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CD Review: "Made Possible" by The Bad Plus

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The Bad Plus

Made Possible (eOne records, 2012)

Reid Anderson  bass/synths/electronics
Ethan Iverson piano
David King drums

 

The Bad Plus' newly released CD, "Made Possible" (see the end of this review or this link for a video preview of it) is hard to categorize, but the important thing is that it's innovative, interesting to listen to, often beautiful and inspired music.  They're typically characterized as a jazz trio, and that's what you'll find in the metadata on an mp3 and where you'll find their stuff filed in CD store bins.  The instrumentation is the classic trio of piano, acoustic bass, and drums.  Not only is this kind of piano trio a standard jazz configuration, but it is usually present as the rhythm section in larger jazz groups.  So that is one reason to think of the music in jazz terms.  Here, a bit of electronics and electronic keyboard is mixed in on occasion.  But the overall musical language is wide-ranging, touching not only on a wide range of jazz styles but also on aspects of classical music and rock, and even stuff that might be considered New Age or generic mellow.  To my ear there are definite echoes of the Windham Hill Records sound, and although I've never been an avid follower of that sound, I emphatically do not mean that as a criticism.

Classical: you may hear something of Glassy minimalism in Anderson's "Seven Minute Mind" or King's "Wolf Out", impressionistic or even Bartokian harmony in Iverson's lovely "Sing for a Silver Dollar", which melds it with some classic jazz gestures, as well as avant-gardisms that almost form a continuum with the further-out reaches of jazz, as in the out-of-tempo interlude beginning around 2'25 in "Silver Dollar", or some of the piano in "Wolf Out": the block chords following 3'28, morphing into medusa-like writhing lines worthy of (but more organic than) a Conlon Nancarrow player piano piece, at 4'14 and again, in a nice touch, to end the piece.

Rock: Dave King's drumming on this CD also draws not only on jazz but on influences that are fairly nonstandard for jazz of either the straight-ahead or avant-garde persuasion, though probably more apparent in jazz fusion.  Quite a few of the beats he sets up have a definite rock flavor, like the one he keeps going under the lyrical theme (this one of the places on the CD where there are shades of Windham Hill, and also, one of the places of great beauty) of Anderson's "Pound for Pound", which kicks off the record.  Something similar, both with the drumbeat and the shades of Windham Hill in the piano is going on in the opening of King's "For my eyes only", which also has hints of some kind of prairie church-choirish Americana thing, a bit of bluesiness, and even Satie.

There is not all that much ride-cymbal ching-cha-ching going on on this CD, and plenty of backbeat and thwacky snare reminiscent of Stax/Volt soul or Led Zeppelin, even if it's sometimes done at a much slower tempo and in support of music in a very different mood.  But King mixes this kind of thing up with episodes of very interactive and inventive dialogue with the piano and bass.  "Silver Dollar" is a good example, in which the opening beat, which returns periodically through the piece, is a slowed-down version of a classic rock beat in which the kickdrum and snare take alternate---if you jammed with a drummer in somebody's garage in high school, you've probably heard a close relative of this beat---and then the second subject features free commentary using all elements of the drumset.  King's playing is an important part of the musical mix throughout, far from simple timekeeping.  Take time to focus on it occasionally during your listening.

The pianism is also surprisingly far from your more conventional jazz outing, which might spin out a lot of long lines, hopefully, but not always, at a high level of inspiration, or pile on a lot of highly colored chords voiced in a variety of ways, again to variable effect. Compared to a typical jazz record of whatever subgenre, a much larger fraction of the music on this CD sounds relatively thoroughly composed, even if not explicitly written out; or if not composed in full detail, relatively carefully planned, with detail filled in spontaneously in performance.  I don't know if that's how it was actually done; the point is that it comes out as carefully and effectively constructed, and relatively low on extended solo effusions.  There is perhaps slightly too much ostinato on this CD for my taste, but I have to admit that it's very effectively used. And in the parts that seem repetitive, just listen to the details of what's going on over the ostinato... they are usually not static, they evolve, and add quite a bit of musical interest.

I've touched on some of the particular bits I've enjoyed, but let me just mention a few other highlights.  After the relatively reiterative and not so jazzy (these are not criticisms!) opening pair of pieces by Anderson, Iverson's "Re-elect that" puts us squarely in contemporary somewhat-avant-garde jazzish territory with limpid jets of piano notes from Iverson over agile brushwork from King.  Then over a more propulsive but still quite flexible beat from Anderson and King, Iverson solos playfully, toying with stock pentatonicisms and turning them on their sides, throwing in a bit of uncategorizable avant-classical stuff, then shading things toward more beboppish or chromatic lines, hints of Bach, a contrapuntal episode, and tying things up gracefully by alternating a couple of closely voiced, high chords.  This may be the only thing on the CD you could really begin to categorize as a classic jazz piano solo, and it's a gem.  There are plenty of other places where Iverson's inspired pianism is in evidence, but in a less traditionally linear manner.  For example, the opening chords of "Silver Dollar" ... kind of dark-sounding voicings, in an unusual but compelling progression (or maybe it's the voice-leading that gives an unusual sound).  Around 0'36, the darkish harmonic elements continue as what would otherwise be more conventional-sounding (in a jazz context) melodic gestures are unfurled, subtly transfigured by the harmony.  Inspired indeed, but not in an in-your-face virtuosic or emotive way.  The record's most extended piano passage starts around 5 minutes into the lengthy "In Stitches" ... a long ruminatively lyrical stretch, slowly building momentum (propelled by incredible, restrained high-hat and rimshot work from King that you may not even notice at first, but which is crucial) which I suspect contains much improvisation from Iverson, then fixating on an ascending line that is almost a bebop cliché, which Iverson worries, transposes, develops, extends, fragments, but in a way that is not like a typical jazz solo but more cyclical, more textural, though still building constantly in complexity and intensity, largely by adding voices and harmonic depth and rhythmic complexity as well as by the old device of modulating or moving gradually upward on the keyboard.  It's your call whether the final buildup of this ends up being too grandstandy or not... I think it's fantastic.  This whole passage is major music-making.  And then listen to the discreet groove the rhythm section sets up to move on from this peak to finish the piece, the quiet as that groove dies down for a lyrical slow piano statement again, and then --- unexpectedly, and totally effectively --- the almost samba beat it sets up under that lyricism as the piano slowly subsides and the bass takes it out, and you're hearing just one example of why this is a great ensemble, much more than just three excellent players.

