Glen Velez, Paul Winter, Arvo Part, Mozart: Playlist for The Open Window for December 7, 2009

The Open Window airs Monday mornings at 6:30 and Thursdays at 10 am at www.cjly.net (Kootenay Cooperative Radio in Nelson, B.C.) sponsored by Sidewinders Coffee.

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Glen Velez: Webs from Rhythms of the Chakras (Sounds True)

Glen Velez is a Mexican-American percussionist who specializes in frame drums. On this album he plays the bodhran and the North African bendir, adding small percussion and the occasional voice and strings. I saw him live once and he related to the audience so beautifully-- he educated and inspired us. This CD has seven pieces, each corresponding with each chakra or centre of energy in the body. Glen Velez is one of the percussionists on the CD by Paul Winter, below.

Paul Winter: various tracks from Prayer for the Wild Things (Living Music)
I usually would not play Paul Winter on my show because he is too new age/ smooth jazz for me, but this CD is an exception. It features a 12-piece band (with interesting wind instruments like the heckelphone and contra-bass clarinet) along with the recorded sounds of 24 birds and animals from the Rocky Mountains. Also, Arlie Nesahi and the White Eagle Singers are on a couple of tracks.

Many of the songs are dedicated to, and evoke, specific animals. Grizzly Bear Cubs features the cello of Eugene Friesen, and Moose Walk is soloed by the contra-bass clarinet of Dennis Smylie.

There are bird sounds-- song birds and large migratory birds-- throughout the CD, within the music, and it does evoke the mountains for me, makes the air feel fresher.

Arvo Part: Spiegel Im Spiegel (Alexei Lubimov, piano and Kyrill Rybakov, clarinet) from Misterioso (ECM)

To continue with this CD introduced last week (see previous post), a duet piece for clarinet and piano-- stately, meditative, and perfect.


Mitsuko Uchida: Fantasia in D Minor from Mozart Sonatas (Philips)

This is one of my favourite records from the vinyl collection at the station. The longer sonatas are beautiful but this small piece fits in anywhere and enobles the whole show.

Kronos Quartet and Bon Iver: Playlist for The Open Window for November 16, 2009

The Open Window airs at www.cjly.net (Kootenay Co-op Radio) on Mondays at 6am and Thursdays at 10 am pst.

Listen to a podcast of this show here.

Like all my shows this one is an experiment in juxtaposition or in the denial of genre, and the neighbouring of directions in this one is particulary (I hope) striking. The show moves back and forth between these two CDs:

Kronos Quartet: various tracks from Early Music (Nonesuch)

"Early music" normally refers to European music from Medieval times, before Baroque etc. Some of that music is from that period-- for example there is a piece here by Hildegard von Bingen from the 11th century. But there is also music from modern composers like John Cage, Arvo Part, and Harry Partch. Despite this huge span of time and culture, the music somehow mysteriously works as a unified program. It's therefore the perfect CD for this show, as perfect as Kronos itself which has made a career of virtuosic and refreshing performance of music from everywhere (string quartet versions of Monk, Hendrix, Africa, Bollywood, tango, as well as lots of 20th century composers), and which may be the most often-played group on this show. So I decided to try to expand the range of Early Music even further by interspersing its music with:

Bon Hiver: For Emma, Stacks, Blindsided, Skinny Love, and Lump Sum from For Emma, Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar)

It's hard to explain the beauty of this CD mainly because I don't know what to liken it to or compare it with. The songwriter-musician Justin Vernon decided to hibernate for a winter in his father's cabin the the Wisconsin forest and came out with this self-produced album of songs on which he plays and sings all parts, under the name Bon Iver. It has a gentle, raw feeling and some beautiful harmonies that are rough and elusive but that's their charm. I like to think it works with Kronos. What do you think?

Arvo Part, Dave Holland, Beyond the Pale: Playlist for The Open Window for October 19, 2009

The open window airs at www.cjly.net (Kootenay Co-op Radio) at 6:30 am Mondays and 10 am Thursdays.

