Posts tagged ‘jazz’
Buying (classical) music online, digitally
Posted on | August 16, 2010 | No Comments
For the past 6 months, I’ve been listening to classical music almost exclusively. (There’s a much longer post – or maybe a series – about that in the works.) Toronto, like most major cities, is definitely under-supplied with bricks & mortar classical CD stores now. The deep structural changes in the music business over the past seven or eight years have wreaked havoc on what I’m told was once a vibrant classical record store culture. And while these changes have actually resulted in more and better-recorded music being available in the global market, you won’t find most of it in Toronto retail. (New York, I discovered during a visit earlier this year, is not much better.)
What’s left now is L’Atelier Grigorian, a small specialist classical and jazz CD store (very well curated but unfortunately expensive), HMV’s flagship store on Yonge Street (whose classical department upstairs focuses more and more on Naxos, Brilliant and other budget releases), and the classical sections in stores like Soundscapes (whose classical buyer is either myopic or schizophrenic, or both; it appears that only a small selection from mostly major labels gets brought in – surprising in a store that is so ‘indie’ in all other genres). There are classical departments in an ever-shrinking number of second hand CD stores in Toronto but they’re typically not really worth visiting.
Naturally, my eye has drifted online. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and its various independent sellers have generally been a good, speedy – and cheap source. ArkivMusic (with its very useful catalogue containing syndicated reviews from Fanfare and other premium online review sources) is also very good (though pricier on average, and shipping can take a while).
One of the more exciting options these days is buying music digitally. While I remain deeply skeptical about iTunes (or anything that comes in a low-ish quality and with DRM), there is now an increasing number of credible and accomplished indie labels selling high-resolution digital files directly. In some cases, these are actually higher-resolution than a CD – up to actual studio master quality (SACD resolution or better). Even though I don’t have equipment that would easily allow me to play back high res audio files like that, it’s exciting to imagine that – as computer-based audio becomes cheaper and less niche-y – it’ll be possible one day to fully enjoy a studio quality master at home.
First up in the classical digital download offerings has to be Linn Records. Founded as an off-shoot of the Scottish high-end stereo manufacturer in the early 80s, Linn Records is a boutique audiophile label that is slowly emerging with a limited but excellent catalogue of classical recordings (as well as forays into jazz and singer/songwriter material). I’m a big fan of some of Linn’s Baroque releases, such as the truly outstanding and unanimously well-reviewed Bach Mass in B minor by the Dunedin Consort, a Scottish group that performs this work with one-to-a-part voicings (only one singer for every voice in the choral parts – this has the distinct advantage of showing off Bach’s intricate part-writing and illuminates the music’s overall architecture).
Other Linn releases I love are by various other Scottish Baroque players, many of whom have made big names for themselves in their various specialties since (and, sadly, moved on from Linn Records as a result). Particularly wonderful recordings are by the Palladian Ensemble (featuring the wonderful Rachel Podger, my favourite Baroque violinist) and by Pamela Thorby (who plays the recorder). Thorby’s Garden of Early Delights, performed together with Andrew Lawrence-King on harp and psaltery, is one of the loveliest selections of early Baroque music I’ve heard, beautifully played and recorded with an immense clarity, resonance and a width of sound stage second to none.
In fact, the audio quality of Linn’s work – there’s an interview with Linn’s chief producer/engineer, Calum Malcolm, here – is outstanding on every release. I’ve now bought and downloaded 320 kbps MP3 versions of a number of releases, and everything is breathtakingly well recorded.
Linn offers its own Adobe Air based download manager application, which works very well. The only complaint I have is about the somewhat awkwardly done digital booklets (they are PDFs of the print versions, so the pages are out of order in the PDF) and poor MP3 metadata. This latter issue is somewhat inexcusable for a download store – and while I understand that my 320 kbps MP3s are at the low end of Linn’s offerings and price point, there really is no reason why I should have to spend 10 minutes after every download importing and re-working the metadata in iTunes to ensure that it’s complete and accurate.
