Two months down and ten more to go for 2025! Thankfully we have some great new recordings for you in New In Music This Week: February 28th.
My top pick this week is:
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: UBIQUE – Anna Thorvaldsdottir – Sono Luminus
It’s a great week for record label Sono Luminus and for composer Thorvaldsdottir. This album is a recording of the composer’s nearly 50-minute that had its world premiere at Carnegie Hall in 2023.
The same performers from that concert perform on this album: flautist Claire Chase; cellists Katinka Kleijn and Seth Parker Woods and pianist Cory Smythe.
The very first 30 seconds of this album are so quiet, I was forced to really turn off all the noise of the outside world and truly concentrate. Listen. Absorb. Then Chase’s flute seduces you into this incredible music. You will stay mesmerized for the duration.
Anyone who has had the thrill of seeing Chase perform knows how absolutely amazing the depth of her abilities are. Her fellow musicians on this remarkable album also have to be at the top of their game. Of course, they are.
With two great albums of music from Icelandic composers being offered by the same label this week, it feels a bit like Sophie’s Choice to have to pick one. But Ubique is my top choice this week.
Here are the other fine recordings worth your time in New In Music This Week: February 28th:
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: AEQUORA – Mystery Sonata – Sono Luminus
Mystery Sonata is the first recording from violinist Zachary Carrettin and pianist Mina Gajić as Mystery Sonata. Readers of New In Music This Week know that I’ve been exploring a lot of music from Iceland. This is another of the wonderful recordings I’ve enjoyed.
The 42 minutes of music in Aequora features music composed by Daniel Bjarnason, Páll Ragnar Páisson, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
The album opens with Sigfúsdóttir’s composition that gives the album its title. It’s a quiet and, at times, meditative piece that is made all the more interesting by the tension that surfaces occasionally. Bjarnason’s First Escape has all the tension I’ve found in several of Bjarnason’s other compositions.
Pálsson’s two Notre Dame pieces, inspired by the disasterous fire and Sigfúsdóttir’s Re/fractions pieces round out the album wonderfully. Mystery Sonata commissioned the Re/fractions. That it fits so comfortably into their capabilities as musician should come as no surprise.
Correction: An earlier version of this review said that it was the first recording by violinist Zachary Carrettin and pianist Mina Gajić together. It is not. This is their first recording as Mystery Sonata. Cultural Attaché regrets the error.
CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: distantViolinSound – Reiko Füting – New Focus Records
I didn’t know much of the music ofcomposer Füting before listening to this utterly compelling albumc. His seven compositions on this album were written from 2017 to 2023. Each one features the violin (thus the name, of course.)
The album opens with Miranda Cuckson performing the not quite 11-minute passage: time (copy). With each successive piece, the violinist is joined by more and more musicians, building to ten musicians at the album’s close with von der Stadt.
It would take someone with a much vaster knowledge of music from the last five centuries to spot all of the musical quotations that Füting refers to in his exploration of “the psychological nature of memory,” but I was intrigued as each piece was revealed.
All the musicians on this album are terrific. In addition to Cuckson that includes Longleash, Doori Na, Noise Catalogue+, Quartet121, SchallSpektrum, Unheard-Of Ensemble and Jing Yang.
JAZZ: ARBORESQUE – Artemis – Blue Note Records
On this, their third album, the all-female jazz ensemble Artemis is once again creating great music. The members might be a little different here, but Arboresque is great music.
Joining founder and pianist Renee Rosnes are tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, drummer Allison Miller and bassist Noriko Ueda.
Each musician composed a track for the album. Their songs are joined by three arrangements Rosnes made of songs by Burt Bacharach, Donald Brown and Wayne Shorter.
Brown’s composition, The Smile of the Snake, is exactly what you expect with a title like that. It opens with Rosnes and Miller playfully launching a song that will ultimately ending up biting you in the best possible way.
I thoroughly enjoyed this album. It would be hard to select one of the original tracks as better than the others. They are all compelling.
Most importantly, this album explores environmental themes at a time when it seems the earth is under great siege and peril than ever. Mother Earth is treating very well indeed by Artemis. So are we all.
