Anouar Brahem, The Gryphon Trio, and Lou Harrison: Playlist for The Open Window for December 14 and 17, 2009

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

Listen to a podcast of this show

Lou Harrison: Bell Bowls from La Koro Sutro (New Albion)

Lou Harrison was a 20th century American composer with a passion for the gamelan music of Java and Bali, and he incorporated many of those sounds and textures into his music. I opened the show with this percussion piece played by William Wynant.




Anouar Brahem: The Lover of Beirut, Dance with Waves, Stopover at Djibouti, and The Astounding Eyes of Rita, from The Astounding Eyes of Rita (ECM )

Anouar Brahem is a celebrated player of Arabic classical music in his home country of Tunisia, and a tireless experimenter and collaborator to the point where it is often hard to say where North Africa leaves off and Europe begins in this spare, dignified, detailed music. For the past few decades he has divided his time between Tunisia and France and played, composed, taught... and worked with all manner of musicians as well as poets and dancers.

Think about the instruments in this quartet: oud, bass clarinet, bass, bendir and darbouka (those are North African hand drums). The result is elegant, exotic, low-toned, and full of feeling for deserts and cities.

The album is titled after a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, a revered poet of Palestine who died last year (photo to the right, just below). Here is the poem:

Between Rita and my eyes
There is a rifle
And whoever knows Rita
Kneels and plays
To the divinity in those honey-colored eyes

And I kissed Rita
When she was young
And I remember how she approached
And how my arm covered the loveliest of braids
And I remember Rita
The way a sparrow remembers its stream
Ah, Rita
Between us there are a million sparrows and images
And many rendevous
Fired at by a rifle

Rita's name was a feast in my mouth
Rita's body was a wedding in my blood
And I was lost in Rita for two years
And for two years she slept on my arm
And we made promises
Over the most beautiful of cups
And we burned in the wine of our lips
And we were born again

Ah, Rita!
What before this rifle could have turned my eyes from yours
Except a nap or two or honey-colored clouds?
Once upon a time
Oh, the silence of dusk
In the morning my moon migrated to a far place
Towards those honey-colored eyes
And the city swept away all the singers
And Rita

Between Rita and my eyes
A rifle

Mozart: Trio in G movements 1 and 2 (performed by the Gryphon 
Trio) from Mozart Trios (Analekta)

Toronto's Gryphon Trio is Annalee Patipatanakoon (violin), Roman Borys (cello), and Jamie Parker (piano).

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....

Saluzzi, Lechner, bandoneon, cello, Mozart, flute, harp: Playlist for The Open Window May 25, 2009

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

Dino Saluzzi and Anja Lechner: Tango a mi Padre, Minguito, and Carretas from Ojos Negros (ECM)

"Visitors to Saluzzi's rich landscape of memories, emotions, colours, and atmospheres are warmly welcomed-- on the understanding that
not all secrets will be revealed instantly. So: slow down, take your time, listen....the Saluzzi bandoneon has sung its stories everywhere. It has been heard in the mountain villages and the big city, in the concert hall and the bar, in the church and the bordello, at chamber music recitals, jazz festivals, dances...He has worked with tango players folk musicians, jazz improvisers, classical musicians...." from the excellent and extensive notes by Steve Lake.

Saluzzi plays the bandoneon, the concertina-like centre of tango music, but the music is not exactly tango. It's an undefinable and subtle emotional meditation, rubato but with a pulse always there somewhere. He is joined by the cellist Anja Lechner and their collaboration is as inspired as the beautiful photos of them in the CD booklet.

Mozart: Concerto for Flute and Harp-- Jean-Pierre Rampal, Lily Laskine, and the Jean-Francois Paillard Chamber Orchestra (Erato)

When Mozart wrote this at the age of 22 in the early 1700s, music for harp and orchestra was unheard of. In the 19th century, music for flute and harp became quite common. So Mozart started something with this lovely piece.

