GA Russell

British pianist/composer Django Bates has returned to ECM in force with two notable recordings. He made his leader label debut on an aptly named album, The Study of Touch (featuring the trio Belovèd with Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and Danish drummer Peter Bruun) and he rose superbly to the challenge of Anouar Brahem’s compositions on the Tunisian oud-master’s Blue Maqams (with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette). These two albums evidence Bates as a skilful composer and arranger and masterful player, for which he has garnered superlative reviews on both sides of the Atlantic! “The Study of Touch journeys eloquently from impressionist balladry and bucolic reverie to florid harmonic development and counterpoint swing. Bates leads gently, merging with the delicate chemistry between Eldh’s lines and Bruun’s swishes and taps while displaying a compositional grasp of form.” - Mike Hobart, Financial Times “Bates has his own individual voice and this has undoubtedly been greatly aided by his participation in so many disparate musical projects. Bates’ own compositional talents are wonderfully showcased here.” – Tim Stenhouse, UK Vibe “…Not only did Brahem find the perfect collaborator in Bates, he assembled a program of all original compositions that showcases the pianist’s gorgeous touch, with some passages featuring solo piano, as well as duo sections that highlight subtle, intelligent conversations between oud and piano." - Bobby Reed, Downbeat Editor’s Choice “Bates is the real wild card of the session, his beautiful, imaginative playing illuminating Brahem's compositions at every turn.” - Mark Sullivan, allaboutjazz “Bates defies his reputation as a playful maverick to conjure thoughtful, spare lines that elegantly complement the virtuosity of Brahem.” - John Bunger, The Times © 2017 ECM | ECM Records USA | 1755 Broadway, 3rd floor | New York NY 10011 ECM RECEIVES SEVEN GRAMMY NOMINATIONS! ECM and its artists are nominated for seven Grammy Awards as announce this morning by The Recording Academy. The nominations span the label’s unique work in recording both contemporary composition and jazz. Nominations go to Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, Hungarian composer György Kurtág, British composer Gavin Bryars, and producer Manfred Eicher in the classical categories, and to US jazz reedman/composer Chris Potter in jazz. Chris Potter’s The Dreamer Is The Dream, introducing his fiery new quartet with David Virelles, Joe Martin and Marcus Gilmore, is nominated as Jazz Album of the Year. Potter also has a nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for his tenor sax playing on “Ilimba” on the same album. ECM has long-championed the work of Tigran Mansurian whose moving Requiem, dedicated to the memory of victims of the Armenian Genocide, and performed by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the RIAS Choir Berlin, receives two nominations as Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Choral Performance. The Academy acknowledges Gavin Bryars for the first time with a nomination for The Fifth Century, with his settings of Thomas Traherne for the choir The Crossing, in the category Best Choral Performance. György Kurtág’s 3 CD set Complete Works for Ensemble and Choir, definitively performed by the Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble and the Netherlands Radio Choir under the direction of Reinbert de Leeuw, is nominated as Best Classical Compendium. And Manfred Eicher receives his 12th nomination as Classical Producer of the Year, winning the award in 2002. This year’s citation references his productions of Tigran Mansurian’s Requiem, Valentin Silvestrov’s Hieroglyphen der Nacht (with Anja Lechner and Agnès Vesterman), Momo Kodama’s Point and Line – Debussy and Hosokawa, Meredith Monk’s On Behalf of Nature, and Rímur by the Trio Mediaeval with Arve Henriksen. Winners will be announced at the 60th Grammy Awards ceremony in New York City on January 28, 2018. RIAS Chamber Choir / Munich Chamber Orchestra Alexander Liebreich, conductor ECM has long-championed the work of Tigran Mansurian whose moving Requiem, dedicated to the memory of victims of the Armenian Genocide, and performed by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the RIAS Chamber Choir, receives two Grammy nominations as Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Choral Performance. Requiem - a milestone for Mansurian, widely acknowledged as Armenia’s greatest composer - reconciles the sound and sensibility of his country’s traditions with the Latin Requiem text in a profoundly moving contemporary composition. The Los Angeles Times has described Mansurian’s music as that “in which deep cultural pain is quieted through an eerily calm, heart-wrenching beauty.” Lusine Grigoryan: piano Complete in itself, this solo piano album by Lusine Grigoryan can also be considered a companion volume to the Gurdjieff Ensemble’s critically-acclaimed album of Komitas’s music. It was recorded at the same 2015 session in Lugano, directed by Manfred Eicher, and has some overlapping of repertoire. Where Levon Eskenian’s versions with the Gurdjieff Ensemble explored the composer’s sonic inspirations with folk instruments, Lusine Grigoryan conveys some of the same colors with her wide palette of piano articulation and her exploration of timbral possibilities: in her playing one can catch the flavor of the duduk, the tar, the zurna et cetera, as Komitas intended. As Levon Eskenian has noted, Grigoryan “conveys the mysterious presence typical of rustic and ritual music.” Pieces heard on this recording, the ECM debut of Lusine Grigoryan, include Komitas’s Seven Songs, Seven Dances, Pieces for Children, and Msho Shoror. © 2017 ECM | ECM Records USA | 1755 Broadway, 3rd floor | New York NY 10011

