Walter Weller - Burleske / Ein Heldenleben - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Walter Weller - Orchestral Works [COMPACT DISCS] Digipack Packaging date 03/11/2008

One of the most amazing musicians to sit behind an electric organ in the history of Jazz, Jimmy Smith is internationally recognized as an organist of immense stature. Like such innovators before him as Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker, he is considered the fountainhead from which all Jazz organ tributaries flow. Presented here are the historic first recordings of the organ genius leading his own combo, recorded between 1953 and early 1955. At this point in time Jimmy Smith was a full-fledged member of the Sonotones, led by vocalist Don Gardner who was something of a fixture around the local Philly music scene. Gardner was a singing drummer that supported Smith's organ-bass as the metronomic foundation, with saxophonist Al Cass rounding out the trio. All selections newly remastered.

To unfold a seemingly simple form into an intricate structure The fan epitomizes the transformation from simple to complex. Transitions from clearly defined forms to figures of great heterogeneity are fundamentally inscribed into the two compositions on this album. In Caspar Johannes Walters Inchmetrische DissonanzenInch the solo percussionist and the ensemble transform harmonic relations into rhythmical processes, fanning out a vast sound universe. And in InchSchwankende ZeitInch (Swaying Time) Isabel Mundry relates two adaptions of pieces by Louis Couperin to three new pieces of hers and thus creates with numerous musical and extramusical stimuli a network of references and allusions, of nearness and remoteness. The artwork of the album shows Gerhard Richter's InchAbstraktes BildInch from 1962, commenting in an artistic manner on the thematic concentration of the program from the highlights of the InchMusikfabrik i'm WDRInch series. Richter, one of the most important living German artists, has been a member of the board of trustees of the Ensemble Musikfabrik since 2009.