Tin Hat, Blind Paper Dragon, Sad Machinery of Spring: Playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast, March 30, 2009

Broadcast at www.cjly.net Monday mornings at 6:30

Tin Hat: Old World, Blind Paper Dragon, Dionysus, The Book, and The Comet from The Sad Machinery of Spring (Hannibal)

Here's the astounding list of personnal and instruments on this CD: Ara Anderson: trumpet, baritone horn, piano, pump organ, toy piano, celeste; Mark Orton: guitar, dobro, piano, banjo, pump organ, autoharp, bass drum, bass harmonica, marxophone; Ben Goldberg: b-flat clarinet, alto clarinet, contra-alto clarinet; Carla Kihlstedt, violin, viola, trumpet violin, voice, piano, celeste, bowed vibes, bass harmonica,ukelin, bul-bul tarang; Zeena Parkins, harp.

Marxophone? Ukelin? Google them for some interesting reading. And what do they do with all that paraphernalia? They play lovely and uncategorizable "chamber music for the 21st century" much of which sounds mysterioiusly and pleasantly familiar, although at the same time I know I have never heard anything quite like it. I think music writers' lengthy descriptors for cross-genre music are getting a bit dull because everybody knows you can meld any two or more kinds of music these days, but I will accept this one describing Tin Hat: "...interweaving Old World Europe with post-modern America, south-of-the-border sensuality with concert-hall propriety, and odd-metered syncopation with deeply soulful grooves" (The New York Press, from the Tin Hat website).


Gryphon Trio: Trio in C Major, from Mozart Piano Trios (Analekta)

The Gryphon Trio is based in Toronto and they do a lot more than play the standard classical repertoire: they won a Juno in 2004 for a recording of music by contemporary Canadian composers, they tend to seen playing jazz clubs, they have made a recording of tango music, they are artists in residence at the University of Toronto's music faculty, and they have tried their hands at multimedia production. They are Annalee Patipatanakoon, violin; Jamie Parker, piano; Roman Borys, cello.
http://www.gryphontrio.com/

Feeling the Music At You: Playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast March 23, 2009

www.cjly.net at 6:30 am PDT

Oliver Schroer: Santiago Street Sounds, In Memory of Friends Past, Cowbarn Bells, and Forest Walkby from Camino (Big Dog)

Canadian violinist Oliver Schroer said his music consists of "prayers, incantations, whimsies, melismas, mysteriosos, fractal reels, forest blues, blessings." There is a lot of celtic influence in his music, but it is really quite uncategorizable. He took a recording studio in his backpack when he walked the El Camino pilgrimage trail in Spain and recorded himself playing solo violin in churches along the way. He also recorded church bells, people walking and talking, sheep and goats, and other sounds. In the last years of his life Oliver Schroer lived in Smithers, B.C. He died of leukemia in 2008.You can watch him playing beautifully at his farewell concert.

Lang Lang: Piano Sonata in C Major (Mozart) from Memory (Deutsche Grammophon)

The classical music blogger Alex Ross writes: "In the classical-music world of ten or fifteen years ago, you heard intermittent murmurs of unease about the number of Asian performers who were showing up on the rolls of conservatories, in the ranks of orchestras, and on concert stages. The oft-repeated criticism was that these players showed great technical dexterity but lacked the mysteries of “depth” and “soul.” Such talk had an unsavory taste; Wagner used to say the same thing about musical Jews. In any case, the muttering has died down. When Yo-Yo Ma entrances audiences through the force of his personality, when Mitsuko Uchida delves deeper into Mozart and Schubert than almost any pianist alive, and when the virtuosos Lang Lang and Yundi Li conquer crowds with youthful bravado, notions of an “Asian type” can be filed away in the archive of dumb generalizations. The huge popularity of classical music in the Far East, and particularly in China, has created a talent pool a billion deep, from which a disarmingly varied group of musicians is emerging.

"Listening to Lang Lang, I think of the absurdist pundit Stephen Colbert, who promises not to read the news to his viewers but to feel the news at them. Lang Lang feels the music at you, in ways both good and bad. He advertises his love of performing simply by the way he charges onstage, and he creates a giddy atmosphere as he negotiates hairpin turns at high speed...."

Wendy Sutter: Tissues 1, 2, 3, and 4 from Philip Glass: Poems and Songs for Solo Cello (Orange Mountain Music)

See previous post. I had to play more of this.