Happy Birthday 2017 Gheorghe!

Happy Birthday 2017 Jim!

Mad About You (complete) - $27.29 prime https://www.amazon.com/Mad-About-You-Paul-Reiser/dp/B01CIS85YE

Mission: Impossible (5 Tom Cruise movies) - $15.89 prime https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Impossible-Collection-Jean-Reno/dp/B01B2B9O52

Sure! An actress who is 35 whom I've never heard of is old. If she started acting at 22, she has been in the business for 13 years. I'm not aware of any of her movies. My views are not about her talent or her movies' quality - only that she turned 35 before I had heard of her. Would you like to recommend a movie or two?

Thanks sp. She's old for someone I haven't read about over the years. Maybe that's because she has worked in low budget pictures.

Happy Birthday 2017 Dmitry!

I recognize her - Brit Marling. I read about her for the first time a few weeks ago. Do you guys have an opinion of her?

Laurie has made this 17 minute recording available. https://artpepper.bandcamp.com/track/free-patricia-paris-1980

Bruno Maderna/Luciano Berio Five Transcriptions for Orchestra / Chemins V Now, And Then Orchestra della Svizzera italiana / Dennis Russell Davies, conductor / Pablo Marquez, guitar Unlike many of his radical new music colleagues, Bruno Maderna (1920-1973) had a great affection for older music, especially that of the Italian Renaissance and Early Baroque eras. But his transcriptions had little to do with the orthodoxy of so-called ‘historically informed’ interpretation. In the belief that works of art can be removed from their original contexts, he used contemporary instrumental resources to discover new meaning and a new validity in the works of old masters. His transcriptions of Gabrieli, Frescobaldi, Legrenzi and Viadana are vividly conveyed by the RSI Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies in a program which includes Chemins V by Maderna’s good friend Luciano Berio (1925-2003). Chemins V is itself a transcription of sorts, a chamber orchestra version of Berio’s Sequenza XI. Soloist Pablo Marquez references flamenco and the guitar’s classical heritage, while the orchestra engages with the guitar on levels of expanded harmony. Dialogue develops, as Berio said, “through multiple forms of interaction, from the most unanimous to the most conflictual and estranged.” Yuuko Shiokawa/András Schiff Bach, Busoni, Beethoven Yuuko Shiokawa, violin; András Schiff, piano Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff are heard here in an insightful – and delightful - program of sonatas for violin and piano which begins with Bach’s Sonata No.3 in E major, ends with Beethoven’s Sonata No.10 in G major, and has at its center Busoni’s Sonata No. 2 in E minor. No other 20th century composer was as deeply steeped in the music of Bach as Ferruccio Busoni, and his second sonata, published in 1901, is indebted to both Bach and Beethoven. Its form makes references to Beethoven’s late sonatas, and the final movement incorporates as its variation theme Bach’s chorale “Wie wohl ist mir”. As on their earlier and widely-admired duo recording for ECM (featuring Schubert Fantasies), Shiokawa and Schiff play the music with absolute authority and deep understanding. Their Bach-Busoni-Beethoven program was recorded in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in December 2016, and produced by Manfred Eicher. Thomas Demenga Johann Sebastian Bach - Suiten für Violoncello Thomas Demenga, violoncello Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga returns to Bach’s suites. “To me, Bach is the greatest musical genius who has ever lived. His music is pure, sublime. It possesses something divine and each musician has a lifetime in which to discover new ways of interpreting it.” Demenga previously recorded the cello suites for ECM between 1986 and 2002, juxtaposing them with contemporary composition in albums that count as milestones in the early history of the New Series. This new double album however is devoted entirely to Bach and the six suites. Many years of playing and studying every aspect of them, from source manuscripts to different tempos, embellishments, fingerings and bowings, have brought Demenga to the heart of the music – which Bach himself described as the only goal. © 2017 ECM | ECM Records USA | 1755 Broadway, 3rd floor | New York NY 10011