Another excellent digital music seller is Hyperion Records. Hyperion is primarily known for its outstanding efforts in chamber music, Lieder and the pre-classical repertoire. Its greatest claim to fame so far is probably the complete edition of Schubert Lieder (something I aim to own – and listen to – one of these years…).
Hyperion offers digital downloads either as VBR MP3s (targeting 320 kpbs) or FLAC (FLAC is generally emerging as the audiophile download format of choice – I grab FLAC where I can for archiving and down-convert to 320 kbps MP3s for the time being, in the interest of portability).
I’ve bought several excellent digital selections from Hyperion Records. Particularly enjoyable have been releases by Stephen Hough, an English pianist whom I admire greatly (and who also has an always intriguing and occasionally amusing Twitter presence). His Mozart Album is a wildly successful recital of Mozart and Mozart-inspired music, and I highly recommend it. I’ve also grabbed two very special Rossini releases – the Soirées musicales song cycle and an otherwise out-of-print edition of the String Sonatas in their original chamber version played by Elizabeth Wallfisch and ensemble.
Downloading from Hyperion is less convenient than Linn Records because Hyperion doesn’t offer a download manager (it references a few on its website, but alas – I use Google Chrome and none of the Firefox plugins support my browser) so you have to actually download each file separately. On the plus side, though, Hyperion’s metadata-labeling is superb and I have no completeness or accuracy concerns to report.
As I build my classical library, lingering doubts remain after every digital-only purchase. “If only I had bought the CD instead. What if MP3 or FLAC aren’t the last word yet for digital audio? If I owned the CD, at least I could re-rip it at a future date into whatever format will then be de rigueur.”
For right now, convenience wins out. 320 kpbs MP3s sound quite wonderful to my ears on most equipment (barring, perhaps, my main stereo in the living room, where they sound merely somewhat above acceptable but lack the fullness and depth of my CD player), and their portability-to-audiophile-to-economy ratio on a 160GB latest generation iPod is quite excellent (especially with one of these line-out iPod dock cables for the car).
There are other classical digital download options. Notably, Deutsche Grammophon offers some 3,500 of its releases, as well as some of the Decca catalogue (both now owned by Universal Music) as 320 kbps MP3 downloads. I haven’t tried this yet, but at first glance, the online catalogue seems somewhat confusing (you can always trust the corporate behemoth to create the dodgiest e-commerce offering). I was a little sad to see that the DG website doesn’t offer all of the newly merged Universal classical labels – I would have liked to be able to access the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi catalogue in this way, as it contains many gems I’d like to get my hands on digitally. Finally, I’m keen to see whether Harmonia Mundi itself, the fantastic French indie classical label, has digital sales plans of its own. Now that would be something…
The Genius of Bobby McFerrin
Posted on | August 5, 2009 | No Comments
I had forgotten about how much I love Bobby McFerrin. A singer with an incongruously elastic voice and perfect pitch who’s not afraid of anything.
Two perfect McFerrin videos: the first one has him singing the Bach part while the Montreal audience sings the Gounod bits of the famous ‘Ave Maria.’
The second one is together with Yo-Yo Ma, apparently on Japanese television. This is probably the best version of ‘Hush Little Baby’ you’ll ever hear.
The second performance is an extension of this brilliant McFerrin/Ma collaboration:
Hush is quite unlike anything else you’ll ever hear. I highly recommend it. It’ll make you feel the wonder you felt as a kid when you first heard certain kinds of music.
Listening to: Brad Mehldau Trio, Day is Done
Posted on | April 16, 2009 | No Comments
A review of Brad Mehldau Trio’s Day is Done (2005)
This is a surprisingly remarkable record. I’m not sure why it’s surprising, exactly: Brad Mehldau is one of the foremost young jazz pianists working today, and I enjoy most of his work that I’ve heard. But sometimes, a record will sort of insinuate itself in your consciousness; make its way to the top of where the fingers go to click on my Zune when I’m in the mood for a piano trio. I think it’s probably a combination of the quality of the music and quality of the audio.