A Cuban Odyssey, a Chant from a Holy Book, a Mozart Horn: Playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast, February 9, 2009

www.cjly.net, Mondays at 6:30 am PST

Grupo Vocal Desandann: Nan Fwon Bwaa, Alabans, and Prizon, from Jane Bunnett: Cuban Odyssey (EMI)

This 10-voice a cappella group from rural Cuba makes music unlike anything I have ever heard from Cuba or anywhere else. They are the descendants of Haitian slaves and they sing not in Spanish or Yoroba but in a patois. Somehow their sound is both brightly innocent and solemn. These three tracks (unfortunately their only available recordings that I am aware of) are from an otherwise quite different CD by Jane Bunnett, as part of her continuing exploration of Cuban music.

Anja Lechner and Vassilis Tsabropoulos: Chant from a Holy Book, Bayaty, Prayer, and Duduki, from Chants, Hymns, and Dances (ECM)

The "unknowable" Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, as one of his students called him, was a unique spiritual teacher who founded the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France in the 1920s. His spiritual practices were gleaned from many world religions and from his own ideas, and they included a set of dance movements to be performed to music composed by Gurdjieff and performed by his friend the pianist Thomas DeHartmann as part of a journey to higher consciousness.

The cellist Anja Lechner and pianist Vassilis Tsabropoulos, on this 2001 CD, have interpreted Gurjieff's music quite freely, and for me these performances do convey the contemplative aims of their composer, but they are also emotionally rich. Who knows whether the eccentric and very particular Gurdjieff would have approved.

Hermann Baumann and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Pinchas Zukerman: Horn Concerto No. 3, from Mozart Horn Concertos (Philips)

I love music from the baroque and classical periods written for solo wind instruments with orchestral accompaniment. The International Horn Society says we should call it the horn, not the French Horn. By whatever name, it is a lovely and mysterious instrument and famously difficult to play. Thanks to Mozart for several horn concertos, all gems.

Gryphon, Shakti, Bayrakdarian: playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast January 19, 2008

www.kootenaycoopradio.com, Mondays at 6:30 am PST

1. Gryphon Trio: Trio in C Minor K. 548 from Mozart, the Complete Piano Trios (Analekta)

"The gryphon, a Greek mythological creature that was the guardian of treasure and symbolized the joining of cosmic energy and psychic force, reflects the group's interest in many genres of music" (from the liner notes). The Toronto-based Gryphon Trio plays contemporary and classical works. http://www.gryphontrio.com/

2. Remember Shakti: Bell' Aria from Saturday Night in Bombay (Verve)

Remember Shakti is a group of Indian musicians led by tabla player Zakir Hussain and British guitarist John McLaughlin. In the early 1970's they formed the acoustic group Shakti and pioneered a fusion of jazz and Indian classical music. John McLaughlin, in the years before that, was a member of the Miles Davis bands that made the shocking Bitches Brew and the sublime In a Silent Way. Shakti broke up in the 1980's. McLaughlin and Hussain have worked creatively together and apart ever since to acquaint western and Indian music with each other. In fact they are among the founders of what we call "world music."

The group Remember Shakti was formed in 1997 with some of the original players and some new ones including the respected elder Hariprasad Chaurasia on flute. Here is a video of a small version of the group: .http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=qyCH70FODJA

3. Isabel Bayrakdarian : Spring, Mount Alakyaz, Striding Beaming, and Lullaby, from Gomidas Songs (Nonesuch)

Gomidas Vartabed (1869-1935) is known as the father of Armenian classical music. He was a survivor of the Armenian genocide of 1915, and in an attempt to save Armenian musical culture he took songs and dances of the Armenian peasantry and recreated them in a European classical format. The singer Isabel Bayrakdarian is an Armenian-Canadian who, in addition to being an up-and-coming opera star, holds a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Toronto and was featured on the movie soundtrack for “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” and Atom Egoyan's "Ararat." For a stunning cultural experience watch her perform one of the songs from this CD, accompanied by four players of the duduk (an Armenian woodwind instrument of ancient origins), outdoors in an ancient ruin in Armenia, at http://tinyurl.com/9q7s2w.