Despite what I've described as eclecticism, the record doesn't sound like a patchwork; these guys weave the elements they draw on into a language of their own that has its unity; there is plenty of variety within and between the pieces, but it's not scattershot, it's musically compelling.

I strongly recommend this CD; the musical approach is quite fresh, the musical content varied and often fascinating.  The overall mood is relatively reflective and calm, with little or nothing in the way of heavy minor-key emotivism or in-your-face spirituality, but plenty of lyrical beauty, fascinating detail, and sincere but relatively calm feeling, along with some more intense passages.  Despite the eclecticism, the pieces are well-structured, not rambling.  I might have liked to hear a few more episodes of extended improvisation...but I suspect that if you want that too, you might get it at one of their gigs, so check out their schedule (they are in Europe for the next two weeks as of this post, and there will be plenty of opportunity to hear them in the US in December and on into next year).  A very successful bout of music-making and a very enjoyable listen.  Although it's hard to predict what a piece of music will end up meaning to one over the long run, I suspect that I will keep coming back to this CD over the years.

Howard Barnum

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Raw listening notes follow, but first, the official video preview of Made Possible; it kicks off with an excerpt from Seven Minute Mind, then a bit of Pound for Pound, and so on.  You can already find many tracks from this on Youtube, but I'm not linking them without checking with the band first.  The official preview might be considered kind of corny, but that doesn't bother me.  Plus I love the neologism/solecism "on a guttural level".

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I recommend that you now just buy the CD and listen to the whole thing
to find your own high points, but for those who want a guide to some
other things they might find particularly interesting, I'm pasting in
as an appendix to this review some pretty raw listening notes, written
during a listen-through on a cross-country plane flight and re-edited
on another listen-through at home.

1- Pound for Pound  (Anderson)

drums as often on the record have something of a rock beat

Almost Windham Hill kind of lyrical sound.  Nice.  Fairly repetitive.
Some variation of voicing, decoration etc...
almost unnoticeable synths but they're there (noticed on 3rd or 4th
listening)

Record overall has a lot of theme, not that much improv

2- Seven Minute Mind (Anderson) Minimalism, scales and ostinato, excellent,
maybe goes on a bit long.

3- Re-elect That (Iverson) After the two ostinato-ey, mellow pieces,
it's easy to imagine that this one is self-consciously reestablishing
some contemporary avant-ish jazz cred.  (Of course the main point of
everything on the record is musical, not anything to do with
establishing cred; this is just an incidental impression.)  Iverson's
solo is a gem.  It starts by referencing modal/pentatonic cliches,
then turning them inside out.  Then it brings in bop, chromatic
post-bop, developing playfully but logically.  Then we get a nice bass
solo, then a drum solo (brushes).  I.e., the standard jazz routine.
But the overall impression is anything but standard jazz.  And then...
the last section is kind of a electronic/synthy version of some kind
of tweaked view of say 19th century band music amalgamated with an
off-kilter chorale. Given the title one imagines it might be aurally
alluding to some kind of 19th century electioneering event with
music...  Musically I dig what came before this much more, but have to
admit that this coda does work with the rest of the piece, in an
Ivesian kind of way...

I interpret the title of this piece in the light of Iverson's blog
post urging jazz musicians to vote for Obama...

4 Wolf Out...

Ostinato again, over a funkier bass line at first, static for a little
while but then starts modulating... and still later moves to more
chromatic stuff... Iverson with chromatic lines and chromatic
block-chords bits, enjoyable but not as deep or distinctive as some of
the stuff on the previous cut...  Nice theme... interesting chord
movement over the ostinato...  important to listen for detail...  B
section (?) ... descending piano line, kind of ominous in itself and
with each descent capped by somewhat ominous-sounding chords... then
the A theme starts getting mixed in ... continued development with
3'10 nice figure in the piano, q ... written or improv?  3'30 here is
the chromatic line in (clustery?) block chords I mentioned.  quiets (C
section tho related?)  ... & one hears electronics in background.
Nice.  Then gets busier again.  4'17 or so main theme again but with
writhing high register piano lines over it, excellent.  More of an
overall sound than line that can be followed.  "Medusa-like".  Then
more straight ostinato, straight repetition, drums eventually join in
with a major beat.... a short bit of Medusa piano is added to the mix
and that's it.  Nice one.

