Many New Trails To Blaze
The UAB Chamber Trio:
Denise Gainey, clarinet. James Zingara, trumpet. Chris Steele, piano.
Ravello Records 7999
Total Time:  58:02
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

When one thinks of a trio, the normal expectation is either a work for strings, or some combination of woodwinds.  The UAB Chamber Trio seeks to expand both our expectations of this genre in works for clarinet, trumpet and piano.  To that end they have commissioned a number of new works which are included in this new release.  The trio is made up of faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham which was formed in 2012.  Across seven unique pieces, the program explores the classical and jazz realms of all three instruments often melding these influences.  All the pieces, save the brief work by Robert J. Bradshaw, were composed for the trio.

Jeffrey Boehm’s Sonata for Three was composed for piano and two other instruments.  The opening movement has an almost Baroque-like quality at first but then moves into a delicate, lyrical section with subtle dissonances as the three instruments explore this material in dialogue with one another.  Harmony in fourths adds an additional openness to the clear textures of the movement.  This approach helps create a more jazz noir quality when the second movement opens.  This continues into the tranquil opening of the third movement.  A syncopated pattern then moves us into jaunty conclusion with interesting clashes of dissonance.

The three-movement Flying Over Water (2014) by Virginia Samuel has a serial-like opening with its unusual long line that is then taken up by first piano, then clarinet, and then trumpet.  This creates an intriguing flowing forward motion.  The music continues this through a gradually more consonant progression until the final bars when clarinet and trumpet reach the end of the journey in unison.

Angular lines and a quirky back-and-forth greet the listener in William Price’s I Don’t Want to Dance.  The different solo lines sort of work their way in and past each other while the piano creates a disjunct pattern around the two as they move around one another musically.

Pianist Chris Steele wrote his Suite No. 1 for the ensemble.  It is an exploration of two brief motives in a style that has a blend of jazz harmony against this interesting development.  The music has a nice dance quality to it that adds to a sense of lightness and as the motives unfold across the movements they create some familiarity that aids in unifying the work.

Crepuscular Rays is part of a larger work (Sounds of A Working Waterfront) by Robert J. Bradshaw.  The music has a decidedly darker, more melancholy quality with a sense of askance as the musical lines move upward in this rather moving piece.

In Valentin Mihai Bogdan’s City Scenes, the Romanian composer pass homage to places that have shaped him and his music.  References to jazz and popular music are a nod to his time in Detroit which comes out in the jazz styles employed in the first movement, “Riffs”, with its somewhat angular urban motoric qualities. The central movement, “After Midnight”, melds elements of jazz with modal inflections from Balkan and Middle Eastern modes.  The final movement brings us back to tensions between consonance and dissonance with jazz influences returning to provide this sort of modernist depiction.  Overall, this is the strongest piece on the album with the final movement being quite fascinating with stunning colors.

The finale work is by Argentinian composer Juan Maria Solare.  It references the rhythms of a milonga which is a distant relative of the tango.  Sale Con Fritas (“It’s a Breeze”) is a bit of musical humor that masks the difficulty of the work.  It makes a fitting conclusion to this program.

For listeners interested in modern chamber music, Many New Trails to Blaze will provide an opportunity to see how composers are melding jazz and classical influences to accommodate this unique trio combination.  These are engaging works intelligently programmed to provide good musical variety.

