Moving forward to continue the catching up of some older and newer releases that appeared over the last year.  Today a host of new chamber music is the focus starting with an unique release of saxophone quartet music by Jonathan Badger.  Released as an EP through Ravello Records (RR 8048), these three brief Piano Quartets (for piano with sax trio and electronics)  are the composer's first art (i.e., classical) concert pieces.  The music is a sort of eclectic blend of post-minimalist styles, jazz, and contemporary rock elements making for an interesting hybrid of music that attempts to bridge genres.

There have been quite a number of saxophone chamber recordings popping up of late and Nicki-Roman's new album Unquiet Waters (Ravello Records RR 8055) features mostly pieces for alto sax and piano.  There is an intriguing transcription of Leonard Bernstein's Clarinet Sonata here which perhaps brings some of the jazzier components more to the foreground.  The album takes its name from the opening work by Kevin Day that is a sort of philosophical exploration that depicts in music our own thought processes that move from the sort of jumbled chaos into moments of clarity.  Olivia Keefer's work Floating Bones is a work placing great technical demands on the soloist with sung texts that add to the sometimes mesmerizing quality of the music.  Lucie Robert's Cadenza focuses on a couple of specific motives that are then treated to a variety of rhythmic and technical complexities in an often rather intense work with dense textures when the piano appears.  Bug by Bruno Mantovani also requires Roman to show off his versatility on the instrument.  The album closes with a nice transcription of Grieg's Lyric Piece "Wedding Day at Troldhaugen".  This provides a fine relaxed conclusion to some of the more intense music on this release.

Some intriguing jazz is on hand for I Am Not a Virus, a timely release featuring the Jordan VanHemert Quintet on Big Round Records (BR 8966).  There are six original jazz combo works which allow VanHemert to show off his own technique and improvisational styles.  Most interesting though is his adaptation of the traditional Korean folk song Arirang which closes off the album.  The titles of some of these pieces are reflections of our past couple years of unrest and pandemic life and these jazz musings are an interesting opportunity for release easily recommended to fans of contemporary jazz.

Of equal interest is the premier release featuring the Gruca White Ensemble.  This is delicious album of jazz, folk influences, new music, and popular song (like a rendition of Stevie Wonder's "I Wish") featuring guitarist Robert Gruca and flautist Linda White.  The selections are quite eclectic but held together with good sequencing of the album.  It is a great Saturday afternoon disc that shifts well from more contemporary modernism to rock influences all handled well by the excellent performances here.  A Different Take (Big Records BR 8964) is well worth tracking down to add to your regular playlist.

Music for percussion is certainly among the more unusual of concert music works.  Ralph Sorrentino's release Lo and Behold (Ravello 8052) attempts to expand that repertoire in an intriguing collection of five works.  There is a piece for a variety of drums (Askell Masson's Rhythm Strip) as well as multi-movement pieces for timpani (David Corkhill's Five Structures), snare (Robert McCormick's Portraits of a Waltz), and bass drum (Molly Joyce's Lo and Behold).  For a bit of contrast, Maurice Wright's Duo Fantasia blends flute with a variety of percussion instruments.  The album is a sort of microcosm of potential contest repertoire pieces for percussionists that explores how one can create a variety of sounds without tonal anchors.  Certainly percussionists should check this out!

Semir Hasic's album No More War It's Time for Love (Navona 6327) is a fascinating musical journey that invites listeners to contemplate the horrors of war and its impact.  The pieces here are a reflection of the early 1990s Croation War and the Battle of Vukovar.  Hasic is an accordionist and this instrument lends the music a somewhat more popular feel at times.  He also incorporates a variety of sounds (sirens, battles, gunfire, screams) that filter across the textures while the lyrical melodic lines play against this accompanied by a smaller chamber orchestra.  The music has that quality of folk music within a concert context with the Eastern European inflections adding an additional poignancy to the music.  "War Rhapsody", which opens the album, could be a miniature short film score with its sense of dramatic effects.  Other tracks also feature titles that connect to contemporary events and provide additional reflective moments.  Hasic's excellent melodic sense really comes through well in these pieces making them all quite accessible from one delight to the next.  (The music has a sort of Piazzolla-like lyricism, further emphasized by the use of accordion.)  One also feels the reach of COVID 19, in the final track which offers a minute of silence--a rather interesting take in an era where streaming will miss out on the concept of a physical album and its sequencing.  The result is an enthralling, and engaging album that comes highly recommended!

