Past Programs
Piano and Keyboard - 2008
Ricky Scaggs and Bruce Hornsby (repeat of 18/1/08)
31/10/2008
On his CD collaboration with Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby retains his own musical identity while playing with Ricky and other leading bluegrass players and takes it somewhere else with his supple piano and the unusual songs he’s written.
There’s one called The Dreaded Spoon about a closet gourmand, and their version of a Rick James song about a groupie, Superfreak, is, well...surprising. The playing is great throughout and Ricky and Bruce harmonise well together. In the process of making the record, Ricky turned Bruce on to old timey musicians Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Boggs and Clarence Ashley, and Bruce turned Ricky on to Bud Powell, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett.
Richard Galliano and the Tangaria Quartet (First Broadcast on 20/03/2008)
24/09/2008
The virtuosic French accordionist explores the Tango side of his music on his latest CD, Live in Marciac 2006, joined by the mostly South American Tangaria Quartet for what Richard called ‘One of the most beautiful concerts of my life.’
Marciac is a quaint, sleepy town in South-Western France that comes to life during the summer months when it hosts a massive jazz festival. Galliano and the band had recorded their first album in Sao Paolo only a month before the show, which includes Galliano standards and some new ones. Brazilian mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda guests and delivers an astonishing mandolin solo.
Andy Bey (First Broadcast on 12/03/2008)
23/09/2008
We’ve heard Andy Bey’s incredible four octave voice go from pianissimo to fortissimo before, but on Ain’t Necessarily So he also plays piano with the same unpredictability in a live piano trio.
This session, recorded at Birdland a decade ago, was effectively his first significant New York City residency as a leader. The non-brothers Peter and Kenny Washington are the rhythm section on most of this CD that signalled Bey’s return as a pianist. As New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff said of Andy, ‘When he enters a song, he makes it deluxe, decking it out with cushions and tapestries; arranging all the hangings; he isn’t just making a quick visit.’ And on the title piece, he uses his magnificent voice so that you might not ever be able to imagine anyone else singing the song.
Chris Abrahams
01/09/2008
Chris Abrahams is a pianist with a unique, dulcimer-like sound and a left-of-centre vision which he applies to his soundtrack to the film The Tender Hook which features Hugo Weaving singing Dylan and Cohen like a music hall entertainer.
When Hugo tackles I’m Your Man and Ballad of a Thin Man with a Tiny Tim-like brio, the CD is thrown deepest into 1920s Sydney where the film is set in a time when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was being built, political parties were forming and underworld crime had a powerful grip on the city. Otherwise, Chris avoids a jazz-based sound even though he does use banjo and trumpet in his instrumentation. As you would expect from the co-founder of visionary trio The Necks, Chris’ sonic textures and conceptions are distinctive and compelling.
Alfredo Rodriguez
29/08/2008
Oye Afra is the posthumous release of a set of live recordings by Cuban-born, Paris-based pianist Alfredo Rodriguez and his band, including excellent violinist Ruben Chaviano and flutist Bobby Rangell.
Born near Havana, Alfredo studied classical piano before leaving Cuba for New York City, where he studied jazz with Bill Evans and played with Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Patato Valdez. He lived in Paris for 22 years before his death there in October of 2005.
Barney McAll (Repeat of 22/11/2007 )
16/06/2008
Melbourne-born, New York City-based pianist/composer Barney McAll’s latest CD Flashbacks employs a NYC-based crew to create a musical picture of ‘those strange flashes that we get when we least expect them’.
Often taking Cuban religious rhythms and slowing them down into hypnotic cycles, Barney creates a rich post-jazz sonic tapestry on this CD of all his compositions.
Uri Caine
19/05/2008
Uri Caine’s CD, The Classical Variations, is a collection of 20 of the Philadelphia-born pianist’s edgy jazz interpretations of Mahler, Beethoven, Schumann, Mozart and Wagner, including 10 previously unreleased takes on Bach.
In Uri’s world, he improvises on an early piano on Beethoven pieces, plays Bach as Fats Waller or John Coltrane would, and gets a gospel belter to sing Mahler. The result is exciting music that defies identification in time or place.
CD of the Week - Jean-Marie Machado
14/04/2008
On his new double CD, Soeurs de Sang (Sisters of Blood), Moroccan-born, Portuguese-Italian jazz pianist Jean-Marie Machado beautifully and inventively interprets songs sung by Billie Holiday and fado queen Amalia Rodrigues in solo and trio formats.
Jean Marie quotes from Japanese poet Okakura Kakuzo’s poem that says ‘Flowers, teardrops from the stars’ to set the tone of this album in which the stars are Billie and Amalia whose teardrop-drenched songs have become everlasting flowers. When Jean Marie plays songs they made their own, he makes them his own, with little resemblance to the originals in style but much similarity in feeling. He finds the mutuality between Fado and Jazz in these songs that ‘teach us to wait patiently until joy returns on the path of our lives.’
CD of the Week - Joe Chindamo's Romantic Project
07/04/2008
Duende is Melbourne pianist Joe Chindamo’s recording of the excellent, unusual quartet he put together for his Romantic Project.