5-- Sing for a Silver Dollar (Iverson).... spare post-bop (?) jazz
balladry meets Debussy kinda...  nice.  Superb, in fact.  Right from
the top, a very distinctive, I've-heard-this-someplace-before drumbeat
is from, nice relentless trashy (? but w/ a fair bit of sustain)
cymbal beat... Jack de Johnette-ish?  Really a superb track.  Kind of
a couple of jazz ballad gestures, but done almost in classical style.
Segue into an electronic section.  Nice kind of atonal thing in this
section; prepared and straight piano kinds of sounds, and bass,
blending with the electronics.  Not sure about the jackhammer
drum-machine bit, though the bell-like accompaniment to it is fine.
Back to theme w/ "the beat" again.  Nice last note from the bass...

6 For My Eyes Only (King) .... again a kind of autumnal midwestern
kind of sound, very nice, between classical and Windham Hill
again... Yeah!  nice blues touch ... which echoed lower somehow gives
it a tinge of oh I don't know, cowboy soul maybe...  Excellent
composition.  Windham Hill meets Satie?  So far quite arranged.  New
section... piano arpeggios mostly triadic .... with bass tremolo and
windchimes.... nice interlude.  3'40 ... related to main theme but
still a different episode.  Or just in a different key, I think that's
it.  (Yup, the bluesy bits again just as before but transposed
(?)....)  Maybe goes on just a bit long...  4'48 ish nice bass work
under it all! good stuff.

7 I Want to Feel Good pt 2 (King) ... I like this one too.  A bit
singsongybackground, slightly off-kilter melodies.

8 In Stitches (Anderson) ... quite a long piece (14--15' or so?!)
starts a bit slow and avant-garde sparse noodly... quite moody
... nice.... around two minutes starts moving a bit more, still quite
pensive... 2'30 more crystalline... almost classical
figures.... digging the drumming...  6' picking it up on mellow
rippling chords from Iverson, nice...possibly a bit slow to
develop....  but really gets into its groove just over 1/2 way through
(about 7'26) with a beboppy figure that's varied and becomes the basis
for fantastic elaboration by Iverson, steadily increasing in
intensity.  Still quite a bit of repetition with textural development
rather than linear improvisation.  11'18 texture thins out.  Theme
again, at some point.  Then at 13' almost a samba beat, but still the
theme .... then the piano drifs on into silence, as bass and drums
soldier on.  Standout piece.

9 Victoria (Paul Motian) Starts as almost a bit of baroque
voice-leading. Continuing fairly classical in mood.  Nice.  Again not
a lot of improv.

Kapustin Variations Opus 41 played by Yeol Eum Son, and Impromptu Op. 66 No. 2 by himself

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During the last (2010-2011) Los Alamos Concert Association season, Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son, a silver medalist in the 2009 Van Cliburn piano competition and 2nd prize winner in the 2011 Tchaikowsky competition, was a last-minute substitute for another competition-winning pianist. I recall enjoying her playing of a substantial chunk of Liszt, and being especially pleased to finally discover a jazz-influenced classical piece that made effective and idiomatic use of the language of bebop, but there was no program and I was having difficulty tracking it down.  I just figured out, with the help of Ethan Iverson's interview of pianist Marc-André Hamelin, in which the jazz-influenced composer Nikolai Kapustin (fansite here) is discussed, what it was: Kapustin's Variations Opus 41. Here's Yeol Eum Son herself playing it on Youtube:

Turns out there's a lot more of his stuff on youtube; here's Kapustin playing his Opus 66, no. 2 impromptu, which I think I like even better:

Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles: at Santa Fe 2012 and on record (Alain Vanzo's Nadir should not be missed)

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This summer's Santa Fe Opera performance was the first time I've really listened to Bizet's first opera, Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers).  It was a good performance, and perhaps I'll review it more fully sometime; the male leads, singing Nadir and Zurga, were good but not extraordinary, the female lead, Nicole Cabell singing Leila, had a more distinctive and powerful voice, with some clear ringing tone but also at times a bit too much vibrato and/or distortion, and possibly an overall sound more suited, to my ears, for bel canto Italian opera than a more legato french style.  The opera has some beautiful choral sections, and in the Santa Fe performance I especially liked some of the duet work between Nadir and Leila in the middle and later sections.  I also enjoyed the act I interaction between Nadir and Zurga, but I didn't quite realize, from the Santa Fe performance, that this is probably the high point of the opera and probably, in terms of just beautiful melody and singing, one of the high points of opera.

Listening to the first act, on Angel LPs (Angel 3603, stereo) with Pierre Dervaux conducting the chorus and orchestra of the Opéra Comique (Paris) and Janine Micheau as love-interest and priestess Leila, Nicolai Gedda as Nadir, Ernest Blanc as Zurga (rivals for Leila's love) and Jacques Mars as the bad-guy priest Nourabad, was a thoroughly satisfying musical experience.  Some of the music might be thought a bit simple in its appeal, but none of it is boring, and there are plenty of superb high points.  Gedda, who was a go-to tenor for recordings for several decades in the middle of the last century because of his reliability, willingness to deal with studio requirements such as multiple takes and such, and ability to project a role even in the studio, does an excellent job, with a relatively clear and neutral vocal quality.  Baritone Ernest Blanc is a wonderful foil for Gedda, especially in the outstanding duet "Au fond du temple saint", with a very characterful voice that has a mellow, almost walnut-brown tone.  The voices contrast nicely, but also work beautifully together in the unison passages. The Angel LP sound is good except toward the end of a side, where there is either a lot of inner-groove distortion, or perhaps my copy is just worn.  I'm looking forward to a careful listen to the rest of this performance. Here's the Nadir-Zurga duet "Au fond du Temple Saint" from this recording:

However, what really turned me on to quality of the first-act music for Nadir and Zurga was the performances of French tenor Alain Vanzo.  He has an amazing, very clear voice, sounding higher than most tenors when singing the same notes, but not quite like a countertenor.  No one can touch him in this role.  So here is a selection of his performances of the two great highlights of the first act: the duet "Au fond du temple saint", and Nadir's solo aria "Je crois entendre encore".  This is some of the most beautiful singing ever.

