Search - Chet Baker :: Last Great Concert I & II [2 for 1]

One of the future heroes of chamber music today

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 07/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Chamber music was once a music that involved improvisation. Performers would add on bravura improvised cadenzas to pieces all the time. Can we really believe that Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart or Chopin never just sat down and improvised pieces to work out solutions to musical puzzles?

That aspect of chamber performance is coming back to the fore with so many jazz musicians choosing, say, the string quartet as one of their means of musical expression. For well-trained string players like Ig Henneman, or Erik Friedlander or Mark Feldman, this developement must seem as natural as breathing air.

Feldman, in particular, is a musical wonder of extraordinary range. He has been a musician on hundreds of CDs playing everything from C&W to blues to classical. The man's violin playing is wondrous- he may be the most classical in tone of any of the jazz violinists. His tone is simply beautiful always- warm, deep and round throughout the range of the instrument.

On this CD he displays his modern classical composers chops to great effect as well. These are pieces that anyone with a taste for the string quartet tradition up until and including the Second Viennese school will appreciate. Feldman eschews most of the extended technique or timbre explorations of contemporary compostions in this field (see for example, any of the CDs of the Arditti Quartet that focus on more contemporary composers).

Instead he focuses on somber melody and improv.

This is an important work and deserves a much wider audience then it seems to be getting. The boundaries between chamber music and jazz ensembles are crumbling in all directions. I have recently reviewed string quartets that featured electric guitar (Bill Frisell's Richter 858) and the drums of Louis Moholo (Tristan Honsinger's Map of Moods). One of the ways that the music will definitely develope will be along the path explored by Feldman on this CD. Give it a listen if only for the magnificence of his violin.

One final note, on all the pieces, the cello is played by Erik Friedlander. Cenovia Cummins plays second violin on everything except the Windsor Quartet. On that piece, Joyce Hammann plays the second violin. On the other four pieces she plays the viola. Finally, Lois Martin plays viola on the Windsor Quartet. I really shouldn't have to say anything about how well Friedlander plays. Cummins, Hammann and Martin play beautifully as well.

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