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.

Listen to a podcast of this show
or right-click to download

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.

Arve Hendriksen, Mitsuko Uchida, Ravi Shankar & Philip Glass, Leonard Cohen, Herbie Hancock: playlist for The Open Window September 14, 2009

The Open Window airs at 6:30 am Mondays and 10:00 am Thursdays at www.cjly.net.

You can download a podcast of this show here: http://cjlypodcast.net/openwindow/openwindow_sept14_2009.mp3

Arve Henriksen: From Birth and Before and Afterlife from Cartography (ECM)

This group consists of Arve Hendriksen's trumpet and a bunch of programmers and samplers plus the odd guitar or bass or drum kit. The trumpet often does not sound like a trumpet-- mostly it moves imperceptibly back and forth between the sounds of trumpet and Japanese flute. These pieces are moody shape-shifting tableaux led by a trumpet, reminiscent of but neither as funky as nor as transcendent (sorry) as Jon Hassell's music which I have played recently here.

Mozart, Sonata in A, Mitsuko Uchida, piano, from Mozart Sonatas (Philips)

A girl is born in Japan in 1948. She is fascinated by European classical music and especially Mozart, and she starts piano lessons. Her father is appointed Japanese ambassador to Austria, so the family moves to Vienna which just happens to be the place Mozart composed many of his masterworks. She studies, and performs her first concert at age 14. The family moves back to Japan after five years but she stays. Since then Mitsuko Uchida has become known as the "high priestess of Mozart." I felt honoured to bring this music to you.

Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar: Offering from Passages (Private Music)
This is a piece of orchestral music based on a Ravi Shankar raga, with no sitar in sight, from one of the most successful collaborations between unlikely musicians that I have ever heard.

Herbie Hancock and Leonard Cohen: The Jungle Line from River: The Joni Letters (Verve)

This Joni Mitchell song was on her album The Hissing of Summer Lawns from the 1970s.

So: Joni Mitchell, lyrics; Leonard Cohen, vocals; Herbie Hancock, piano. What a team!

Catherine Potter, Hilliard Ensemble and Garbarek, Zakir Hussain, Mitsuko Uchida: Playlist for The Open Window for June 29, 2009

The Open Window airs at www.cjly.net (Kootenay Co-op Radio) on Sundays at 10 am and Mondays at 6:30 am.

Catherine Potter: Gori, Kutila and Vol Blanc from Duniya Project

Catherine Potter is a Canadian player of the bansuri, or Indian bamboo flute. She has studied under Hariprasad Chaurasia, who is perhaps the most celebrated Indian player of that instrument. This music is somewhere between jazz and Indian classical bansuri music, and is true enough to both to probably please non-purist fans of either (like me). Subir Debv, tabla; Lubo Alexandrov, guitars; Nicolas Caloia, bass; Thom Gossage, drums; Anjana Srinivasan, violin.

Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek: O Salutaris Hosta, Procedenem Sponsem, and Pulcherrima Rosa from Officium (ECM)

Released in 1994, this gets my vote for one of the most innovative recordings ever. Take a British quartet of singers of early music, combine them with an improvising jazz saxophonist, record them in Austria's Monastery of St. Gerold known for its otherwordly acoustics, ask them to perform music from the 12th to the 16th century much of it so old the author is listed as anonymous, and you get this stunning work of art.

But it is not just any jazz saxophonist. Jan Garbarek of Norway has built a career out of daring collaborations all over the world.


Zakir Hussain: Making Music from Making Music (ECM)

On this piece, Hariprasad Chaurasia on bansuri (see Catherine Potter above) and Jan Garbarek play together, along with Zakir Hussain on tablas and John McLaughlin on guitar. Hussain and McLaughlin were central to the celebrated Indian-jazz crossover group Shakti 25 or more years ago: these guys have been crossing west-east borders for a long time now, wonderfully. Garbarek's soprano saxophone fits the music perfectly, but the tenor does not, in my opinion, because it is recorded too loudly and played too bluntly. The Indian flute of Chaurasia is sublime.

Mozart: Fantasy in D Minor; Mitsuko Uchida-- Mozart: Two Sonatas (Philips)

A celebrated performer of Mozart with a short piece as lovely as the sunny summer early morning on which I played it....