Shadowlines

Editorial Reviews
Tom Groove Option"
Sporting excellent sound, this Swiss vibraphonist offers some uptempo jazz showcasing several great New York players as well as his own composing skills. Side one differeig from side two, is rather the Art ensemble of Chicago-meet-Miles circa Bitches Brew, and toys with a few ideas from Zappa. Using a crew of horns, bass clarinet, guitar, bass, drums and vibes, the music has some very fluid lines on the top, a funky sort of bottom, some honkin' and squealin', hairpin turn etc. Let's Groove and M'tume are interesting examples of Wagnon's avant eclectic side, and feature some hot 'Jeff Beck - style' guitar. Ode is a bluesy romantic interlude" featuring some pretty sax and electric keyboard work . Side two, except for a blazing dissonant bass clarinet solo on Galactic Bump, is mainly post-bop fusion. It's joyous music that's hot clear and hoppin'. Marc gets to the forefront more often too. Solstice is the showcase cut, and everybody winds up to a wonderful climax.

Bill Milkowsky, Downbeat Magazine
"Imagine if you will, a vibraphonist with the four mallet technique of Gary Burton but also possessing the irreverent edge of Frank Zappa, the iconoclastic stance of Carla Bley, the rock intensity of King Crimson and the funk power of the late Miles.

Marc Wagnon is that vibraphonist. A classically trained player from Switzerland who later studied at the Berklee College of Music, Wagnon flashes virtuoso chops and fresh arrangements on Shadowlines, an impressive debut that highlights his eclectic... read more

Album Description
First released on vinyl in the late eighties, this high-energy collection of compositions by percussionist and vibraphonist Marc Wagnon has gone out of print and is being re-released by Buckyball Records. Shadowlines is a testimony to the creative pulse of the New York downtown jazz scene, where the music is timeless and perpetual, and from which many artists have continued on to international acclaim.

Buckyball Record's Shadowlines includes two previously un-released tracks from the band in addition to the original seven tracks. This album contains some of the hottest sessions of the jazz fusion idiom, and Buckyball Records is proud to be making it available to the public. With the simultaneous release of the new Marc Wagnon CD, An Afterthought, the listener's perspective is enriched by hearing both albums from this innovative composer and performer.

Shadowlines

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Benjamin's masterpiece, world-class musicians: a disc with so much to recommend it

George Benjamin: Shadowlines; Viola, Viola; Three Studies; Piano Sonata

Manufacturer: Nimbus Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music
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George Benjamin: Three Inventions
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George Benjamin: Orchestral Works - At First Light / A Mind of Winter / Ringed by the Flat Horizon - London Sinfonietta / George Benjamin / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Mark Elder
Kingdom Come; Hymnodic Delays; Fog Tropes II for String Quartet and Tap

ASIN: B0002T2QA6
Release Date: 2004-09-07

Tracks:

I. Cantabile
II. Wild
III. Scherzando
IV. Tempestoso
V. Very Freely, Solemn And Spacios
VI. Gently Flowing, Flexible
For Viola Duo
Fantasy On Iambic Rythem
Meditation On Haydn's Name
Relativity Rag
I. Vivace
II. Lento
III. Allegro Straziando

Album Description

British composer George Benjamin first came to public prominence in 1980 when his large orchestral work Ringed by the Flat Horizon was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Mark Elder at the BBC Proms. A subsequent, smaller work, At First Light, has become a repertoire work for ensembles all around the world.

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is a key figure in the new music world. His much-heralded debut recital at Carnegie Hall, New York, in December 2001, was greeted with exceptional acclaim. Violists Tabea Zimmermann and Antoine Tamestit gave an acclaimed performance of Viola, Viola at the Feldkirch Festival in 2002, which led to this recording.

Customer Reviews:

Benjamin's masterpiece, world-class musicians: a disc with so much to recommend it.......2007-01-21

This Nimbus collection of works by George Benjamin is a jewel, covering both early and later works, with the composer himself on piano in two works and three world-class performers in the rest. Unlike some other twentieth-century composers, Benjamin doesn't have one central "gimmick"; he simply inherits the range of twentieth-century developments and exploits them to the full towards fresh-sounding music.

