New In Music This Week: May 9th

Nine new recordings are on New In Music This Week. The emphasis of releases this week fall into the classical world (both traditional and contemporary) and jazz. For the jazz, it seems like everything old is new again. With the emphasis on new again.

My top pic of New In Music This Week: May 9^th is:

JAZZ VOCALS: LADY IN SATIN – Kandace Springs – SRP Records

If the degree of difficulty in doing standards is relatively high, recording Billie Holiday’s classic 1958 album Lady In Satin ups the stakes exponentially. For me, there must be a reason to remake something so deeply embedded into the canon of jazz vocal recordings.

Springs wisely choses to change the order of the songs. That’s a great start. She also has new arrangements of the songs. Another great choice. Most importantly, Springs does not try to emulate or imitate Holiday. She makes these songs her own.

This isn’t a re-imagining either. That slippery term is used far too often to justify remakes. Springs brings both a classic and a contemporary style to her singing. She also brings a little bit of church to her performances. Not in an over-the-top way, but just enough to represent her upbringing. (Springs told Scottsdale City Lifestyle that going to church every Sunday is where she “heard a lot of gospel music, and that really got inside me when I was very young, too.”

I have listened to this album four or five times since I was introduced to it. It’s going to be part of my regular rotation for the foreseeable future. It won’t replace what Billie Holiday did, but it’s not trying to. It’s going to sit lovingly, side by side, with that album. Both of them offering terrific singing.

The other outstanding recordings that are part of New In Music This Week: May 9^th are:

CLASSICAL: BRUCH & KORNGOLD – Bomsori/Bamberger Symphoniker/Jakub Hrůša – Deutsche Grammophon

Since her 2017 album on Warner Classics, violinist Bomsori Kim made it clear she wasn’t going to approach her career in a traditional manner. Many violinists start by tackling the biggest and best known works for their instrument: Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Brahms, etc… That first recording featured Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Shostakovich’s Violin Concert No. 1. Neither concerto can be found on Gramophone Magazine’s Top 10 Violin Concertos published in 2022.

With her new album, she’s tackling one that is: Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 and another that isn’t (but in my mind should be) Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major. The absolute lyricism of the Korngold pairs nicely with the Romantic sounds of Bruch’s most popular of his three violin concerti.

Bomsori also performs three additional works by Korngold including a suite music from Die tote Stadt, Much Ado About Nothing and Die stumme Serenade. Fans of Korngold’s film music should listen to this album to get a fuller picture of the composer’s work.

I strongly believe this recording will be amongst my most played this spring. Take a listen!

CLASSICAL: SYMPHONIES NOS. 1 and 2 ‘Brasília’ Nonet – César Guerra-Peixe/Goiânia Symphony Choir/Goias Youth Symphony Choir/Goiás Philharmonic Orhcestra/Neil Thomson – Naxos Records

Brazilian composer Guerra-Peixe is not someone whose work I know. Even though Naxos has released other recordings of his work, this is the first one that has caught my eye. Have I been missing out on some great music.

This eye-opening album features world premiere recordings of Guerra-Peixe’s First Symphony and his Nonet. After listening to this album, I did some research on the composer and found that his music was used extensively in Brazilan movies. That makes complete sense.

Not that his music sounds like film scores, but that the music is so uniquely part of the Brazilian musicscape why wouldn’t a filmmaker want this music in his/her film?

There’s 72 minutes of music to explore and I hope, like me, you are inspired to check out more of Guerra-Peixe’s music, particularly as performed by the Goiás Philharmonic Orchestra with Neil Thomson.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: BELOVED – Anne Akiko Meyers/Los Angeles Master Chorale/Grant Gershon – Platoon 

Violinist Meyers offers three world premiere recordings on this terrific album. Uniquely, all three find Meyers performing with the Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon.

The true highlight of the album, and the piece that anchors it, is In the Arms of the Beloved composed by Billy Childs who wrote the piece in honor of his mother.  This is a deeply emotional and beautiful piece that is performed by both Meyers and the LAMC in equal measure to the beauty of the work itself.

Childs plays piano and is joined by Dan Chmielinski on bass, Christian Euman on drums, Larry Koonse on guitar, the Lyris Quartet, Carol Robbins on harp and Luciana Souza on vocals. 

The other premieres are Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre and Serenity by Ola Gjeilo. If I had to pick a second favorite on this album it would be Gjeilo’s haunting Serenity.

I challenge anyone not to be moved by Beloved. 

