Today's Playlist

[pedal]

Played some good music on your XX today?
-If you want to share your experience with the rest of the Phasure forum, you can do it here!

[ed linssen]

Pedal, a really welcome invitatition!
Thank you....

[pedal]

Bob James Trio/Straight Up.
Today I had a first encounter with The Bob James Trio. There are probably more jazz trio recordings than chess moves, but never the less this format never stops to satisfy my music appetite. There is something “magic” going on when talented jazz musicians succeed with their interplay, and this album is a gem. Straight Up is timeless, modern jazz at its best. To be played again and again.

Pinao: Bob James
Bass: Christian McBride
Drums: Brian Blade

Recorded in 1996, the sound is stellar. -A transparent “alive in studio” recording, with very realistic treble. -Lots of “real” attack and energy on the cymbals.  

The Dynamic Range is pretty good: DR13

Highly recommended! (Well, probably you already own it. I am maybe the last one to discover it…)

[boleary]

Hey Pedal this is a great idea. I just ordered your suggestion: $5 on Amazon! Have you heard Paul's "find": "The Gifted Ones" ( http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1872.0)? It's recorded as well as Waltzing for Debbie (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1753.0 ) and has the best recorded trumpet I've heard. (If we could get Peter to give it a listen, he might change his opinion about horns.  )
Can't think of a better way to find good music than folks here sharing what they are "currently" listening to.

Well, here's some Americana female harmony that I play at least one track from almost every day: 40 Days by the Wailin' Jenny's. They have two other cd's that are also very good (Firecracker and Bright Morning Stars)

One more but its classical: Bach: A Strange Beauty. Its recorded very, very well and makes, for me, Bach's Harpsichord music accessible cause its transcribed for piano. Its really mind blowing.

[boleary]

I have a 24/96 version and I just received the SACD, which sounds MUCH better. If you want to give your system a full workout (track 3 is my favorite) you've gotta hear this: Crown Imperial by the Dallas Wind Symphony.

[listening]

Two impressing red book records for the friends of drums and related instruments :-)

Regards,
Georg

[boleary]

When I took my mother-in-law back to D.C. after the holiday, she insisted I take her Sony 400 disc cd player, full of cd's, back to Philly so I could "record" them all. Among the many jewels I've found is this 1956 recording-- Jazz vocalist Anita O'Day's first Verve recording: This Is Anita. Incredible voice--incredible recording.

[listening]

I brought this one with me from my last flea market visit. I'm collecting for years medieval music but this Suisse live Radio recording is without any limitations and refreshing unperfect at the same time - directed by Rene Clemencic.

[mowa]

Are there any more classical music lovers..??

Bob James Trio/Straight Up.

Highly recommended! (Well, probably you already own it. I am maybe the last one to discover it…)

                                          +

One more but its classical: Bach: A Strange Beauty. Its recorded very, very well and makes, for me, Bach's Harpsichord music accessible cause its transcribed for piano. Its

really mind blowing.

I'm afraid i have this love hate reaction with Simone Dinnerstein's Bach.
A couple of years ago i heard her interpretation of the Goldberg variations. What struck me most is the sound of her 1903 Hamburg Steinway model D concert grand.
The sound of this beautiful instrument is less "hammering" than today's Steinway.
Her aproach to Bach is (over?) Romantic for me living with Bach the last 30 years. Bach is on my daily diet.
A Strange Beauty says it all for me. Her playing strange and beautifull together. Stylistically incorrect, sloppy trills and other ornaments but als a sense of beauty and tenderness of heart.
Unforunately the recording is not that well. The piano is fuzzy and the Bass is to prominent like the double bass has a separate mic. You can hear the strings vibrating. The violins etc. sounding thin. Very regrettable while they play very well.

I can hear she loves Bach but she is not entirely convincing. The recordings with Perahia, Schiff, Hewitt in the Goldberg variations i hear a herculean achievement, an 80-minute journey through a dramatically changing succession of musical landscapes. Dinnerstein remains disappointingly earthbound while the others severd all earthy ties.
I own both Perahia,Schiff and Hewitt's interpretations of the keyboard concertos. Please listen to one of them compared to Dinnerstein.

Last year i bought the cd with some of the concertos played by Alexandre Tharaud. Well....thats recorded very,very well..!!! Tharaud playing a Yamaha grand wich is beautifully merged with the strings. For example in the concerto BWV1052 in the Largo Dinnerstein spoyling the magic of the emerging piano by playing with the orchestra. When Tharaud deploys a shiffering is going down my spine. A must have...!!!!
Although Dinnerstein is not entirely convincing but a nice addition to a collection anyhow.

Dinnersteins ear-catching playing i hear on the Straight-ahead/Mainstream Bob James trio also. Indeed a startling recording. The last trio cd "Take it from the Top" is also that great recorded and played. You know the Fourplay reconding's. If you like the trio you like Fourplay.


My todays playlist:
I ordered the new cd with Brahms 1st pianoconcerto with Pollini and Thielemann. In order to prepare to a new recording i always listen to others.
Tonight i'll probably listen to Zimmerman,Rattle with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Maybe the Berliners playing to beautifull. I don't know. But there are few recordings wehre

an orchestra embracing the piano that beautifull, with tender and care as the Berliner do.