"Phrases," Jazz Vocalist Jeff Baker's 5th Album & First to Feature His Original Music, Due January 19 on OA2 Records Baker's All-Star Septet Includes Drummer Brian Blade, Saxophonist Steve Wilson, Trumpeter Marquis Hill, & Pianist/CD Co-Producer Darrell Grant December 8, 2017 After a seven-year hiatus from recording, contemporary jazz vocalist Jeff Baker is preparing to release Phrases, his fifth and most ambitious album to date. The new CD, due from OA2 Records on January 19, marks Baker's debut as a composer, with seven of the album's songs featuring his music and lyrics. The album takes its title from Baker's use of what he calls "prompts" from favorite works of fiction, poetry, and song, among them texts by Pablo Neruda, J.D. Salinger, and Salvador Plascencia. Those cues could be no more than a line of poetry or a snatch of dialogue, or a real-life verbal exchange that caught his ear. "The musical side of composing -- creating melodies, reharmonizing music -- has always come pretty easy to me," Baker explains. "But in attempting lyrics, I always felt burdened by not being Joni Mitchell. How could I express myself without sounding trite or silly? I found that if I gave myself prompts, I could create stories around them and find my voice as a lyricist. My aim was to tell stories in which people could hear their own experiences." The deeply reflective, lushly nuanced music on Phrases is performed by a stellar septet whose front line includes alto saxophonist Steve Wilson and trumpeter Marquis Hill. Protean drummer Brian Blade provides the recording with its ebb, flow, and pulse. Pianist Darrell Grant both plays and serves as musical director and co-producer while Baker's longtime friends Clark Sommers and Geof Bradfield appear on bass and tenor saxophone, respectively. Young guitarist Gregory Uhlmann, a former student of Jeff Parker, is one of the album's stand-outs. The listener can hear how the musicians are drawn to the singer in their inspired, beautifully shaped solos. Phrases was recorded in Chicago in May 2017 at Vijay Tellis-Nayak's Transient Sound following a live performance at the hip Fulton Street Collective. "Jazz musicians talk all the time about their 'Dream Bands,'" says Baker. "Here I am, getting to record with my actual Dream Band! I wrote this music with these musicians in mind, and I am beyond humbled that they've agreed to be part of this project." Born in 1979 in Boise, Idaho, Jeff Baker was 13 when the Seattle-spawned grunge rock movement hit. But while his friends were thrilling to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Jeff was discovering Dizzy Gillespie's Live at the Village Vanguard. "It was the best thing ever," he says. "I learned every song and taught myself to sing with them. Singing jazz, the idea that a vocalist could be an instrumentalist and take the music to different places on a lark, was a real revelation to me. My goal became to be equal and in line with instrumental players." Jeff's teachers and mentors "made sure I had opportunities to experience the music at the highest levels!" Chet Baker (no relation) was a major discovery for him, as were Mark Murphy and Johnny Hartman. The music of wide-ranging artists such as Sting and Peter Gabriel resonated deeply with him, as did that of Bonnie Raitt (whose "Not Cause I Wanted To" he covers on Phrases) and minimalist master Steve Reich, whose influence can be felt in the moving harmonies, piano ostinato, and streaming eighth notes on "People of Paper." Baker attended Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, on a singing scholarship, sang in the jazz and classical choirs, and studied opera and musical theater. With plentiful opportunities to perform, he continued educating himself as a jazz vocalist. Backed by Idaho musicians, he recorded his first album, Baker Sings Chet, largely to raise money to attend graduate school. He never went, but working in the studio, he says, "became kind of my graduate school." The Chet Baker project, released on Origin Records' OA2 imprint, did well enough to enable Baker to make another record, Monologue, for which Origin head John Bishop hooked him up with versatile Seattle pianist Bill Anschell. It proved to be a fruitful collaboration. Baker and Anschell teamed up on two more acclaimed albums, Shopping for Your Heart (2007) and the gospel-infused Of Things Not Seen(recorded at the same time as Shopping, it was released with re-recorded vocals in 2009). In 2012 Darrell Grant, a distinguished member of the music faculty at Portland State University, helped Baker land a position at PSU, where the singer was instrumental in building what came to be a renowned jazz vocal program. Baker also co-founded and is director of the PDX Jazz Forward Competition. "We live in an incredible time for creative, genre-defying music," says Baker. "Artists like Laura Mvula, Becca Stevens, Jacob Collier, The Fellowship Band, and so many others are changing the way we think about jazz and contemporary songwriting. It's a privilege to write and make music at this time. Phrases is my humble contribution to this ever evolving conversation." Photography: Steve Korn Web Site: jeffbakerjazz.com