Arvo Pärt: Da Pacem Domine, Mein Weg, and Fur Lennart in Memoriam; Estonian National Chamber Choir and Talinn Chamber Orchestra conducted by Tonu Kaljuste from In Principio (ECM)

"I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear. This prism could be the spirit of the listener."-- Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt (1935- ) has made ancient music relevant to modern times and has given certain 20th century minimalist sounds an ancient flavour and to that I say bravo. This is a new CD and beautiful.

Dave Holland: Candlelight Vigil, Jugglers Parade, and Down Time, from Prime Directive (ECM)

This is one of my favourite jazz albums. The ability of Dave Holland (bass), Chris Potter (saxophones), Robin Eubanks (trombone), Steve Nelson (vibes and marimba), and Billy Kilson (drums) to play separately yet together in inspiring and intricate and fresh ways seems infinite. When Dave Holland was a young man in the 1960's Miles Davis heard him in Ronny Scott's in London (Holland is British) and invited him to play with him immediately. So he is the bass player on groundbreaking work of Miles' including Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way. Now he's a respected elder and leader of a group of people half his age and they pretty much define jazz in the early part of this century.

Beyond the Pale: Split Decision, Doina, and Meditation from Postcards (Borealis)

Boundary-busting Euro-folk fusion someone called it—klezmer, Balkan, Romanian styles with North American influences. I like the meditative ones better than the burners, but it's all great.

Bells, a Bird, and a Five-Year-Old Dancer-- Playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast for January 16, 2009

http://www.cjly.net/-- Mondays at 6:30am PST

The Hilliard Ensemble, the Talinn Chamber Orchestra, and the Estonian Philharomonic Chamber Choir under the direction of Tonu Kaljust: Litany, from Arvo Part, Litany (ECM)

"I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements-- with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials-- with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells....."

Those are the words of Estonian composer Arvo Part. Litany was composed in the early 1990s and this CD was recorded in 1996.

Paul Reddick: Morning Bell and Wishing Song from Sugarbird (Northern Blues)

When I played this on the air, I got a phone call. "Who's the accordion player?" Well, the accordion player is Garth Hudson, one of the members of The Band back in the old days. The guitarist and producer of the CD is Colin Linden.

This CD has some beautiful liner notes by Koko Bonaparte, starting with: "The songs of Sugarbird sit on the edge of the shade and flirt with the light. Light from the sun and from the mind moves across the face of these songs...." and there is more.

Paul Reddick is a Canadian songwriter, blues singer, and harmonica player. His music seems to be coming to us from some earlier time, but at the same time he is not retro, not a throwback-- he is bringing us new music, right now. Reddick is a fantastic man to watch in live performance. I have seen him twice-- once in the old hotel the name of which I have forgotten that used to be where Charlotte's used to be, in Nelson; and a couple of years ago at the Kaslo Jazz Fest. He has a way of relating to the audience and his musicians (gestures, looks, comments) that is very cool and quite indescribable. Go see him if you can.


Maria Schneider Orchestra: Aires de Lando from Sky Blue (ArtistShare)

Maria Schneider is getting famous lately for her finely crafted compositions and arrangements for large jazz bands. Her style is her own but also reminiscent of one of her mentors, Gil Evans. In the notes to the CD she writes of a trip to Peru where she "...experienced a whole new kind of music...I'd witnessed an entire audience clapping to a kind of music called lando-- music felt in polyrhythmic patterns of 12/8 over 6/4. Though lando felt plain as day like 6/4 to me, I quickly got a big lesson in musical perspective when I saw a small 5-year-old child get up, dancing and clapping in a sinuous 12/8...."

This piece has fascinating and subtle rhythmic shifts, and lovely clarinet work by Scott Robinson.

ArtistShare is not really a record label, it's an artist cooperative with some innovative approaches to marketing and getting the music into our hands and ears-- one more interesting alternative to business as usual at the recording companies.