 Au Fond du Temple Saint:

Live in Amsterdam, 1963, with Belgian baritone Juri Jorlis as Zurga. Probably my favorite. Joris also has an exceptionally clear-toned voice that goes well with Vanzo's, and sings well; it's not just Vanzo's solo work that is outstanding here, Joris is too, and the two together are stunning, for instance beginning at 1'30 in the video.

The above performance is available on a 2 CD set on the Verona label. Jean Fornet conducts the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw, Erna Spoorenberg is Leila.

It's also interesting to hear a younger Vanzo, in 1959 with Robert Massard as Zurga. His voice sounds slightly tauter, the overall tone a bit more brilliantly operatic but perhaps less supple, and the tempo may be a bit faster.

Also from 1959, a very different performance with Gabriel Bacquier as Zurga. A much slower tempo, a softer-edged tone from Vanzo, a more relaxed interpretation overall. At least as presented on Youtube, the sound quality is better than in the two preceding clips, but I think there is a genuine difference in Vanzo's tone here, probably influenced by the slow tempo. Bacquier is a more standard, dark-toned baritone, and his delivery is more emphatically "operatic" at times. Still very much worth hearing. This clip also contains a lot of excellent music leading up to the aria; a highlight is the melodic passage for Nadir as he starts to be carried away by memories of Leila ("Son regard...") from 1'20 through 1'40. The musical and melodic quality here is as high as in any great aria. The passage begins with an old (but perhaps not so old in Bizet's time) trick, the singer singing the words of the phrase while repeating the same musical note, with the harmony changing underneath. (Puccini's "E lucevan le stelle" for Cavaradossi in Tosca starts the same way.) Here we just get one harmonic change with the same note kept in the melody; at the next harmonic change the singer rises by a minor third, and we are into an unmistakably nineteenth-century French melody, probably in some minor mode, reminiscent of antique times and exotic lands seen through a golden haze of memory. (You know the vein; it runs through art (Delacroix) and literature (Baudelaire), and certainly through French music all the way up to Debussy and Ravel, Reynaldo Hahn, etc...) This is magic, Bizet's genius at work; the transitions into and out of it are also superbly handled...in fact, the whole passage in this clip, before what is considered the duet proper begins with "Au fond..." at 2'20, shows Bizet's genius in handling dialogue in music, seamlessly mixing declamatory, recitative-like parts with melodic passages. At 1'50, Zurga is drawn into the reverie...the foreboding in his chromatic descending line (echoed at times in his lines in the duet proper, and presaged in some way by some chromatic ascending lines earlier) is not exactly the most subtle or original thing, but works perfectly as part of Bizet's mix.

Je crois entendre encore

This solo aria "Je crois entendre encore" is another contender for the musical high point of the opera. I'm unsure of the source of this clip, but it's a good one.

I'm also not sure where and when this next clip is from. In the preceding version, and in most or all of the other performances I've heard, the aria ends with Nadir's final "Charmant souvenir" echoed by the oboe. Where the singer rises a fourth (to the A above middle C) on "Charmant", the oboe rises a minor sixth, and also rises at the end to the cadence. In this version Vanzo sings the oboe's line, the minor sixth on "Charmant" taking him (incidentally) to what is called a "high C" for tenor, and it is breathaking:

The oboe line is probably what Bizet wrote, and perhaps sets up the transition to what follows better than singing the cadence, but it's also possible that it was set for the oboe because it was too high for the tenor in the relevant performance. Possibly the above clip is from a concert performance of the aria, where there is no need for a transition; the sung cadence is certainly effective.

Finally, from the 1963 Amsterdam performance again:

Globalquerque music festival: streaming live at KUNM

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Globalquerque world music festival is going on now in in Albuquerque, NM.

You can stream it live here at KUNM.  7 PM to midnight tonight (21 Sep 2012) and tomorrow night (22 Sep), Mountain Time (North America).
Just heard Zeb and Haniya from Pakistan.  Nice stuff.  If the live feed's over, you can check out a version of the song they just played on youtube, embedded below.   Nice intro on a sarod-like instrument.  (Update:  the instrument is a rubab, probably the instrument from which evolved the sarod of North Indian (perhaps better termed Hindustani?) classical music, although the rubab is fretted, while the sarod has a fretless, usually stainless steel, fingerboard enabling the slides and sliding ornaments that are integral to much Indian classical music.  At Globalquerque, the rubab intro was replaced by a beautiful and fairly lengthy vocal introduction, resembling the alap of a Hindustani raga performance.)

Lucevan le stelle: Tosca at Santa Fe

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The stars, seen at intermission from the exterior loggia at the Santa Fe Opera two nights ago, were shining over the Sangre de Cristo mountains, through the gaps between the clouds remaining after a typical New Mexico late summer evening shower.  And they were definitely shining onstage in a performance of Puccini's Tosca.

