Charlie Mariano - Not Quite a Ballad

[mjzee]

Release date July 25:

1998 Charlie Mariano fulfilling a long & dearly cherished wish: finally get the chance to play with a symphonic orchestra. 

In November 1998 Charlie Mariano celebrated his 75th birthday on stage with the Würzburg Philharmonic, thereby fulfilling a long and dearly cherished wish: finally get the chance to play with a symphonic orchestra. That occasion was the springboard for various new arrangements, which now appear here for the first time on CD. Two years later a second artistic collaboration in Würzburg took place: this concert resulted in the current recording. A decisive element in the successful communication between the symphony orchestra and jazz musicians was the presence of the New On The Corner Trio, which has been organising jazz productions with the Würzburg Orchestra on a regular basis since 1994, including a CD recording with Benny Bailey. Thus we hear four of the titles here in an arrangement for quartet. Charlie`s italien roots, and the fact that he often heard arais at home in his younger days are the reason for the arrangements from the aria "Vesti la giubba" from I Pagliacci, and from Albinoni`s Adagio which we hear here. Some listeners may well prefer Charlie`s alto sax to many an italian tenor!
The Next Last Wave, the original compositions by Peter Fulda is in fact already available on CD in various versions (big band, piano solo, piano trio), but this is a first-time recording of the version for quartet and symphony orchestra. Charlie Mariano`s years of involvement with the music of the Indian subcóntinent are reflected in the large-scale Yagapriya by the Indian composer Ramamani, in an arrangement by Peter Fulda. The first half of this work is a gigantic tampura or free improvisation by thew soloist over a changing "bordun" in the orchestra. The second half is rhythmically defined, but in 7/4 time. The notes are all pitched within one single, unchanging scale. The conductor of these recordings, Jonathan Seers, puts it simply this way: "This is where "world music" is created in the best sense of the word".

Track Listing

• Adagio
• Plum Island
• Yagapriya
• Vesti La Giubba
• Not Quite A Ballad
• Next Last Wave
• Lopin'
• Candy Lip
• You Better Go Now

[T.D.]

This is a reissue. Hope it gets some US distribution, as no discogs offerings of the original 2003 release are priced in US $.

[JSngry]

Who is reissuing this?

I might be interested.

[T.D.]

Me too.

Graphics look like it'll be the original German record company Intuition. Apparently a subsidiary of Schott, I found some pages on Schott's website but they were unusable.

US release looks like a ? to me. Amazon has one US $ seller of the 2003 release FWIW.

[JSngry]

Who are all these clowns wanting us to buy stuff but not telling us who is selling it?

[T.D.]

Put it this way...I sleuthed an "Intuition Records" subsite of the Schott Music site. There was a column on the left of featured artists with checkboxes. I checked the "Charlie Mariano" box and was whisked to a totally non sequitur page of classical music projects...in other words, this s**t has come from the Twilight Zone and I wrote it off.

Edited 4 hours ago by T.D.

[JSngry]

With that type of easy-to-follow and transparent direction, I hope they press enough to meet what is sure to he a healthiful demand!!! Overwhelming, even!

I actually like Charlie Mariano, and this sounds like a possibly interesting record. But fuck it. I'm too old these days.

[T.D.]

I like Charlie a lot, but will hope (if I don't forget) that it materializes at Amazon or discogs sellers. Looks like too sketchy a label for "the bastards" to stock.