Both are superb here. I’m especially fond of the two Beatles songs Mehldau tackles here (“She’s Leaving Home” and “Martha My Dear”). They’re intelligent, musical, intricate and hamonically adventurous. Mehldau is know for his utilization of pop songs as jazz standards. This has been, of course, standard practice in jazz almost since the beginning (taking popular tunes and performing them in innovative ways, treating them as frameworks for improvisation). Where Keith Jarrett’s standard trio, for instance, steadfastly stays away from amalgamating any new material into its repertoire, Mehldau actively seeks it out. He’s produced, over the years, some extraordinarily fun ‘new standards,’ such as Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” (holy cow, what a great pick for a ‘new standard’ :) On this record, other outstanding covers include “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” and Radiohead’s “Knives Out.”
The trio interplay is flawless, intimate and conscious, which is all the more interesting given that this was the first studio album in a new trio formation. Sound clarity and balance is flawless. Highly recommended. And for those who are on the fence about jazz or piano trios, it’s a good basis for playing “guess the song.”
Listening to: Manu Katché
Posted on | March 31, 2009 | No Comments
A review of Manu Katché’s Neighbourhood (2005) and Playground (2007)
Manu Katché is a French drummer (born 1958), originally famous for being an in-demand session and live drummer on the 80s/90s ‘world fusion’ circuit (Peter Gabriel, Sting, etc.). Now, his proclivities evidently run more in a jazz direction, and he’s released two stunning and eminently listenable albums on ECM (the German “Edition of Contemporary Music” label that some call the 21st century’s Blue Note). Apparently, he’s also the French Simon Cowell: Wikipedia reports that between 2003 and 2007, he was the mean judge on Nouvelle Star, the French equivalent of American Idol (“He was the most feared of [the judges] for his wit and his severe judgement about the groove and the rhythm of the singer-wannabes.”).
While I’m only beginning to listen my way through ECM’s oeuvre of the past 20 years or so, it’s clear that German producer/owner Manfred Eicher‘s vision is distinctive and singular. No matter whether his releases contain jazz, contemporary classical (‘serious’?) music, or various flavours of world fusion, they are infused with a particular aesthetic – spacious, present, clear audio; a minimalist approach to arrangement; often an angular sound that requires listeners to really pay attention; but also a warmth that draws us in and captivates our imaginations – for me, many ECM releases are interesting lab experiments positing, “What would happen if…”. The label’s output is, in many ways, representative of an ‘alternate’ musical reality, a realm of possibilities that ‘mainstream’ record labels never really had, where jazz, classical and world music coexist and fruitfully collaborate without skepticism or genre constraints. ECM is one of the few ‘older’ independent labels that grew, and continues to maintain, its audience organically. (Some interesting points in this interview with Eicher.)
ECM’s typical jazz output is maybe best characterized as the dominant European jazz aesthetic: a postmodern type of jazz, rooted in the traditions of acoustic instrumentation (piano trios, classic quartets, quintets, septets, etc.); not typically groove-driven; deeply cognizant of all harmonic possibilities; interested in space and texture over melody; not ‘free jazz’ exactly but definitely exploratory-minded; and actively affirmative of European players’ (often names North American jazz listeners do not recognize at all) decades of experience that should receive more exposure than they do.
Recording Manu Katché’s solo records in that context creates – either deliberately or by happy coincidence – outstanding music because it juxtaposes ECM’s minimalist approach with his pattern-based grooves. The result is a sort of European ‘soul jazz’: Katché gives these players (and there are some truly formidable ones: Neighbourhood has Jan Garbarek on saxophone, Tomasz Stanko – whose music I have previously reviewed here – on trumpet, Marcin Wasilewski on piano and Slamowir Kurkiewicz on bass) the freedom to explore what it is like to play with firmer, more articulated, steadier rhythms carrying them. The compositions (all courtesy of Katché) make lovely use of the horn front-line (particularly beautiful, interestingly, on Playgroud, where Garbarek and Stanko are replaced by two younger players, Mathias Eick (tp) and Trygve Seim (sax)).
