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.

Boieldieu, Doug Cox, Salil Bhatt, Swing Era: Playlist for the Open Window for May 18, 2009

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

Doug Cox and Salil Bhatt: Blessings from Slide to Freedom (Northern Blues)

The blues and Indian music from Vancouver Island's resonator lap guitar guy Doug Cox. The cross genre improvisations are great; the covers of blues tunes so-so.

Boieldieu: Concerto for Harp--Paul Keuntz Chamber Orchestra of Paris; Marie-Claire Jamet, harp, from Boieldieu: Harp and Piano Concertos

Francois-Adrien Boieldieu (1775-1834)was an opera composer I had never heard of. This lovely concerto awakens me to the delicacy precision that is possible on the harp.

Erskine Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Carter, Gene Krupa, various pieces from The Swing Era: 1944-45 (Time-Life)

Swing bands from the time of my parents' youth.

Shankar & Ali Akbar Khan, Szeryng Plays Bach: Playlist for The Open Window, May 4, 2009

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

Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan: Hem Bihag, from In Concert 1972 (Apple)

Henryk Szeryng: Partita #2 in D Minor, from Bach: The Unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas

Shakuhachi, Zen, Ellington, Kokopelli, Fasch: Playlist for The Open Window for April 27, 2009

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

Katsuya Yokokama: Tamuke and Honshirabe from Zen: Katsuya Yokoyama Plays Classical Shakuhachi Masterworks (Spectrum)

This solo shakuhachi music is genuinely meditative, not fake meditative like most of the new age music played in yoga classes these days.

The album notes say that this is "religious music which does not aim at variation or development but expresses repose, a sense of nature....."

In the moment, as they say, and surprising at every turn.

Duke Ellington: Bluebird of Delhi, Depk, Mount Harissa, and Amad from Far East Suite (Bluebird)

The Ellington orchestra toured the Middle East and Asia sponsored by the U.S. State Department in 1963. The trip was cut short by the news of the assassination of President Kennedy. "World music" was unheard of in those days. No one in North America save a few scholars was familiar with anything but Western music.

"The tour was a great adventure for us on what is indeed the other side of the world," Ellington wrote in the album notes. "Sometimes I felt it was this world upside down. The look of the natural country is so unlike ours and the very contours of the earth seem to be different. The smell, the vastness, the birds, and the exotic beauty of all these countries make a great inspiration."

"I hope much will go into this music," he continued, "but doing a parallel to the East has its problems. ....I don't want to try to copy this rhythm or that scale. It is more valuable to have absorbed while there. You let it roll around, undergo a chemical change, and then seep out on paper in the form that will suit the musicians who are going to play it."

Kokopelli: Con que la Lavare, Christmas Angel, Dubela, and Wanane from Spirit (independent)

This is the 50-voice Edmonton group that has been the big-city sibling to our own Corazon for some years, both ensembles having visited and performed for each other. Kokopelli's singers are a bit older-- most are out of high school, but they're still pretty young. They are coming to Nelson to perform twice next week, and three of their new members this year are my daughter Laura Metcalfe, Malaika Horswill, and Oscar Derkx. They all sang in Corazon for years and then moved to Edmonton to go to university and were welcomed into Kokopelli. I'm very excited to see them perform here, not only because of Laura, but the other two as well: I've known Oscar and Malaika since they, along with Laura, were on theatre and music stages in Nelson as little children.

Maurice Andre and Orchestre de Chambre directed by Jean-Francois Paillard: Johann Friedrich Fasch, Trumpet Concerto from Le Canon de Pachelbel & Le Concerto Pour Trompette de Fasch (Erato)

Following on last weeks Haydn Trumpet Concerto, another one, this time featuring the great Maurice Andre.

Silk Road, Wynton, Zorn: Playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast April 20, 2009

Beethoven's Breakfast airs at www.cjly.net Mondays at 6:30 am PDT

Silk Road Music: Sparkling Dew and Autumn Cloud from Autumn Cloud: A Journey With Her Pipa (Silk Road Music)

At the recent Northwest Guitar Festival in Nelson I was delighted to make the acquaintance of Qiu Xia He from China who plays the pipa, Chinese lute-like instrument, in the duo Silk Road Music. Her partner in the group is Andre Thibault, guitar. They played a lovely set of Chinese music that crossed over into Brazil, India, Morocco, and other places. Qiu Xia played one solo: a classical Chinese piece that was very moving and I think it was the first time I have ever felt that way about Chinese music which has always seemed inaccessible. I was impressed by her gentle charisma, also.

