Muito à vontade
João Donato e sui Trio
The Brazilian jazz and bossa nova pianist João Donato de Oliveira Neto began playing professionally at age fifteen. He later joined Antonio Carlos Gobim and Astrud Gilberto and was joined by João Gilberto when he had become the pianist and arranger for the band Garotos da Lua. In the seventies he went to the US where he recorded with Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente and others. Donato was the recipient of several Grammy Awards. Alexandre Carvalho dos Santos wrote, «I recommend a João Donato gig not only to someone who is interested in first class music, an impressive pianist and a selection of historic compositions. I recommend it to anyone who needs an anti-depressive, an acupuncture session or any such other form of deep relaxation.» (SGS, Source: Wikipedia)
Polydor, 1963
Blue
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell is not only an extraordinary pure singer, with a jazzy edge, but also a proliferous composer and a great guitarist and pianist as well as having inspired countless other musicians. All this has been said again, on occasion of the 50th anniversary of her «archetypical» album, as The New York Times wrote. Blue, Mitchell’s fourth studio album, stands for the early hippie area, situated between Laurel Canyon in California and the Greek islands, where singer songwriters went to find a congenial environment, just like another Canadian legend, Leonard Cohen. Joni had been hanging out with Graham Nash, David Crosby and James Taylor but left to be by herself. After all these years, Joni Mitchell still hits home with clarity, truth and determination. See also a series of interviews around the star in The New York Times.
Reprise | June 1971
Merzbow
Tajak
These people are producing the most laidback music I have heard in a while, and some of their visuals are pretty trippy too. All I have been able to find out is that they are an experimental band from Mexico whose first, digital album is called Amsterdam 211 (2017)
Hole Records | August 2019
Hacia El Vacío
Mabe Fratti featuring Claire Rousay
Taken from the upcoming album Será que ahora podremos entendernos? (Will we be able to understand each other now?) Mabe Fratti is an extraordinary young experimental Guatemalan cellist and composer. She has made in Mexico City her home. «This song is about the quest to understand something that has been said and how slow the process of explaining can be,» Fratti said in a statement. «How words serve as a kind of bridge, but that finally there is a point where we can only trust that we understood. (San Antonio (TX) based percussionist/composer) Claire Rousay intervened in this song with field recordings and cymbals.» Read more here.
Unheard of Hope Records | April 2021
Max Bruch: String Quintet in E flat major
WDR Symphonieorchester Chamber Players
Following what Fanfare described as «characterful, cogent, committed» accounts of Beethoven string quintets last year, the WDR players turn their attention to the chamber works which the eighty-year -old Bruch composed in 1918, inspired by the virtuoso violinist Willy Hess (who had performed in the premieres of his Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola and the Konzertstück for Violin and Orchestra). Max Bruch (1838-1920) saw music as «the language of God» and was confirmed in his romantic worldview by a long and happy marriage with the singer Clara Tuczek and an equally successful career. At the height of his fame, he spent three seasons as the conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society.
Virtigo | Juni 2021