Jazz

Dreams and False Alarms — Andy Milne

Solo piano readings of Mitchell, Sting, Marley, Young and Dylan that take their time letting you work out which song you are hearing. Audition before buying.

Places You Go — Brad Shepik Trio

A trio with a Hammond B-3 where the acoustic bass should be, playing original mid-tempo numbers and ballads. Almost an hour long, and I wanted more.

Think Like the Waves — Gordon Grdina

ECM-ish contemporary jazz coloured by oud and Middle Eastern lines, with Gary Peacock and Paul Motian completing the trio, in an enveloping 5.0 mix.

Ten at 86 — Joe McQueen and friends

An IsoMike four-channel jazz recording made with baffled microphones, at the lowest level I had met on a commercial disc, where the ambience channels matter more than I expected.

A Charlie Brown Christmas — Vince Guaraldi Trio

The follow-up, not as well recorded as its predecessor, and with so little between the SACD and CD layers that I wondered whether they share a master.

Chet — Chet Baker

Ballads from 1958 with Bill Evans and Kenny Burrell, where the SACD layer reveals tape dropouts and saturation that the CD layer turns into something like clipping.

A Boy Named Charlie Brown — Vince Guaraldi Trio

A 1965 television soundtrack that still sounds startlingly alive, hard-panned in the manner of early stereo, and emphatically not the kiddies’ music the cover suggests.

Jazz in an R&B Groove — a HighNote compilation

The companion HighNote compilation, and the better sounding of the two — clean, airy and room-filling, with the CD layer clearly behind the DSD stereo.

Kinda Jazzy Kinda Funky — a HighNote compilation

A mid-priced HighNote compilation whose cheesy title and blurb undersell it: consistent instrumental tracks, mixed a little low, with the DSD layer tightening the bass.

Steppin' — Christy Baron

Chesky's jazz and R&B arrangements of pop tunes, with the rolled-off top end and barely used surround channels typical of the label's multichannel discs.

Getz/Gilberto — Stan Getz and João Gilberto

The Verve single-layer SACD against a battered LP and the Master Edition CD: more presence on the saxophone and voices, and enough resolution to expose tape faults the CD had hidden.

500 Miles High

Vimeo

This is my arrangement of Chick Corea's beautiful song for string quartet. I took the lead sheet and expanded it to four parts for string quartet, with each instrument (apart from cello) taking turns to play the melody, with the other instruments either providing counterpoint or harmony.

Memories of Tomorrow

Vimeo

This is my attempt at jazz arrangement and improvisation, inspired by an assignment from Gary Burton's Jazz Improvisation course at Coursera. I took the original lead sheet provided in the assignment, then expanded to four parts that are polyrhythmic as well as polyphonic (based on Latin rhythms). I also added separate improvisations for piano and flute. Finally, I added open-voiced string harmonisation in the final section to indicate the guide tones and basis for future improvisation.

Olhos De Gato (orchestral arrangement)

Soundcloud

To celebrate the completion of the Jazz Improvisation class I am taking, I have arranged Olhos de Gato, by Carla Bley (one of the pieces studied in class) for orchestra. I have created a string backing for the melody, then added the melody from "Memories of Tomorrow" (another piece studied in class) as a counterpoint, and also my own melody as a further counterpoint. Finally, I created a new ending, based on a descending harmonic progression. The arrangement is scored in Notion, orchestrated using EWQL Symphony Orchestra Gold and mastered using Ozone 5.