From the point of view of a listener who comes to this music from rock, what’s particularly interesting to me here is that – despite the instrumentation (soprano saxophone?) and provencance (Katché’s world music background) – I don’t perceive this as ‘fusion’ or have any Kenny G. associations (I have felt those before, particular when listening to some of Jan Garbarek’s less experimental solo work). While it’s always melodic, the rhythmically propelled, acoustic nature and non-ingratiating authenticity of these records make them equally ideal to listen to in the car (where other ECM jazz releases, like Thomsz Stanko’s records or the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, really don’t work at all) or pay attention late at night wearing headphones.
I also really enjoy how these CDs bring out a more optimistic, positive side of the “ECM sound”: while I find Stanko, Warcilewski and others endlessly fascinating and engaging in their abstractness and angular, ‘important’ musical explorations, they can also, at times, have a bit of a ponderous and depressing effect on me, all cold Scandinavian textures, hints and silences. When Katché’s groove emerges, as it does beautifully at around 1:45 in “Morning Joy” on Playground, my ears perk up and my toes start tapping. I suppose even a label like ECM, with its programmatic approach to musical exploration, ultimately affirms the power of a pattern-based groove. It is, in the end, what makes most popular music work. (I thought of discussing here whether ECM’s is, indeed, ‘popular’ music but decided against it…)
Other perceptive reviews to read: the BBC about Neighbourhood, All About Jazz about Neighbourhood, The Guardian about Neighbourhood, Budd Kopman on All About Jazz about Playground, John Kelman on All About Jazz about Playground.
Jazz
Posted on | March 27, 2009 | 1 Comment
(Jazz Dancing in Berlin, 1926 – German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons)
For someone who thinks of himself as both musical and deeply interested in listening to all kinds of music, I had, previously, studiously avoided listening to jazz. While I had been taught about jazz in high school (Improvisation! Dissonances! Drugs! Trumpets!), I think I had mostly seen New Orleans jazz as interesting but limited, swing (and its various revivals) as quaint and melodious but not very fulfilling and been put off by bebop’s endless “noodling.” Really put off.
My aversion wasn’t a blanket refusal, of course: I had explored certain things because I had found a connection to them, and – as a voracious music listener – it wasn’t particularly hard to find exposure even when I wasn’t looking. So I did have, in my collection:
- Billie Holiday: Because you can’t avoid her as one of the most, if not the most, compelling singer in the history of recorded popular music;
- Louis Armstrong: Because the Hot Fives and Sevens transcend their time and audio limitations completely;
- Django Reinhardt: Because he was an extraordinarily interesting guitar player and his story is one of the craziest of any musician I’ve come across;
- Nina Simone: Because it was easy to find a connection to her through my interest in the blues;
- Bill Frisell: Because he created an interesting, challenging hybrid between jazz and country/folk, and it was a sound that strongly appealed to me (still does), a sparse exploration of popular music in a style not unlike Ry Cooder’s in a way;
- Cassandra Wilson: Because she has a fantastic voice and sang Son House and Robert Johnson songs as if they were standards and created an entirely new, eerie kind of music;
- Keith Jarrett: I didn’t really explore very much of his oeuvre, but I was familiar with The Köln Concert and a few other solo recordings – I thought this was interesting and unusual music that had strong rhythmic and folk/New Age elements that I really enjoyed;
- Madeleine Peyroux: Because on a good day, she manages to sound very much like Billie Holiday, which is to say a lot. She’s an excellent performer of other people’s material and creates a lovely, warm, entertaining sound that draws you in (although I’m not so sure about her most recent effort which features her own compositions);
- Miles Davis: Because, as someone interested in the history of rock, you couldn’t exactly ignore Miles’ late 60s/early 70s electric recordings, particularly the live material, featuring various bands that, frankly, rocked harder than Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin put together;
- The Mahavishnu Orchestra: Because, after exploring Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew you can’t really ignore some of the stuff that came in its wake, and this seemed approachable (although, I have to say, I never felt entirely sure why this was classified as jazz and not prog rock).