Next a recording of the 2 clarinet sonatas & trio by Martin Fröst in preparing of the soon to arrive cd with the same works played by Sharon Kam.
These probably last written music by brahms is hauntingly beautifull. As all what Brahms left to us they're masterpieces. I hope Fröst will soon record the greatest masterpiece off all Brahms's chambermusic and even chambermusic in general (with the String quintet of Schubert)....the clarinet quintet. (Ok maybe a little exaggerated)

After a break i'll play the 4th symphony of Anton Bruckner by the Concertgebouw Orchestra led by Mariss jansons. Also awaiting the new recording by Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra. Haitinks interpretations evolved dramatically over the last 40 years of playing Bruckner. I already heard it on the radio. How free are the solos.  Haitink unleashes the soloists as never heard in compare to others. The finale is the true apotheosis. From what i've heard over the radio probably one of the best recording from that "difficult" Barbican Hall.
The Concertgebouw Orchestra is definitely the better Orchestra and also acoustic. The recording by Jansons perfectly captures the warm golden sound with shining strings and bronze Brass.

[boleary]

Yo MOWA, thanks for your considerable insights. Will give your picks a listen and, hopefully, will continue my growing appreciation of classical.

I guess it's Dinnerstein's sense of beauty and tenderness of heart that so grabs me.

[mowa]

Currently I have a stack of brand new CDs that I did not come through because I am captivated by two new ones for the last two weeks.

Berg/Beethoven violin concertos by Isabelle Faust and Claudio Abbado.
The coupling of the Berg/Beethoven is very rare but it works very well. The contrasts between the two are enormous. Berg wrote his violin concerto (Dem Andenken eines Engels) as a requiem for the daughter of Alma Mahler (Gustav Mahler's ex) and Walther Gropius. Berg loved the young girl as his own daughter. Berg didn't know at the time that this violin concerto would be his last work en maybe become his own requiem.
Berg throws you in wistful sorrow and a poetic remembrance of loss, of things past, pain and shock. The Beethoven concerto relieves you from the pain. Faust recorded the Beethoven concerto in 2007 coupled with the Kreuzer sonata. That recording has all the quality and beauty to listen over and over again. Now i hear Faust has grown her interpretation and enriched her playing with a inner glow. The inspiring collaboration between Isabelle Faust and Claudio Abbado with his hand picked Orchestra Mozart is a wonderful miracle. The sound of this recording even more so. The violin is beatifully merged in the orchestra as Faust did in her Brahms violin concerto. She is not the violin babe with the tight dress on the cover of her cd's. No, she is the real musician with expressive range and emotional intensity.
Is this the best Berg or Beethoven on disc? I don't know. Berg is played with more grandeur by Perlman or Anne-Sophie Mutter. There are hundreds of cd's with the Beethoven concerto so it's impossible to say what's best. And who am i to say what is? Last couple of years there are some beautifull performances on disc. For example the one by the Dutch Lisa Ferschtman and the hystorically informed Jan Willem De Vriend. Both Ferschtman and Orchestra playing on gut strings. The concerto for me sounding like i heard it for the first time. And i can't live without Wolfgang Schneiderhan nor Arthur Grumiaux. Both 40 year old recordings but both violinists give their violin a soul. I still don't have them on cd but on gramophone. But Faust has this purity, this honesty i like.

An even great miracle is the new Bruckner symphony No.4 from Bernard Haitink and the London symphony Orchestra i mentioned in the post above. I play it daily. Its beautifull, definitive, heartbreaking, etc. I hear the end apotheosis already hidden in the beginning where the horn play the opening theme.
Why is this disc so beautifull? For one thing Haitink has lived and grown his insight in Bruckner for the last 40 years. His first recording in 1965 is still a touching, lively and excellent recording. The tidal movement in the new recording overwhelms at the tuttis. Haitink is the architect of a mighty cathedral. The LSO play as they never play before. They give everything they have; Tenderness when need like in the adagio and the climax of the first movement and the bursts of brass are shattering.
And i didn’t really hear this freedom the soloists have before in any other performance.
Both Haitink and LSO play not just. But there is an Urge, a need to do not any music but this particular music. Right now there is nothing else what matters, only this music matters.
I dare to say; for me this is the best Bruckner 4 available.
Although the recording is not perfect. Maybe because of the bad acoustic of the Barbican Hall. It sounds somewhat dry and flat as many LSO Barbican recordings seem to be.
I have to say the LSO is one of the best and world class orchestra but not in the league of the concertgebouw orchestra, Berliner/Wiener Philharmoniker or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Despite the minor flaws this recording is so good that I’ll take it to the desert island.

Tomorrow I start some new CDs....Did i say Maybe..?? 

[PeterSt]

... now I feel like playing Zappa tonight ...
haha

Great read, your story. I will try to do one or two myself. More people should maybe.

Thanks,
Peter

[AlainGr]

Just recently downloaded Black Sabbath "Master of Reality" from Qobuz, the one from Sanctuary Records.

I have the Warner Brothers version (not good, too much bass), the "Deluxe version" (from Sanctuary, but could be labelled as Noise Records also - remastered in 2009 - fair).

But the straight version from Sanctuary Records brought back to me the sound I heard the first time I listened to this record. It was in the seventies... In the "Sweet Leaf" song, there is a very present "buzz" that comes from the guitar and it is really striking...

Sorry if that is not in line with the selections I see here, but I thought it could be interesting for those who like this kind of music (I know I do)

Alain

[AlainGr]

...Since I see that there are 3 versions of "Master of Reality" (Black Sabbath) on Qobuz website, I thought it would make more sense to put the link (just in case):

http://www.qobuz.com/album/master-of-reality-black-sabbath/0505074920332?qref=sre_1_14

If you listen to "Sweet Leaf" (where that "buzz" is very present) and compare with the 2 other versions, you will hear what I mean

Alain

[juanpmar]

A good album to test how your system reproduces the bass notes. The bass is specially musical, not just deep but also rich. In general a great album with very good harmonics, the piano and drums are very well recorded. Fantastic rhythm and dynamics, excellent music all around. Of course this is Bach but played in a way that it seems a totally diferent work.
http://www.amazon.com/Jacques-Loussier-Plays-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B000003D5Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330863300&sr=8-3-fkmr0