Tosca is one of the great operas.  (If, like Benjamin Britten and Berkeley musicologist Joseph Kerman, you're one of the doubters on this score, I may address your doubts in another post, but now is not the time.)  And the Santa Fe Opera put on a great performance of it two nights ago.  Not a perfect one, but a genuinely great one.  The sets were a bit unorthodox, with the church setting of act I portrayed with the dome suspended globe-like, its coffered, gilt-highlighted interior toward the audience, at the rear of the stage, which was open to the pinon-covered hills and more distant mesas and mountains of New Mexico.  Stage right and left, chapel gates lined the church aisles, scaled down toward the back for artifical perspective.  And rising ramp-like from front center, the huge painting on which Mario Cavaradossi is working---while standing on it---for most of the first act.  Unorthodox, but very effective.

Brian Jagde (who replaced Andrew Richard, who had been scheduled for this season) sang Cavaradossi with elegant but unfussy phrasing, and a voice that was not huge, nor over-the-top dramatic, but handsome and focused, with a good core and excellent intonation, well suited to the part overall if a bit restrained at times.  Below, I say more about why he is a really superb artist.  Amanda Echalaz, from Durban, South Africa, has been getting some rave reviews for her Toscas at Covent Garden, the English National Opera, and elsewhere.  Her voice is perhaps a bit far over on the dramatic side, rather than lyrical, to be perfectly ideal for the part which seems to me to require equal measure of both.  It is produced with a lot of vibrato, and at least in the first act's scene of love, jealousy, and flirtation, some measure of distortion or strain in high, loud notes---which somewhat paradoxically, seemed to mostly disappear in the dramatic, no-holds-barred extended confrontation with Scarpia that is the second act.  Her acting was superb, and the less-sweet side of her voice does emphasize the possibly more worldly side of Floria Tosca, who is after all a woman in show business (an opera singer, in fact!) at the turn of the 19th century, so the first act did have plenty of humor, tension, and drama.  But she really came into her own in the second act.  With Thomas Hampson playing a relatively suave and controlled but thoroughly despicable Scarpia, singing with effortless control and refined phrasing in a deep, honeyed baritone---no hammy villain he---this was unquestionably a highlight of the season at Santa Fe---as it would have been anywhere.  Echalaz responded to each new piece of calm but implacably studied coercion, each newly revealed depth of evil, with more and more frenzied alternation of despair and rage, masterfully paced and not overdone, at the end almost like a lioness in the cage of Scarpia's office.  And as Scarpia finds out, you don't want to be in a cage with an enraged lioness, especially if you are threatening one of her loved ones. The choral scene at the end of the first act should be singled out too...it's essentially a dark credo sung by Scarpia, with a hugely effective minor modal melody slithering up and down behind him, the orchestra providing a dirgelike, menacing 2/4 groove, and sacristans, priests, church officials piling on in a Te Deum along with a superb boy choir.

There was plenty more excellent singing, and of course fabulous music, in some of the love arias in acts I and III.  Tosca's aria Vissi d'arte (I lived for art, I lived for love") also stood out.    But the high point of this performance, and it was very high, was an aria that may well be the crux of the opera --- Cavaradossi's solo "E lucevan le stelle" ("And the stars were shining", or more literally, "and the stars shone"), in act III.  Waiting to be executed, he recalls how the stars were shining the night he met Tosca, the creaking of the garden gate as she comes to him, her sweet kisses and languid caresses, and so forth... ratcheting up to "That time is gone, I die in desperation.  I have never loved life as much as I do now!"  There have been some great versions of this aria.  Often the emotionalism, the remembered passion and the despair at oncoming death, are heavily underlined by the vocal interpretation, with massive rubato in places, changes in dynamics, a sensation that notes are being tossed or wrenched out into the air.  Under control, this can make for a very effective interpretation.  Roberto Alagna is among the farthest to this end of the continuum among successful interpretations; Giuseppe di Stefano much less so, depending on the performance.  In the superb 1956 La Scala performance with Victor de Sabato conducting and Maria Callas as Tosca (available on CDs from EMI) di Stefano is impassioned but relatively controlled except for some (in my view unfortunate) minor sob/breakdown vocal effects at the very end.  At Santa Fe, Jagde was at the opposite end of the spectrum---with vocal histrionics to a minimum, full, legato phrasing and musical beauty prioritized.  Emotionally, the beauty of remembered times with Tosca predominated, and the final "I have never loved life so much" ("Non ho amato mai tanto la vita!") resonated more than the immediately preceding "I die desperate!" ("muoio disperato").  The music does more than enough to convey the pathos of the situation; Jagde's smooth, focused, firm and centered but not at all harsh or hard, and very slightly dark, voice, and supremely musical phrasing was perfect for this interpretation, and the effect was devastating, perhaps even more effective than a more highly wrought rendition.  It is hard to know---and doesn't much matter---whether this judgement would hold up on listening to a recording, but subjectively, in its effect in context in this live performance, this was one of the greatest pieces of opera singing I've ever been privileged to hear.  It brought down the house.  Crucial to this aria's impact, of course, was the foundation provided by the singing and acting of the leads earlier in the opera, especially the Tosca-Scarpia confrontation by Echalaz and Hampson in Act II.    (If you're curious what Richards might have sounded like had he been able to make it to Santa Fe this season, you can hear Richards sing Stelle in an August 2008 performance at the Bregenzer Festspiele; try to ignore the sobbing in the minute of lovely music that precedes the aria, and following it (although it's indicated in the score, it's overdone here), and you'll get an idea of how Richards sings this. Except for the histrionics, calmer and more centered than most of what you'll find for this aria, and quite beautifully sung...not that far from Jagde's interpretation, actually, though Richard's voice is a bit larger and deeper and his singing just a little less legato.)