"Shadowlines" (2001), a series of six canonic preludes for piano and performed here by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, came after half a decade studying Webern. Under the inspiration of the great Viennese master of crystalline miniatures, Benjamin set off to explore a world of strict technique, where the listener walks in a house of mirrors with paths setting off in many directions, unlike the "monodirectional thrust of classical and Romantic music". "Shadowlines" may be Benjamin's masterpiece, an whole world of emotion and intriguing technique packed into fifteen minutes.

"Viola, Viola" (1996) is, as its title suggests, a duo for two violas, here performed by Tabea Zimmerman and Antoine Tamesit. "My desire," writes Benjamin, "was to make you imagine, if you close your eyes, that there's a string ensemble on the platform." And indeed, its amazing what range of sounds that Benjamin pulls out of just two puny string instruments over the course of this ten-minute piece.

Two earlier piano pieces, performed by Benjamin himself, make an appearance here after the earlier disc offering them has fallen out of print. The "Piano Sonata" (1979) is Benjamin's earliest acknowledged piece, written when he was eighteen and still a student of Olivier Messiaen in Paris. It develops only one theme, but this theme is inaudible as such in the ferocious speed of much of the piece. Instead we get a colourful stream of resonances and types of attack, with the prevailing mood being somewhat similar to Boulez's second piano sonata (though without serialist syntax).

The cycle "Three studies for solo piano" (1982-1985) is much more heterogenous. The first, "Fantasy on Iambic Rhythm" (1985) takes the poetic concept of short-long and undoes it. The first note, a B flat, is long, hardly credible as the first note of an iamb, but it still counts as one since the following D flat is even longer. Elsewhere the first notes of given pairs are stressed, anathema in poetry, but the durations remain short-long. The following "Meditation on Hadyn's Name" consists only of oscillations, resonances, and arpeggios of a chord consisting of B-A-D-D-G, with a hauntingly beautiful result. The final "Relativity Rag" (1984) starts off with the tired rag formula, but adds some of Messiaen's rhythmical innovations and flies off into a wide range of sound.

As I write this, George Benjamin discs are only sparsely reviewed. I think it is a pity that such a fascinating composer is often overlooked, and I invite my fellow avant-garde fans to discover his work. While this disc might only involve three instruments, Benjamin works such magic with them that much of his aesthetic is revealed, making this a fine introduction.

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" In No Shadows At All "

Shadowlines
Marc Wagnon
Manufacturer: Buckyball Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

Avant Garde & Free Jazz | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Jazz Fusion | Jazz | Styles | Music

General | Alternative Rock | Indie Music | Stores | Music

General | Jazz | Indie Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B00000I6XU
Release Date: 1999-02-01

Tracks:

Bazillus Samba 9:07
What are doing those little Atoms 7:59
Ode 7:11
M'tume 6:22
D-Tune 5:44
Galactic Bump 5:56
Solstice 6:10
Sunny but Windy 6:55
Lets Groove 7:37

Album Description

First released on vinyl in the late eighties, this high-energy collection of compositions by percussionist and vibraphonist Marc Wagnon has gone out of print and is being re-released by Buckyball Records. Shadowlines is a testimony to the creative pulse of the New York downtown jazz scene, where the music is timeless and perpetual, and from which many artists have continued on to international acclaim.

Buckyball Record's Shadowlines includes two previously un-released tracks from the band in addition to the original seven tracks. This album contains some of the hottest sessions of the jazz fusion idiom, and Buckyball Records is proud to be making it available to the public. With the simultaneous release of the new Marc Wagnon CD, An Afterthought, the listener's perspective is enriched by hearing both albums from this innovative composer and performer.

Customer Reviews:

" In No Shadows At All ".......2000-06-19

"Shadowlines" Is a great example of Jazz/Fusion. I must thank Amazon.Com for providing such an incredible amount of music like this to the public. I recomend this recording to anyone who makes their own choices as to what music they listen to and purchase. A real class act!

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