Illumination: Piano Works of Victoria Bond
Paul Barnes, piano and chanter.
Slovak Radio Orchestra/Kirk Trevor;
Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic/Kirk Trevor
Albany Records TROY 1880
Total Time:  64:41
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Pianist Paul Barnes is featured exploring music inspired by ancient chant in this release featuring the work of Victoria Bond (b. 1945).  Bond was a student of Ingolf Dahl and Roger Sessions and early in her career assisted on some of Phillip Glass’s film scores.  Barnes has also worked with the latter over 25 years having also commissioned pieces by the composer.  He has also been quite instrumental in the development of the music on this album collaborating with Bond on recording her music and the world of Eastern chant.

The opening pieces here are for solo piano and take their inspiration from Byzantine chants.  Illuminations (2021) has slowly evolved into a three-movement work.  Its first movement, “Potirion Sotiriu” was composed in 1999 and incorporates the essence of that ancient chant melody into a mystical exploration that continues in the central “Simeron Kremate” (2019) which introduces a bit more intensity and dissonance; and moves into a sounder conclusion in the final “Enite ton Kyrion” (2021).  The latter pulls together the chants from the other movements to provide an apt conclusion to the work as a whole.  The music here recalls the work of Thomas de Hartmann’s mystical music inspired by the philosopher George Gurdjieff.  They are quite compelling pieces that are written in an accessible style with modern harmonic ideas adding a little extra flavor.  Bond’s music tends to be a bit more complex in construction with the chants feeling finely integrated into the musical reflections here.  As a bonus, one can listen to the chants sing by Barnes as a sort of addendum to this album.  This helps listeners better connect with the pieces further and provides another entry point for this music.

The album also includes two re-releases of previously-recorded works for piano and orchestra that inhabit the same sort of philosophical milieu.  Ancient Keys (2002) is a single-movement concerto that also uses the opening “Potirion Sotiriu” piano work now given a more expansive pallet.  The chant is sung as the work opens to provide some context for what is to follow.  The swirling opening of that chant informs the opening orchestral material that wafts up from the lower realms of the ensemble in a sort of slow spiral.  The way the material is handled has some parallels to the work of Hovhaness, though Bond’s musical language tends to stay more traditional.  The orchestral writing does allow for some interesting interaction with the soloist with a good forward motion and dramatic flair.

Black Light (1997) closes the release with a bit of variety in inspiration.  The works on the release overall are based on musical meditations of illumination and here Bond shifts her attention to African American musical traditions blending them with her own religious background.  The three-movement work opens with an intense driving rhythmic idea with a bit of interplay in a lighter theme for piano.  The latter displays a sense of wit.  The music here shifts to a far more dissonant set of pulses and angular piano lines that make for a nice contrast to the previous works.  The jazzier syncopation is also part of orchestration that takes its cues from jazz orchestral works making it a sort of contemporary integration of the style.  The central movement uses a Jewish liturgical chant for its primary material.  Finally, the piece wraps up with a hybrid rondo variation form inspired by the scat singing style of Ella Fitzgerald.

Interesting works and engaging music make for a fine introduction to Bond’s music for new listeners.  The performances feel quite committed and Barnes seems to be a fine interpreter of the music here offering informed, nuanced playing in the opening Illuminations and having a bit more opportunity for technical displays in the larger orchestral concerto pieces.  Both orchestras manage to tackle these pieces with a nice sense of precision.  The Martinu orchestra seems particularly attuned to the jazz gestures and that helps the piece quite a bit.  Everything is mastered well and equalized which allows for good imaging of the piano against the orchestra.  Clarity in the textures is also quite good which is both due to Bond’s orchestration as well as the clean playing of the orchestras.  Overall a quite interesting and engaging collection of modern music for piano.