Track Listing

1. Olly Wilson: Sometimes for tenor and tape
2. Donal Fox: Dialectics for Two Grand Pianos
3. T.J. Anderson: Intermezzi
4. Donal Fox: Four Chords from T.J.'s Intermezzi
5. Donal Fox: Duetto for Clarinet and Piano
6. David Baker: Through This Vale of Tears, I. Thou Dost Lay Me in the Dust of Death
7. Tears II. If There Be Sorrow
8. Tears III. My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
9. Tears IV. Parades to Hell
10. Tears V. Deliver My Soul
11. Tears VI. Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
12. Tears VII. Now That He Is Safely Dead
13. Donal Fox: Jazz Sets and Tone Rows

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #414457 in Music
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
This collection of chamber works by contemporary African American composers offers a fascinating look at how history and musical languages interweave. Olly Wilson's "Sometimes" is a tremendous exploration of voice and tape, held steady by William Brown's tenor, which seems to extend its range warmly while fragmenting "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." T.J. Anderson's equally striking "Intermezzi," a trio for tenor saxophone, clarinet, and piano, presents assorted miniatures that come together improvisationally. Likewise, Donal Fox's contributions draw from "Intermezzi" and "Sometimes," inverting and interrogating constructions in freely improvised segments. David Baker's "Through This Vale of Tears" is a lengthy song cycle, using Brown's tenor, Vivian Taylor's piano, and a string quartet in a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It's wonderful to hear how 20th-century classical techniques merge with sonorities gleaned in part from avant-garde jazz. --Andrew Bartlett