Lucevan le stelle is preceded by a long orchestral interlude with Cavaradossi alone on stage, rather Debussyan in some of its harmony and moodiness, although with a bit more standard harmonic motion underneath.  This is probably the place to mention that the orchestra, conducted by music director Frederic Chaslin, played superbly throughout.  Very clear, almost transparent textures much of the time, supple phrasing, excellent timbres from the individual instruments, delicacy when needed but also a tasty bite and crunch from the brass and percussion when appropriate, and plenty of lushness, menace or power as required (which in Tosca, is often).  I've been to the opera at Santa Fe quite a bit over the years and overall this season the orchestra is probably playing the best I've ever heard them play.

When Tosca arrives on the scene just before the execution, which she believes will be faked as Scarpia had promised, the interaction between her and Cavaradossi is not the transcendent love duet that publisher Ricordi had apparently tried to talk Puccini into; Puccini defended this choice on dramatic grounds, and I'm inclined to agree.  There was no letdown musically, vocally, or dramatically, though, as the opera swiftly moved to its [SPOILER ALERT ;-)] dire conclusion.

Santa Fe made a great move here in engaging three major stars---one, Echalaz, relatively newly minted as a star through her replacement of Angela Gheorgiu as Tosca at Covent Garden in 2009, another, Hampson, relatively far along in his illustrious career but portraying Scarpia for the first time and the third, Richards, relatively unknown to be before this but to judge from credits in major roles at places like the Met and La Scala, somewhere near the peak of an important career.  And even though only two of them could make it to Santa Fe in the end, the less well-known Jagde really came through, in this performance, as Richards' replacement.  With excellent support from the orchestra, chorus, and supporting singers, and by engaging fully with each other vocally and dramatically, Jagde, Echalaz and Hampson put over Tosca not just as the highly emotional and musically lush potboiler it is easy to see it as, but as the---to be sure, highly emotional and musically lush---masterpiece it really is.

Debussy on NPR's Performance Today this week...

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Claude Debussy's birthday is Wednesday the 22nd.  NPR's Performance Today is featuring him today through Weds.  You can stream today's show here.  (The player will open hour 1; for hour 2 of the show, click at bottom right.)  Currently (end of the 2nd hour) a really superb performance of "The Perfumes of the Night and Morning of a Festival Day, from Images, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Amsterdam), Shao-Chia Lu, conductor.  I haven't listened intensely to the orchestral Images; in this performance, it's really lovely.  Certainly when I listen to La Mer (for both musical quality and influence, one of the key works of classical music) I want more orchestral Debussy in that vein; this Images fits the bill all round, harmonically, melodically, rhythmically, timbrally, the main qualitative difference (the musical content is of course different) being that it is overall calmer.  Perhaps there's something special about the Concertgebouw and Debussy; my favorite La Mer so far is the 1976 Phillips recording, in which they are conducted by Bernard Haitink.  It's on Phillips CD 438-742-2 (bargain two CD set, if it's still available), which also has Haitink conducting them in Images, Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un faune, Jeux, Dances for harp and orchestra, Rhapsody for orchestra and clarinet, and some short pieces).  Earlier in the show pianist Marc-André Hamelin played three preludes beautifully; I have and greatly enjoy Pascal Rogé playing some of these on CD, and was enchanted by Radu Lupu live, but after this I will probably search out some Hamelin on record.  He's not afraid to be expressive, including rhythmically.  The Rhapsody for saxophone and orchestra, with Hamelin playing the orchestral part on piano, came off less well to my ears, probably not because of the performance but either because it is a more ungainly piece of music, or because it needs the orchestra to sound right.

All or much of the portion of the show that features Hamelin seems to have been recorded live, in a concert hosted by PT host Fred Childs, that also features interesting conversation between him and Hamelin about the music.  Today's show began with two pieces by Hamelin that I enjoyed... in a style that is reminiscent of the side of Debussy that is more involved with stacks of thirds and relatively diatonic melody (rather than fourths and fifths and pentatonic melody), but with a bit more chromaticism (though soft-edged) and to my ears somewhat more standard harmonic progressions, bringing in some of the more restrained aspects of nineteenth-century romanticism, as well as a slight whiff of classic thirties-through-fifties classic jazz and American popular music.

Tomorrow's show will feature Hamelin playing more preludes and a duet with clarinetist Richard Stoltzmann, among other things, so I'd say tune in or stream it.

 

 

CBGB Festival at Central Park Summerstage, NYC

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The "CBGB Festival" of indie/alternative/punk-ish music was happening while we were in New York City.  Between two free concerts on July 7th, one in Times Square and one in Central Park, I chose the Central Park one after checking at bands in both lineups online.  I was sorry to miss Superchunk's appearance at Times Square, and Glint seemed to have promise along with a heap of pretension (some tracks reminded me of Coldplay but with half-swallowed vocals), but most of the other Times square bands didn't excite me too much.  Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! (winning the hard-fought prize for most cumbersome band name) also held out some potential interest.  The Central Park concert was headlined by Guided by Voices, a somewhat familiar name in the midst of a comeback, although I wasn't familiar with their music beforehand.  But I was primarily attracted by the opening bands, all of which have interesting music up online or posted by fans on Youtube.  Cold Cloud Nothings opened, followed by The War On Drugs and then The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.  You can see what I mean about the close-fought contest for most cumbersome band name.  The opening bands suffered a bit from inferior sound--- the headliners' equipment was in place ahead of time and they had more than half an hour of soundcheck after the opening bands.  They also tended to stretch out the songs a bit much...all three bands had mostly well-written songs, but some of them were a bit simple in structure and lacking enough musical material to support being stretched out, especially when that means repetition more than, say, a solo with lots of musical content.  I imagine that in a club with the audience more involved in dancing the extra length might make more sense.  But they all played pretty solidly.  Cloud Nothings' did several songs from their current CD release, Attack on Memory, notably "Fall In" and the lengthy "Wasted Days".