JAZZ: TRILOGY 3 – Chick Corea – Candid Records
Who else but the late Chick Corea would combine music by Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell with classical composer Domenico Scarlatti? Not only did he, but it works.
As you will discover on this third in the series of albums from their concerts. Trilogy 3 documents a live performance from early 2020. Corea is once again in his trio format with drummer Brian Blade and bassist Christian McBride.
There are Corea originals on this album, but as with everything he played, even the covers became something more than their originals in his hands. Though he could play the Scarlatti as it was written, this performance swings in a way that Scarlatti would never have imagined. And I love it!
I never got to see Corea in concert, but these albums are a fine opportunity to hear the magic that happens when these three men got together.
This is currently a digital only release. Physical copies will become available in May.
JAZZ: JUST – Billy Hart Quartet – ECM Records
The first time anyone heard Billy Hart, Ethan Iverson, Ben Street and Mark Turner as the Billy Hart Quartet was 22 years ago. Their first album was in 2006.
With drummer Hart in his mid-80s, it’s great to report that he is still making great music. The communication amongst these men has only gotten richer, stronger and deeper.
Pianist Iverson wrote four of the album’s ten songs. Saxophonist Turner (see our next jazz selection immediately following) and double-bass player Street wrote three each.
It speaks volumes about Hart that he wants this album to be fresh and not just an album of new arrangements of established compositions. Hart is every bit the contemporary of his younger partners and his approach on this album is sublime.
I know I will be listening to this album for a very long time. It’s Just fabulous.
JAZZ: WE RAISE THEM TO LIFT THEIR HEADS – Mark Turner
Have you ever had the experience where you’re walking down the street and suddenly, from somewhere unknown and unseen nearby, you hear a musician playing alone? Slowly you start following the path trying to discover where that wonderfully intoxicating music is coming from. Whether you find it or not, the pursuit of the music is all you need to make your day.
That’s almost how I felt listening to saxophonist Mark Turner’s solo album. Except I had the advantage of knowing who the musician was. So the sense of discovery was an obvious, “of course this is incredible music.” Turner is one of the best tenor sax players today.
I could offer you my thoughts on this album to encourage you to listen to it. But I’d prefer you to listen to it without preconceived ideas of what you’ll hear. Go as I did, blindly into the recording, just like that stroll one lazy afternoon where the music just washes all over you. I promise you won’t regret it.
MUSICALS: I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE – New Cast Recording – Concord Theatricals Recordings
Most people know this musical by composer/lyricist Harold Rome and book writer Jerome Weidman because it launched Barbra Streisand on her path to superstardom. That production, in 1962 was the last time it was seen on Broadway. The show only ran for 300 performances, but did yield a Tony Award nomination for Streisand.
I Can Get It For You Wholesale takes place in the Garment District in 1937. Harry Bogen (Santino Fontana) will do anything to make a sale. But he’s forced to reconcile his desire for great success with the more basic need of finding one’s place within his community.
Classic Stage Company in New York mounted this off-Broadway revival in October of 2023. The production won the 2024 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical.
Captured on this fine recording is the CSC cast which includes, in addition to Fontana, Adam Chanler-Berat, Eddie Cooper, Judy Kuhn and Julia Lester. Fontana was nominated for both the Drama Desk Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Musical.
It’s great to hear a new recording of this idiosyncratic musical with a great cast and modern arrangements.
MUSICALS: REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES THE MUSICAL: MAKIN’ IT WORK with JOY (From Jesse & Joy) – Joy Huerta – Ghostlight Records
This musical adaptation of Josefina López’s film was enormously popular and very -well received in its out-of-town tryout in Boston last year. The show is Broadway bound this spring.
Until the cast album gets recorded, we get a quick sample of four songs from the musical. Joy Huerta, who co-wrote the music and lyrics with Benjamin Velez, sings Make It Work, Daydream, Flying Away and Real Women Have Curves.
This EP will whet the appetite of anyone curious about this musical. I already wanted to see this musical. I’m even more excited to experience it based on this EP.
That’s all for New In Music This Week: February 28th.
Enjoy some music!
Enjoy your weekend!