Asked by the chairman of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival to make something along the lines of his Paradiso project - a CD of film music - Joe put together a group with Sam Anning on double bass, Nigel MacLean on violin and Doug DeVries on guitar to play the Tangos, Tarantella and Italian Operas of Joe’s youth, imbued with the nostalgia and melancholy of one revisiting the old family home after many years. It’s called Duende after the Spanish word for something having passion and inspiration, and according to Joe, ‘Duende is there to challenge us to keep our ears open to the ‘dark sounds’, to keep our touch with the earth and with the ghosts of those who have come before, to never refuse the struggle which is needed to keep the spirits working on the side of truth.’
Spanish Harlem Orchestra
03/04/2008
On their new CD, United We Swing, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra continues their infectious new versions of New York old school ‘Salsa Dura’ with a guest appearance by Paul Simon singing Late In the Evening.
The Simon connection isn’t far-fetched as the New York singer/songwriter used Spanish Harlem Orchestra leader and pianist Oscar Hernandez to arrange and produce the music for Simon’s Broadway musical The Capeman. Oscar is the youngest of 11 children whose parents moved from Puerto Rico to the ghetto of the South Bronx in the 1940s. The loss of a brother to a drug overdose convinced Oscar to leave the ghetto and he did this through music, working for Ray Barretto in 1972 and playing with Ruben Blades and many, many others through the years before founding SHO in 2000. United We Swing, the 3rd album, follows the Grammy award-winning Across 110th Street and is mostly the band’s originals - songs that celebrate the rich culture of New York City’s Latino community, especially the interplay between musicians and dancers.
Markus Burger and Jan von Klewitz
24/03/2008
On Tertia, pianist Markus Burger and saxophonist Jan Von Klewitz build on the ideas of their previous CD, Spiritual Standards, of improvising on German chorales, hymns and Christmas carols; but this time they present mostly their own compositions alongside two chorales and two pieces by Handel.
Whether they are being contemplative or energetic, the two always play emotionally and with empathic communication, staying true to the idea of the spiritual song.
Richard Galliano and the Tangaria Quartet
20/03/2008
The virtuosic French accordionist explores the Tango side of his music on his latest CD, Live in Marciac 2006, joined by the mostly South American Tangaria Quartet for what Richard called ‘One of the most beautiful concerts of my life.’
Marciac is a quaint, sleepy town in South-Western France that comes to life during the summer months when it hosts a massive jazz festival. Galliano and the band had recorded their first album in Sao Paolo only a month before the show, which includes Galliano standards and some new ones. Brazilian mandolinist Hamilton de Holanda guests and delivers an astonishing mandolin solo.
Andy Bey
12/03/2008
We’ve heard Andy Bey’s incredible four octave voice go from pianissimo to fortissimo before, but on Ain’t Necessarily So he also plays piano with the same unpredictability in a live piano trio.
This session, recorded at Birdland a decade ago, was effectively his first significant New York City residency as a leader. The non-brothers Peter and Kenny Washington are the rhythm section on most of this CD that signalled Bey’s return as a pianist. As New York Times music critic Ben Ratliff said of Andy, ‘When he enters a song, he makes it deluxe, decking it out with cushions and tapestries; arranging all the hangings; he isn’t just making a quick visit.’ And on the title piece, he uses his magnificent voice so that you might not ever be able to imagine anyone else singing the song.
Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani
10/03/2008
Trumpeter Enrico Rava and Pianist Stefano Bollani’s live CD, The Third Man, reveals the tremendous sense of space and musical empathy the two Italians have for each other.
Whether they’re playing free improvisation, Jobim, Italian song or their own compositions, the two play lyrically but are always open to surprising new directions. The two have played together since the early 1990s, Bollani hailing trumpeter Rava as his mentor, and Rava regarding Bollani as ‘perhaps the most gifted pianist since Art Tatum’. Rava, at 68, looks like a silver-haired quietly wise hippy, while Bollani, at 35 (and with a sideline as a comedic film actor) is full of fidgety energy. Their ‘odd-couple-ness’ works to their advantage to create a ‘Third Man’.
Malouma (repeat of 25/7/07)
21/01/2008
After years of her music being banned by Mauritania’s military government, Malouma now speaks through her new role as one of the country’s 56 senators and through her new CD, Nour, which brings the desert blues of Mauritania into the 21st century.
Born in the sand dunes in the south of the country into an artistic community, with a father whose musical tastes were wide-ranging, Malouma raised controversy at the age of 16 with a song she wrote and sang which criticised polygamists and the way they married ‘younger and more charming’ wives and turned the old ones out into the street. Opponents of her views threw stones at her and she was unable to go out alone, have her music played on State media, perform anywhere local, or even to take a permanent address. Still, she continued to write songs criticising the government, performing them overseas or at opposition political rallies. One of her party’s political missions is to unite currently divided Moorish and black Mauritanians. One of her personal crusades is to keep alive the Moorish music of her childhood and on her new CD (which means ‘light’), she does this by mixing the traditional sounds of her ardin (A Mauritanian harp played only by women) with more modern, electronic sounds.
Ricky Scaggs and Bruce Hornsby (repeat of 8/8/07)
18/01/2008
On his CD collaboration with Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby retains his own musical identity while playing with Ricky and other leading bluegrass players and takes it somewhere else with his supple piano and the unusual songs he’s written.
There’s one called The Dreaded Spoon about a closet gourmand, and their version of a Rick James song about a groupie, Superfreak, is, well...surprising. The playing is great throughout and Ricky and Bruce harmonise well together. In the process of making the record, Ricky turned Bruce on to old timey musicians Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Boggs and Clarence Ashley, and Bruce turned Ricky on to Bud Powell, Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett.