Here you can check them out in a live club gig:

"Fall In" is infectious, upbeat indie rock; "Wasted Days" melds a late 1980s hardcore punk/emo kind of feel (shades of Fugazi, Dag Nasty, maybe Bullet LaVolta) with aspects of classic grunge (Mudhoney, a bit of Nirvana, the heavier side of Soundgarden).  The vocal features a full-throated, rasping chant, almost scream, of "I thought / I would  / be more / than this".  Softer-edged in concert than the CD track; that could be the sound setup or perhaps Baldi sensibly trying to protect his voice.  A long guitar solo was relatively uninspired Dorian-mode noodling though it did build momentum and served a structural purpose in the song; the same interlude comes of better on record.  (However, they appeared to be down one guitarist at this point, as one guitar amp had to be changed out.  (You can check it on Youtube.)  Overall they put across interesting music well, and I'm likely to buy their CD.  Earlier work by Cloud Nothings is apparently primarily a single-musician project from leader Dylan Baldi, and is poppier and sometimes more experimental and ethereal sounding than Memory, but also quite interesting.  With the current lineup, they've made a clear move into a grunge/metal/punk-centered bag featuring anthems of mild negativity like "Wasted Days" and "No Future, No Past" and unflattering first-person portraits of creepish types as in "Cut You", with poppier Hüsker Du-ish stuff like "Fall In" and "Stay Useless" about as mellow as they get.  But they are coming up with quality, memorable songs...listening to the cuts from the new record one is tempted to conclude that they've got it---the thing that makes the difference between a good band, and a potentially great one, even if the record, with a bit too strong of a hint of pastiche of the various styles it draws on, and the down attitude seeming perhaps just a bit forced, is probably just quite good rather than great.

I found The War on Drugs to be a fairly enjoyable listen in concert as well.  Again, some interesting songs (somewhat less variety than the Nothings), some featuring Dylanesque vocals and rootsy music, others with more psychedelic/garage influences.  Less complex songs structurally, and sometimes not really supporting the lengthy treatments they were given.  Long stretches of two measures worth of music being repeated over and over again, featuring at most four chords, need some pretty interesting textural or melodic variety over them, which wasn't always forthcoming from TWOD.  And the songwriting was good, but not as interesting as that from the other two opening bands.  At their website, linked above, you can stream a lot of cuts from their current album, Slave Ambient, which I'm not that into.  Positive online impressions must have come more from some of their earlier stuff.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are much more of a standard indie-sounding band than the previous two--- often playing in a basic alternative rock idiom that you can hear from, say, Snow Patrol and many other bands, featuring guitars chiming eight-note rhythms and such.  But the Pains' songs were pretty good for music in this vein, and often livened up by some bouncy rock-'n roll energy.  The lead guitarist and male lead singer was constantly bouncing around the stage, supplying plenty of visual energy to go with reasonably energetic music.  The female vocalist, though usually supplying backing rather than lead, should have been be higher in the mix to add more complexity to the sound.  Her incredibly long black hair (and let's say it, her rather attractive features) added visual interest.  Allows for a new twist on the term "hair band".  The music was sufficiently interesting that I checked out their CD too...more later, but after a few listenings, it seems really excellent.  in concert, it seemed that compared to the Nothings, they could benefit by adding more variety to their songs, some of which sounded a bit too similar to others.  But their ability to write engaging songs in an indie pop/rock vein suggests they'll develop into something even more interesting.

Guided By Voices had an easier time getting a reaction from the crowd, thanks to being the headliners that many had come to see, and to punchier and clearer sound.  I enjoyed the 2/3 or so of their set that I heard... the songwriting varied in quality, but was mostly pretty good.  Few things grabbed me as really outstanding, though.  Still, I'll probably check them out at more length online.

Vendors were selling microbrews at $8 for less than a pint (a Blue Point Toasted Lager was excellent, though), and San Pellegrino Limonata and Aranciata for $2 (very welcome in the heat and humidity).  With your choice of comfy bleachers, some of which even get shade from Central Park's majestic trees, or an area in front of the stage equipped with temporary carpeting, Summerstage is a great place for a concert, and the price is right too.

Rossini's Maometto II at the Santa Fe Opera

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Rossini's 1820 opera Maometto II is not one of the better-known works in the repertory, but the Santa Fe opera's current production, which I attended Aug 2nd, reveals it to be a very rewarding one both musically and theatrically.  I don't know I'm going to end up agreeing completely with the judgement of Philip Gossett, who edited the new critical edition that is soon to appear, and from which Santa Fe worked for this production, that it "is one of the greatest serious operas written during the the 19th century," but it is certainly very good.  Sure, there are stretches of the old rum-ti-tum, I-V-I (this is Rossini, after all) but it takes up surprisingly little of the 3+ hours that the piece runs.  Most of the expository dialogue is musically and melodically interesting, clearly written with care; there is relatively little standard-issue recitative and when it does occur, it's often with interesting twists, like apparently cliché cadences that turn false, or (I think) more, and more unconventional, modulation than usual in such settings.

