Todd DelGiudice - Mas Alto - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Recording an entire album of duets would be a daunting task for most artists, but in the hands of flugelhorn/trumpeter Ralph Alessi, the result is a set of fresh and intimate interpretations of originals, standards and improvisations. Ralph is joined by former Steve Coleman and Ani DiFranco sideman Shane Endsley, who brings his own unique and versatile approach to the drums and trumpet to this recording. Another Steve Coleman alum, trombonist Tim Albright, plays on one track. InchVice & VirtueInch offers a daring departure from the typical and a chance to hear two of today's most original voices engaged in a sonic journey that captures the true spirit of improvised music.

With an eclectic mix of nine originals and one thoroughly re-envisioned standard, saxophonist and multi-reedist Todd DelGiudice presents an inspired set for his first recording on OA2 Records. Joined by a veteran Seattle trio including John Hansen on piano, bassist Jon Hamar and drummer Byron Vannoy, DelGiudice explores his wide-ranging musical influences, creating a unique & varied yet fully cohesive story. Raised in South Florida, DelGiudice has been an active member of the Miami, New York and Oregon jazz scenes. He was a member of one of Red Rodney's last working quintets and has performed with Maria Schneider, John Fedchock, and Ingrid Jensen, among many others.

Edward MacDowell was the most highly regarded American composer of his generation, and the first to acquire a truly international reputation. Born in New York, he briefly studied piano as a teenager at the Paris Conservatoire, but quickly left to explore what he regarded as the more congenial musical environment in Germany. He studied piano and composition in Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, and then Frankfurt. After graduating in 1880, he remained in Germany for four years, before returning home, first to Boston, for eight years, and then finally to New York where he became Columbia University's first Professor of Music. The various romantic influences that shaped the style of the First Concerto include the music of Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, and Grieg, whilst the technical demands on the soloist reveal MacDowell's prowess as a pianist. MacDowell's enthusiasm for the symphonic poem is reflected here by the inclusion of Lancelot und Elaine and Lamia. The former was inspired by the Arthurian legend as told by Tennyson in his Idylls of the King. The work is extremely narrative, and employs Wagnerian Leitmotifs to depict each of the characters. Lamia, written some two years later and based on the poem by John Keats, was neither published nor performed in the composer's lifetime. MacDowell had planned another symphonic poem, based on the French mediaeval tale La Chanson de Roland, but the work was never completed, and the two fragments included here are all that remain. Woodland Sketches, a set of ten piano miniatures, were inspired by the idyllic environment of the MacDowells' farm, in New Hampshire. The first of these - 'To a Wild Rose' - is by far the composer's most famous piece, and made MacDowell a household name in both America and Europe.