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: ALLEN SAPP: LIVE PIANO WORKS – Norma Bertolami Sapp – Novona Records

Allen Sapp is a composer with whom I was not even remotely familiar. When Navona Records sent along information about this album, I was immediately curious. This is a recording of multiple concerts given of many of his solo piano compositions (including a piano suite, a fantasy, an multiple sonatas) by his wife, Norma Bertolami Sapp.

Lastly, his Piano Sonata No. 3 is heard at the end of this two-disc set in a performance from 1961 by the composer himself.

It’s a great introduction to Sapp whose work contains many influences (as with any composer) including, as Howard Pollack said in his book Harvard Composers, Debussy, Bartok and Schoenberg.

I heard those influences, but more importantly I heard the voice of a composer whose work requires more attention.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: ESCAPE RITES – Austin Wulliman  with JACK Quartet– Solo Luminus

Violinist Austin Wulliman is a member of JACK Quartet. This is his second album of original music. The first was 2023’s The News From Utopia.

As one would expect from Wulliman, this is music that is complex, challenging, rewarding and emotional.

All the compositions here come from a prolific period of writing from 2023 and 2024. The title piece, a 22-1/2 minute work in six movements, is the most impactful on the album. It may also be the one most likely to sound different as it uses a 25-tone scale. I found it completely riveting.

Escape Rites, the piece, not the album, is inspired by Pierrre Boulez’s friendship with John Cage. I bring that up since Cage is a definite influence on Wulliam and this album. The final track is an arrangement Wulliamn made of Cage’s 1942 Totem Ancestor.

JACK Quartet members Jay Campbell on cello; Christopher Otto on violin and John Pickford Richards on viola do incredible work on Escape Rites.

For those who don’t like their music nice and easy, Escape Rites is for you. But don’t let that scare you. Take a listen!

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: REQUIEM A – Sven Helbig/René Pape/Dresden Kreuzchor/Staatskapelle Dresden/Martin Lehmann – Deutsche Grammophon

It is no doubt a reflection of our time that works like In the Arms of the Beloved and Requiem A are works that have an initial impetus, but ring out well beyond those ideas to speak to our times.

German composer Helbig’s Requiem A is one of those works. Writing a requiem means you have awfully big shoes to fill. Mozart, Verdi and Benjamin Britten are arguably three of the biggest.

Helbig composed Requiem A in honor of the 80^th anniversary of World War II’s end. The work had its debut in February and it featured visuals that, of course, are not part of this recording. As a result, the totality of Requiem A cannot be gauged just by this recording.

Thankfully Helbig’s work stands alone. Bass René Pape pops in and out of Requiem A and the orchestra and chorus are also augmented with the use of electronic instruments.

With so much going on in the world, it is not surprising that Requiem A acknowledges our past and reminds us that our future may not be so far removed from it as we had hoped.

JAZZ: FOR THE LOVE OF IT ALL – Brandon Woody – Blue Note Records

I’ve been listening to trumpeter Brandon Woody’s album for two months now. I wouldn’t be doing that if I didn’t respond to his ability to be both a keeper of the past and an innovator who knows he can’t look forward without acknowledging the artists who came before him.

The title tells you what the album is going to be about: love. It’s not beautifully wrapped up in a bow or dripping with insane amounts of sentiment. This is love in the best possible way: messy, complex and rewarding. 

Woody is joined by the members of his band Upendo: Troy Long on piano and keys; Quincy Phillips on drums and Michael Saunders on bass. Two special guests also appear: Imani-Grace on vocals and Vittorio Stropoli on aux synth.

It’s said that being single is hard and being married is hard. Choose your hard. Woody suggests with this striking debut album that sharing your life with someone is hard, but it’s far more satisfying, with all its complications, than being alone. He says all that and more wonderfully.

JAZZ VOCALS: JUST IN TIME – Susan Hinkson – Windfalls Creations

Vocalist Hinkson beautifully sings straight-ahead versions of some of the American songbook’s greatest songs on Just In Time. In addition to the title song she performs such classic songs as One For My Baby, My Funny Valentine, But Not For Me, It Might As Well Be Spring and The Best Is Yet to Come. She swings when she needs to and offers classic torch song renditions when needed. 

Hinkson is joined by bassist Vicente Archer, pianist/producer Bruce Barth, drummer Adam Cruz and alto saxophonist Steve Wilson.

Standards can be either an easy target or a mountain to climb for any singer. For her debut album Hinkson proves that even newcomers can turn the long uphill path can be accomplished with simplicity, grace and style.

That’s it for New In Music This Week: May 9^th. Enjoy the music! Enjoy your weekend.

Main Photo: Part of the album art for Requiem A (Courtesy Deutsche Grammophon)