Marc Copland -][- CROSSTALK [Pirouet Records]

Tags

Doug Weiss, Greg Osby, Jazz, Marc Copland, Piano, Victor Lewis

Marc Copland - CROSSTALK

Marc Copland -][- CROSSTALK – [Pirouet Records, 2011]

Fascinatingly original – a good description of this quartet’s multifaceted musical world throughout this CD. This quartet presides over music of great depth and intensity and at the same time makes it all seem breathtakingly easy and clear. The four musicians partake in a subtle sort of duel, a refined musical “crosstalk” – a masterpiece of mutual inspiration.

(BIO) Marc Copland was born in Philadelphia in 1948. Up until the mid-1970’s he played the alto saxophone. Copland was a master on the instrument. Throughout this period he worked with such already-established colleagues as Ralph Towner, Chico Hamilton, and John Abercrombie. Yet at a certain stage he felt that something wasn’t right. “The music that I was playing was not the music I was hearing in my head.” From one day to the next he laid his horn down, completely left the scene, and began to probe the mysteries of the ivories. He was out of the picture for ten years, practiced incessantly, and studied the styles of other pianists. In 1985 he finally felt he was ready to start another career. How strange – how absurd that someone transforms himself from one extreme to another! A virile top dog is transposed into a quiet spiritualist. ”Yet I always had the feel that I was doing the right thing.” And with Pirouet he found the label that fit, that allowed the necessary freedom that a free spirit like himself needed.

CONTACT -·- FIVE ON ONE

Tags

Billy Hart, Contact, Dave Liebman, Drew Gress, Jazz, John Abercrombie, Marc Copland

Contact - Five on One

CONTACT -·- FIVE ON ONE – [Pirouet Records, 2010]

Five on the way to one. Five in one. Five on the same wavelength. The group is simply called Contact. But that’s a word with a whole slew of possible meanings. There is certainly contact–but not of the physical sort.
With the very first tones the quintet evinces a striking impression of vibrant unity. Or better yet–of synchronized life-blood. And it remains so until the last note. Five big names. An “All-Star” band. But not just. It’s not just a gathering of five jazz celebrities who get together to churn out a few pieces, and then scatter to the winds in every aesthetic direction in order to land where they better fit in. As the pieces are played, there is a growing sense that these musicians have produced a long overdue set of recordings that are an organic synthesis of their musical beings. Five who together discover a musical spirit that incorporates every individual. The CD is called Five on One, and on it, the musicians develop an intense interplay that is characterized by an intimate warmth.