Pipedreams LIVE! and Pipedreams Premiere, Volume 3 set.
PIPEDREAMS LIVE: Live performance is exciting! It also is full of pitfalls and potential blemishes, but when the synapses are sizzling and the fates are smiling, the result can be magical. Presented here are just a few of those special moments, recorded between 1973 and 1993. There’s quite a spread of repertoire, from Bach to spirituals, with the majority of these pieces not otherwise available on disc. Even a Mendelssohn piano concerto has its unique features and special story. These were not session recordings, but rather are documents of particular moments never to be repeated. The pipe organ attracts and enjoys the artistry of some of the world’s outstanding musicians who astound us with their intense vision and beguile us with their humanity. I hope you enjoy listening to a few of them captured here, each a wonderful exemplar of Pipedreams Live!
PIPEDREAMS Premiere, Volume 3: Henry Martin, recently retired from a career teaching jazz and theory at Rutgers University’s Newark campus, obviously was inspired by Bach in the writing of his original cycle of Preludes and Fugues for Piano. That beguiling example led Michael Barone to offer Henry a PIPEDREAMS commission. The resulting wry and fresh-spirited, infused with the essence of the Swingle Sisters and the Jacques Loussier Trio, represent a jazzed-up reimagining of Bach for the 21st century. This album of the first 12 preludes and fugues in the cycle constitutes a thoroughly modern idea of a Well-Tempered Clavier…for Organ.
FMV: $35.90