Punkt.Vrt.Plastik - Zurich Concert - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Swiss-born pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier is one of the most internationally renowned jazz pianists, at home in both concert halls and jazz clubs. A formative figure on the contemporary jazz scene for 20 years, she is known for her ability to combine two different worlds - the detailed chamber music of her European roots and the experimental sounds of the jazz scene in New York, where she has been at home for all this time. She released her first and so far only solo album in 2007. And so it's high time for another testimony to the art of her solo playing, which is as playful as it is intense, and as rooted in tradition as it is searching and adventurous. InchAt the same time, in her solo music too, one can hear that Sylvie Courvoisier is an artist who never revolves only around herself. The immense spectrum of her pianistic expressive power and the broad width of her compositional imagination is shaped by her constant curiosity about perspectives other than her own. Thelonious Monk, Geri Allen, Olivier Messiaen and, most recently, Igor StravinskyInch, writes Julia Neupert in the liner notes. She adds InchOn this album, not only do we hear the multi-faceted self-portrait of one of the most remarkable pianists of our time. Sylvie Courvoisier also shares with us her conviction that playing alone does not mean being alone.Inch Album Tracks 1. La Descente Des Alpages (For Julian Sartorius) 2. Hotel Esmeralda (For Hugo Pratt) 3. Chilling (For My Three Cats) 4. To Be Other-Wise (For Amy Sillman) 5. Preluding (For Conlon Nancarrow) 6. Soliloquizing (For Wadada Leo Smith) 7. Scooting (For Oliver Messiaen) 8. Twirling (For Ned Rothenberg) 9. Edging Candytuft (For Mary Halvorson) 10. Twisting Memories (For Sarah Turin) 11. Frisking (For Henry Cowell) 12. Ballade for My Dad

Vinyl LP pressing. Album Tracks 1. Ska-Boo- Da-Ba 2. Alley Cat 3. Red Is Danger 4. Cool Smoke 5. Non Stop 6. Stampede 7. Nuclear Weapon 8. China Clipper 9. Ali Pang 10. Yogi Man 11. Throughfare 12. Ghost Town 13. Surftide Seven 14. Magnificent Ska 15. Street Corner 16. Cleo's Back

Alexander Hawkins is a creative epicentre from the London jazz scene and is regarded in the UK as one of the most innovative musicians of the younger generation with a surprising radius of action. He plays with Evan Parker, Wadada Leo Smith, Taylor Ho Bynum, Louis Moholo, Shabaka Hutchings and Elaine Mitchener. 'Iron into Wind' is the name of his new piano solo. The phrase InchIron into WindInch evokes for him both the transience of improvisation and a fascination with solid material, represented by the powerful blocks of sound to be heard in several of these pieces. Richard Willimas writes in the liner notes InchThe mood varies from the two-handed avant-gospel figurations of InchCongregationalInch to the hurtling InchÉtudeInch via the austere ruminations of InchTumble MonoInch, the knotted blues of InchStrange CourageInch and the explosive accelerations of InchIt Should Be a SongInch, with a diversion, in InchPleasant ConstellationInch, by way of variations on an element from Sun Ra's InchFate in a Pleasant MoodInch. What he achieves here is a fine balance of all his interests, creating a self-portrait of a wonderfully inventive modern musician.Inch Album Tracks 1. Song All the Way 2. Congregational 3. Tough Like Imagination 4. Pleasant Constellation 5. Gossamer Like a Ghost Tree 6. Strange Courage 7. It Should Be a Song 8. Hard As Threads 9. Tumble Mono 10. Wander/Wonder 11. We All Bleed 12. Etude