Lately, I’ve been exploring jazz almost exclusively (for a month or two, anyway). I’ve discovered countless hours of fantastic music. I’m starting to piece together the history of it as I read Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz and I feel like a kid in a candy store, discovering this great genre to which I had been closed all these years.
I’ll be reporting my thoughts about my discoveries right here on Teabowl.
Listening to: Tomasz Stanko Quartet, Lontano
Posted on | March 14, 2009 | No Comments
A review of the Tomasz Stanko Quartet’s Lontano (2006)
Tomasz Stanko is a Polish jazz trumpeter who sounds a little like Miles Davis without anger. Lontano contains a series of thoughtful, quiet and slightly angular (maybe geometric is a better word) pieces made with a young trio consisting of Marcin Wasilewski (p), Slamowir Kurkiewicz (b) and drummer Michal Miskiewicz. (These three have also made two very good piano trio recordings of their own that I’ll write about another time.)
This is a particularly European form of jazz – a specific interpretation of the American tradition, fused not with classical forms as one might expect, but rather imbued with a cinematic quality that results in a sort of abstract mood music whose melodies, harmonies and modality are rooted in jazz but which, at the same time, is largely disconnected from jazz history. Its connection to the blues is as abstract as, say, Ennio Morricone’s might be.
It’s a spacious, still music, this. I found myself paying very close attention to the finest details, the smallest plink of a piano key, bru shes against drum heads, the sound of the piano’s sustain pedal being depressed, the breathiness of Stanko’s muted but crystal clear tone. Much is expressed by virtue of not actually being played; it’s hinted-at, barely there, suppressed because it’s not really necessary. Where many jazz ensembles focus their improvisation on filling space (by trading off between soloists, for example), this quartet is primarily about getting out of each other’s way. Its economy is its great strength.
When they do decide to play more conventionally (like, for example, in the middle of ‘Cyrhla’, for me the standout track here), the effect is immense and uplifting: a simple blues-based improvisation suddenly seems like the most musical thing you’ve ever heard. And it’s not an effect that wanes on second and third listening. Even though you now know what’s coming, it’s still spectacular.
This is a very powerful band, led by an outstanding trumpeter. It may take you a listen or two to connect with it, but it’s quite rewarding.
E.S.T. – Tuesday Wonderland
Posted on | February 27, 2009 | No Comments
The Esbjörn Svensson Trio sounds like the most balanced and smartest modern ‘jazz’ piano trio of the ones I’ve heard. It’s post-everything: it’s not ironic, not ‘fusion’ in any way – it feels like a logical growth path for jazz. It’s sad that Svensson died in a scuba diving accident last year. This tune sounds more like Kruder & Dorfmeister than Bill Evans.
keep looking »
Recent Posts on Changebowl, Carsten’s other blog- Playing around with Ontario electoral geography August 11, 2010
- HelTweetica for iPad July 20, 2010
- Facebook privacy & digital NIMBY July 19, 2010
- What we can learn from gear porn May 31, 2010
- Are creativity and intellectual property rights inversely proportional? May 27, 2010
- Comparing the tech giants May 2, 2010
- Corporate applications and content on smartphones March 21, 2010
About
Carsten Knoch
Attentive music listener, reader, vegetarian, affordable audio hobbyist, software and services professional, vision enabler, instigator, product manager, marketer, thinker, writer, blogger, tinkerer, Internet dweller since 1992
Teabowl is my blog about music, vegetarian food, books, art and life.
Teabowl's sister blog Changebowl discusses technology, community, design and business.