Wynton Marsalis: Haydn, Trumpet Concerto with Raymond Leppard and the National Philharmonic Orchestra (CBS)

Wynton Marsalis was just a kid when he made this record-- 20 years old. He is probably the world's most successful jazz-classical crossover artist. I am not sure how the classical music establishment views this and other classical records Marsalis has made, but to my ears he approaches this music with panache and virtuosity. Do I hear a few more more notes that are slurred, jazz-like, than we would hear from a purely classical trumpeter?

Masada String Trio: Sippur, Taharah and Hoodaah, from The Circle Maker (Tzadik)

The wildly prolific John Zorn never stops changing. This is chamber music for string trio with influences from the worlds of jazz, klezmer, Middle Eastern and classical. It's his attempt to create a new form of Jewish music. The excellent trio members are Greg Cohen, bass; Mark Feldman, violin; and Eric Friedlander, cello. The music walks a lovely line between comfortable, gentle grooves and curious wanderings from the path.

Ralph Maier, Bill Frisell, Eric Whitacre

Beethoven's Breakfast airs at 6:30 am PDT Mondays at www.cjly.net

Ralph Maier: Fastasias 13, 10, and 3 by Luys de Narvaez, from Art of Vihuela (Ind.)

We have an annual classical guitar festival here in Nelson, B.C.

The Northwest Guitar Festival, organized by the classical guitarist Alan Rinehart, has many guest artists this year from all over including Ralph Maier from Calgary who has made this album playing the vihuela, which is a precursor to the classical guitar with 12 paired strings and a more lute-like sound than a guitar.

Bill Frisell: Shenendoah, So Lonesome I Could Cry, Wildwood Flower, and Slow Dance from The Best of Bill Frisell Vol 1, Folksongs (Nonesuch)

Stephen Fearing and I, sometime in the early 1980s I think it was, went to hear a solo concert by Bill Frisell in Vancouver before most people had ever heard of him. Here was this studious-looking young man with a couple of guitars and some electronic gadgetry. He played compositions/improvs that used delays and loops in a way neither of us had seen before , constructing little edifices that seemed about to collapse around him at any moment, but instead they miraculously hung together, stumbling brilliantly along in their own bent and hilarious sort of way.

The rest is history, or more specifically a new turn in the history of jazz guitar and in the deconstruction of music categories.

Playing folky stuff is one of many of Frisell's guitar occupations and in fact it is my least favourite. The fact that it is still more beautiful and surprising for me than most music out there is some indication of how much I love his mainstream jazz, his out-there jazz, and his blues music. For a little revelation about Bill Frisell the player of noisy, distorted blues guitar, get his early album Before We Were Born.

Eric Whitacre: I Hide Myself, I Will Wade Out, Cloudburst, and Lux Aurumque, from Cloudburst, performed by Polyphony directed by Stephen Layton (Hyperion)

This CD contains poems by Octavio Paz, Emily Dickinson, Rumi, Lorca, ee cummings, and others translated into choral music by Eric Whitacre.

Corazón and Allison Girvan: Playlist for Beethoven's Breakfast for April 6, 2009

Beethoven's Breakfast airs at 6:30 am Mondays PDT at www.cjly.net

Corazón Vocal Ensemble (Allison Girvan, Director): Living in a Holy City, Naked as we Came, U Mandela, MLK, Lonesome Road, Turot Eszik A Cigny, One Voice, Nella Fantasia, Di Ni Siphonono and Tiregere from Voice to Voice (Independent)

Corazón was recently recognized as the Cultural Ambassador for the City of Nelson, and you can read about that in my Waking Before Dawn blog. That post also contains a bit of a tribute to Corazón from one parent speaking for many parents of teenage girls in this town.

This CD was recorded in May, 2008, at the Capitol Theatre. My daughters Laura and Rosie were two of the 50 voices in the group at that time, and had been for several years, so I am fondly familiar with all these songs in many languages and from everywhere: Namibia, Romania, Quebec, The Wailin' Jennys, James Taylor, Ennio Morricone, U2.

There were some superstar singers in the group then, but they've gone now, graduated and moved on, including Eden Richmond, Malaika Horswill, Laura Metcalfe, Oscar Derkx, Anneke McGivern, Hila Silver, and more. This is a welcome record of their inspired work. Since then, a new set of soloists and leaders has stepped forward.

The CD was produced in Nelson by Don MacDonald and Rylen Kewen.

Janos Starker: Cello Suite #2 from J.S. Bach Suites for Solo Cello (RCA)

"I was often asked why, at age 70, I am recording Bach's Suites for the fifth time when previous statements have been received with praise....Playing Bach is a never-ending quest for beauty, as well as in some sense, the truth. One only hopes to get near to it..." That's Janos Starker quoted from the notes of this 1992 recording.