent an evolution to become the instrument we know as the violoncello. Within a few decades, Venice and it's republic became an important centre of composition for the new instrument, whose popularity steadily increased, reaching a peak in the 1730s and 1740s. In his recorded anthology of sonatas for the instrument the cellist Gaetano Nasillo has selected eight works by eight different composers with a connection to La Serenissima. One composer, Antonio Vivaldi, is extremely well known; two, Benedetto Marcello and Giovanni Benedetto Platti, are slightly known; the remaining five - Girolamo Bassani, Diogenio Bigaglia, Antonio Martinelli, Antonio Vandini and Michele Stratico - are hardly known at all, and this premiere recording of their sonatas reveals the high quality and simple enjoyability of their music.' - Michael Talbot

Erik Nilsson - Fragments [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/31/2006