Soul of a Nation: Portraits of Presidential Character
Frank Almond, violin. Henry Fogel, narrator;
Roosevelt University Chamber Orchestra/Emanuele Andrizzi;
John Bruce Yeh, clarinet. David Holloway, narrator;
Mark Ridenour, trumpet. Ray Frewen, narrator;
Gabriela Vargas, flute. Adrian Dunn, narrator.
Chicago College of Performing Arts Wind Ensemble/Stephen Squires
Albany Records TROY 1723
Total Time:  62:07
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Pairing a narrator with a large orchestra has similar challenges to the use of any soloist and orchestra.  Often the spoken text becomes set aside with the orchestra then responding to these words or being subtly underscored as they appear.  Victoria Bond (b. 1945) takes her cues from one of the great examples of this in American music, Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait (1942).  The texts here are provided by Myles Lee and focus on four of the great American presidents, two that shaped the foundations of the country and two who moved and shaped the role of the country in the 20^th Century.  Bond studied composition with Ingolf Dahl and Roger Sessions.  Earlier in her career she worked with film composer Paul Glass on some of his scores.  Her work as a conductor though has been a significant one working early on with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Houston Orchestra.  She lectures often at the Metropolitan Opera.  Her compositions are now beginning to gain more attention as we move into the 21^st century that has gained a stronger foothold after the performance of her chamber opera Mrs. President (2001).

Each work incorporates important quotations by each President that help to explore the character of each man.  Each work explores unique musical sound worlds from contemporary style, to jazz, Ives and early 20^th-Century modernism, and patriotic musical quotations. The uniqueness though lies in the use of a solo instrument to also work as an additional catalyst to these pieces being subtitles concertos.

Thomas Jefferson is the focus of the opening, and longest of the works, Soul of the Nation.  This is a work for chamber orchestra and violin.  The soloist here introduces an important four-note motif that will be one of the unifying factors of the piece.  The modern writing helps create the sense of inner struggle and turmoil of Jefferson working to lay out the important foundational tenets of a new nation.  There is a rather beautiful, lyrical moment that moves us into the final third of the work providing a gorgeous, semi-tonal line in a sparser texture.  The piece ends rather quietly All told, a fascinating work with superb playing by violinist Frank Almond.

The remaining three pieces are all scored for wind ensemble making them important additions to concert repertoire band.  First is The Indispensible Man which takes on Franklin D. Roosevelt as its subject.  Perhaps no President became a visual metaphor for personal struggle with those facing the 20^th Century.  Bond’s music takes a decidedly different approach with an immediate nod to jazz with its excellent opening clarinet line (a start reminiscent of that used in the violin).  It stands as a distant relative of the concert works that melded art music and jazz written for Benny Goodman. The ensemble then enters with its own jazz-like big band style.  This stylistic approach then becomes the milieu upon which the text is layered.  The variations also explore important sections of the ensemble with a great little dialogue with the solo clarinet.  The ideas then run beneath the narrative.  Here too the interest lies in the ways Bond passes off her motifs through the ensemble handed off from narrator to soloist to ensemble and back.

In The Crowded Hour, the period song quotation lends the music a sort of Ives-ian quality and thus perfectly connects to this shifting period that marked the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.  The sort of unbridled enthusiasm is thus captured by both soloist and wind ensemble as these tunes become fragmented and subtly altered as the piece progresses.  It tends to be a slightly sparser work with a brass band-like focus.  The music takes on a decidedly reflective quality as the story moves us into World War I with a nice lyrical trumpet idea.  The finale does bring us back to a fun period finale reminiscent of the band music of the time.

George Washington is the focus of Pater Patriae which closes the program.  The flute provides a nice fife-like reference here with a sort of martial like opening.  Yankee Doodle flits through the music as well and one gets the sense of a slight military parade in the opening bars.  The wind ensemble’s various ensembles are also explored here in delicate writing.  The music tends to be more traditional with less dissonance.  The lines tend to move in a thread that shifts from one color to the next in the sparser moments of the piece.  Brass signal the almost public side of Washington.  It is a rather fascinating piece equally as compelling and different from each of its predecessors on the album.  The final bars are a rather exhilarating blend of high winds and percussion (though it could use a final big chord to bring it to a close).

Each narrator brings their own unique style that works well with these texts that both tell the story of each person as well as include a variety of quotations.  The pieces themselves, with their exploration of different musical styles still create a consistent musical approach that illustrates Bond’s ability to shape the overall structure of these texts.  And yet, Bond manages to add distinct qualities that perfectly match these important historical figures in her music making this a rather engaging traversal of four significant Presidents.