Various Artists - End of Melancholism - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Ensemble 5o Elemento was formed by Mexican musicians who came together to explore jazz and all it's rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic facets. Their repertoire covers a broad spectrum, from jazz classics of the sixties a la Miles Davis, to contemporary jazz works inspired by Spanish influences. Most of the pieces they play are composed by the members themselves. The present is presented in honor of the group's 20th anniversary and features a programme of Mexican jazz.

Música Temprana, one of today's most exciting Hispanic early music ensembles, presents it's first PENTATONE album Melancolía, on which they present Spanish courtly songs on mourning and unrequited love around 1500 together with the apocalyptic liturgical tradition of El Canto de la Sibila. Many of the villancicos, canciones, romances and estrambotes performed here have been documented in songbooks such as the famous Cancionero Musical de Palacio. They show the transition from troubadour lyricism to the flourishing Siglo de Oro (Golden Age), and the shift from a medieval to a Renaissance aesthetic in Spanish music. El Canto de la Sibila is a religious tradition that can be traced back as far as St Augustine, who put his contemplation on the end of times into the mouth of a pagan prophetess from Graeco-Roman mythology. Música Temprana's interpretation revives religious practices in 15th-century Cuenca. Altogether, the works performed on this album underline the strong melancholic connections between worldly and religious Spanish musical traditions around 1500, a period full of change and conflict, during which Christian Europe feared the hypothetical end of the world. The extraordinary beauty of these austere works offers solace for our troubled times as well.

Morten Haxholm is ready to his sixth album. It is an album that once again sees him joining forces with US jazz stars Jonathan Kreisberg (guitar) and Ari Hoenig (trumpet), as he did on his first and second albums - Equilibrium and Quintessence of Dust. This time he is also joined by Frederick Menzie (sax) and Nikolaj Hess. Morten Haxholm is an upcoming Danish bass player, but he has already established himself on the Danish and international jazz scene. He graduated in 2013 from the prestigious InchsoloistInch education at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, and with four albums in his own name and several tours with his own bands in Denmark, he has emerged on the music scene as a new composer and bass player to be reckoned with.