The ECM catalog, now available to subscribers across major streaming services, is causing a great stir of excitement as evidenced by these three articles you can click to here: Re-explore the catalog yourself and/or send young, curious listeners to their favorite platform to discover the label’s gems for themselves or to check out curated playlists! © 2017 ECM | ECM Records USA | 1755 Broadway, 3rd floor | New York NY 10011

RIP. He's a guy I need to hear more of.

The Dukes of Hazzard - Season 1 - $9.96 prime https://www.amazon.com/Dukes-Hazzard-Paul-R-Picard/dp/B0072BNKIO

I received this afternoon an email from Autoweek Magazine entitled JIM NABORS, FAMED INDY 500 PRE-RACE SINGER, DEAD AT 87

Happy Birthday jcam_44!

Happy Birthday 2017 crisp!

Happy Birthday 2017 John!

Happy Birthday 2017 Brooks!

So the winning pick was Toronto - 50. That's me!!! I've never won this contest before, and I won't start now. So ignoring my pick, the contestant with the closest pick is ejp626! Congrats ejp! Please pm me your address, and I'll get that Mosaic gift card out to you.

With 0:49 left, the Argos have taken the lead 27-24. ***** That's it! With 9 seconds left, Matt Black intercepted Bo Levi Mitchell's pass in the end zone, and the Argos win 27-24. Ricky Ray becomes the first starting quarterback in history to win four Grey Cups.

With 4:15 left, the Argos have tied it at 24. Cassius Vaughn set a Grey Cup record with a fumble return of 109 yards. Goodbye Joe Medjuck, hello BClugston!

After three, it's Calgary 24....Toronto 16. In both the second and third quarters, the Argos scored a touchdown, and the Stampeders immediately responded with one of their own. And Joe Medjuck is still looking good!

At the half, it's Calgary 17....Toronto 8. The ball has been tough to hold on to, but no turnovers yet. Calgary dominated the first half, more than the score indicates. At this point, Joe Medjuck is in the catbird seat. I forgot to say that early in the second quarter Ricky Ray threw a 100 yard catch and run touchdown pass to DeVier Posey. That's a new Grey Cup record. http://3downnation.com/2017/11/26/ricky-ray-throws-longest-td-pass-in-grey-cup-history/#comments