Metal Reviews

Evans' debut.

Agreed with you that it leans heavily on the rock side of jazz. Immediately likeable as well. I find fusion albums with horns and guitar sometimes struggle with balancing enough space between them for both but that never cropped up as a problem for me when listening here. Perhaps it helped that the tracks were almost entirely composed by Blade himself, or by the pianist. I will certainly be revisiting this in the future--thanks for sharing!

Yes, quite accurately right. I will be listening to much more of it, too. Thanks for getting back to me, North. I'd say I'm exactly the same as you are in that I really do need a fairly lush balance between winds instruments and others inasmuch they do need to be very appropriately implemented. Wind instruments, specially the most powerful ones need to be used with great sensitivity, specially with an album such as this one. Very much appreciate your commentary. My apologies for the typo in my initial posting.

North, this is a recording which I picked up a few months ago, perhaps during the end days of the summer season. The recording is in my opinion good and well, with a few major deficiencies, which I found to be foundational, and certainty took away from me the ability to be fully engaged with it.

The album does not start out too badly, and with a few good tracks. until somewhere mid-point on the recoding which then goes off to a much more distinct 40-50-60's pop melody-making, and very odd and awkward structuring, and pasting, without really ever attempting to develop music ideas, but more so, meanderings and wanderings.

I think the recording certainty is very much an authentic modern jazz recording but I also think more significantly that it does not carry coherence which an "album" must carry with itself. There is in any good music recording and definitely expected of the jazz genre, that it exudes a certain characteristic, which makes this kind of jazz, or another, a certain type or class, and that is clear why this recording does not.

It is because Frisell could never discipline himself to take any music theory seriously and has had all sorts of garden-variety influences, none of which really cohere at all, in my opinion. An artist's job, a great one that, is the making of coherence out the seemingly incoherence of influences. That is the unity of the science of music. This kind of characteristic need not come from theory alone, but it does need to come from a great skillfulness and artistry which certainly indicates some knowledge of it, either consciously or not.

Overall, rather distasteful.

One of the very finest of modern jazz (1998). A complete feast of class and quality. An utterly engrossing experience, North. It did take more than a few plays to fully get along with the album, but when that dam broke loose, boy was it a treat. Certainly challenging music.

A bit of too much violence to the otherwise wonderous Brahms. I like it, but certainly not one of my favourite interpretations.

An essential collection from one of Chopin's finest interpreters. The influence on the lyrical piano work of Ghibli maestro Joe Hisaishi is pretty evident.

^^Have not heard that interpreter but that looks terrific!

Superbly gentle touch from the Maestro. This era of early Romanticism is certainly amongst my favourites of the classical genre.

None greater.

Without a doubt one of jazz's most finest.

I have played this at least a dozen times and it sounds just like the very time I heard it with the difference that I am coming to grasp it a bit more firmly, it there were such a thing, which all great jazz would resist, anyhow. Spell-binding recording.

Would have loved a better production as the hissing sound has not been eradicated even after the modern remaster, but this recording solely by itself, is completely and utterly masterful, no doubt.

As still and radiant as the instilled riverside.

A favourite of mine.

Galactical.

Stunning to this day.

I've listened to it a few times now and found it a little difficult to absorb in places due to the vibraphone forward parts but it's also clear how accomplished the recording is as a whole. Love the faster tracks.

Quite right. The recording is crystallized in ideas and so it is exceptionally refined music, and so very rich in its developments, that in this regard it demands a full range of attention and very many patient re-tries. It paid off for me, North. I hope it does for you. I did fidget with EQ a bit, at times, to get a better overall dynamic, so it does need a bit adjusting, in some places, yet the point which you allude to is very precise, and you extract the point, in the manner of speaking, quite distinctly.

Continuing to listen to this excellent boxset.