The plot has some contrived and confusing aspects (though perhaps a read through the libretto would help clarify), but this is opera, so no biggie.  More importantly, some of the contrivance creates an interesting complexity in the relationships between the characters.  Anna, daughter of the Venetian nobleman Paolo Erisso, who commands the Venetian forces in the town of Negroponte, has fallen in love with Maometto II, who wooed her   disguised as a nobleman of Corinth when Anna lived (or visited?) there.  But now Maometto is attacking Negroponte...

The singing at Santa Fe was quite good.  The bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni was superb as Maometto.  He has a burnished, very focused and firm tone, refined and in control, strong but never strained.  His acting was good too, projecting an interpretation of Maometto consonant with the qualities of his voice: refined, very intelligent, though at times shockingly barbaric.  (The latter quality is not so much reflected in the voice!)

Leah Crocetto was outstanding as Anna.  Although I heard some distortion when she unleashed some power in the high register at a couple of points in her earliest stretch of solo singing, her voice seemed to promptly smooth out (perhaps it just needed a warmup) and she sang the rest of the opera with a sweet but complex tone, very lyrically.

The other lead singers did well, but didn't stand out so much.  Mezzo-soprano Patrica Bardon, in a male role as Calbo, a Venetian general, had a strong but at times somewhat rough-toned voice that worked well overall in the part.  Some of her passagework came off quite well but a few times late in the opera she seemed to be having some difficulty with it.  Bruce Sledge, as Paolo Erisso, sang accurately and clearly but his voice was a bit on the small side, especially in comparison with Pisaroni.  This too seems to be in some ways consonant with the director's interpretation of the piece---director David Alden's notes in the program speak of Erisso as "overbearing" and not as "evolved" and "rounded" as Maometto.  He certainly is somewhat overbearing in his attitude toward his daughter, although his voice isn't.  But perhaps his smaller voice helps put across a view of the piece in which Maometto overshadows him. Both Sledge and Bardon are excellent in the ensembles which are such an important part of the piece.

I'll definitely be investigating this opera further, trying to find the many musical epsiodes that came across as superlatively beautiful, and trying to get further impressions of the overall character of the piece.  Was the opera perfect in this performance?  No.  But more importantly, was it magic?  Frequently, yes.  I'm often annoyed at the ease with which American audiences give a performance a standing ovation, especially if it is a prelude to an early exit rather than a long series of curtain calls, but I was happy to join in this one, and the long series of curtainless bows and shouts of "bravo" that it presaged.  (Some did exit early, perhaps on the excuse that a rainstorm seemed to be brewing, and indeed in the final scenes the audience was lashed with some cold wind from the open sides of the theater's midsection, and raindrops even reached the last row where we were seated.)

For an idea of some of the magic in this opera, here are two versions of Anna's aria "Giusto ciel! In tal periglio". First (with 3 minutes of recitative introduction before the aria), Montserrat Caballe from 1968:

 

Second, Joyce DiDonato:

I'm certainly willing to call that one of the great opera arias. But there are plenty of fabulous choruses, duets, and larger ensemble pieces as well as arias, in this excellent opera that I think will become standard repertory with the publication of Baerenreiter's new critical edition.

Free concert in NYC: The Bad Plus play the Rite of Spring

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For readers, if any, in New York City today, definitely check out jazz trio The Bad Plus playing their arrangement, "On Sacred Ground", of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.  It's free and outdoors at Lincoln Center at 8:30 PM.  The Brandt Brandauer Frick ensemble, with which I am not familar, opens at 7:30.

If you're wondering to expect, at WBGO's The Checkout you can stream a recording of the whole thing, as well as their radio show on the piece.  TBP pianist Ethan Iverson discusses piano arrangements, transcriptions, and reworkings of the Rite here.

More on upcoming doings by TBP and some of its members here.

I am in New Mexico, so unfortunately won't be able to attend.  I will be going to Rossini's Maometto II at the Santa Fe Opera. Report to follow.

 

Billy Hart quartet Live at the Village Vanguard in 2009

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Jazz fans should not miss the opportunity to download an mp3 of a 70 minute set by the Billy Hart quartet playing live at the Village Vanguard in New York on Sept. 23, 2009.  I really enjoyed a couple of sets from this run at the Vanguard, possibly including this one.  If I find my listening notes I may post some impressions of the live gig.  Billy Hart, drums, Ethan Iverson, piano, Ben Street, bass, Mark Turner, tenor sax.  Lots of thanks to the group for making this available, and not just as a stream but as a free download.  Reward them by buying one or more of their CDs...I'll post a review when mine arrives.

All four of these guys are fantastic players, with very individual approaches.  They listen to each other and interact a lot, too.  A bit of silly trivia is that I thought Ben Street looked like a dead ringer for House (of the TV show), though he's a bit less so in photos.

Incidentally, Iverson's blog, Do the Math, is essential for jazz fans, especially jazz piano fans.  He is willing to stick his neck out about what he likes and doesn't, the perspective of a player is fascinating and invaluable, and the interviews with musicians (like Keith Jarrett, Jason Moran, Wynton Marsalis...) and others are fantastic and create irreplaceable first-hand anecdotal documentation of parts of jazz's history.