David Friesen with Orchestra and Quartet

Testimony

Origin 82809

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"Once in a great while, a musician emerges with such authority and such seemingly effortless originality that his place in the front ranks of his instrument is unquestioned. So it is with David Friesen."
Nat Hentoff

A major international jazz figure for over 50 years, bassist-composer David Friesen continues his unflagging process of creating new defining works, with the ambitious, expansive, and deeply personal musical explorations found on Testimony. Through the desire to better understand his Mother's Ukrainian heritage, and with inspired leg-work from his Czech-based assistant, Natalie Digtyar, Friesen found himself on a 2015 tour of family landmarks in Smila, Ukraine, fully researched and led by a television crew and the local historical museum. Meeting Oleksandr Pirozhenko, director of the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine, set in motion the collaboration heard here, beginning with a sold-out 2016 "homecoming" concert in Smila's Concert Hall, followed by this live recording from Kiev's National Philharmonic Hall in December, 2018. Arrangements of Friesen's profoundly spiritual compositions unfold, offering passages exploding with orchestral grandeur alongside lone whispers from solo piano, vibes or bass, and intimate quartet vignettes, all reflecting the myriad emotions exposed through his journey of ancestral discovery.


Track Listing:

1. Prelude 1:44
2. Still Waters 4:06
3. Meaningful 6:55
4. Distant Shores 5:29
5. Tribute 2:38
6. Sequence 5:01
7. Another Time, Another Place 4:08
8. Time Never Ends 4:37
9. Deep South Blues 3:54
10. My Faith, My Life 4:02
11. Make Believe 2:38
12. New Ballad 3:09
13. Sailing 2:55
14. Going Forth 4:42
15. Pumpkin 3:51
16. New Hope 3:42
17. Lament for the Lost/Procession 5:52

Performers:

(1,2,5,6,7,10,11,13,14,16,17)
David Friesen - Hemage Bass, Grand Piano
Alex Fantaev - Drums, Percussion
Eugene Dobrovolskyi - Vibraphone
National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine
Conductor: Oleksii Vikulov
Director: Oleksandr Pirozhenko

(3,4,8,9,12,15)
David Friesen - hemage bass, piano, percussion
Eugene Dobrovolskyi - vibraphone
Mykola Ryshkov - tenor saxophone
Alex Fantaev - drums, percussion

Production Info:

Produced by David Friesen
Executive Producer: David Friesen
Liner notes by: William Minor
All paintings by David Friesen
Photographs by David Friesen
Cover Design & Layout by John Bishop


Reviews of Testimony

All About Jazz (Dan McClenaghan)
4 1/2 STARS Most artists, in most fields, move into their eighth decade on an artistic decline, their best days behind them. But not so for the Portland, Oregon-based musician David Freisen. The bassist/pianist/composer hooked up with Seattle's Origin Records in 2014 with the release of Where the Light Falls. Five more sets arrived in short order, ...

Midwest Record (Chris Spector)
Like a European jazzbo that just burnishes deeper with age, Friesen tucks 50 years of bass acery under his belt and heads off to Ukraine to visit his ancestor's stomping ground. Of course, along the way, he hooks up with some Ukraine musos and delivers the kind of state of the art performance that defies almost everything. A highly creative instr ...

Jazz Podium (Germany) (Michael Schaust)
In search of sources, of his ancestors in the Ukraine, multi-instrumentalist David Friesen has hit fertile ground. The US-American (78) comes together with local musicians, his wish to better understand his mother's heritage comes true. And the result is truly worth listening to. It begins with a tour in 2015, "homecoming concerts" follow in 2016, ...

Music Frames (Holland) (Mattie Poels)
In a beautiful concert we hear jazz bassist and pianist David Friesen from the Ukraine together with his quartet and the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine. On the album Testimony we hear two concerts that were both recorded in the Ukraine (Kiev) where the bassist, pianist and arranger David Friesen comes from. Friesen is a master of th ...

Ancient Victorys (Chris Lunn)
These recordings were made in December 2018 with the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine in Kiev and the Quartet cuts in 2019 at the Institute of Music in Kiev. All seventeen compositions are by David Friesen. Great to hear Friesen's orchestral and quartet work showcased on the same recording. Compositions range from a couple minutes to his ...

CirdecSongs (Cedric Hendrix)
Bassist David Friesen has been a part of the jazz scene for more than 50 years. Clearly, he has nothing to prove. Testimony (Origin Records) feels almost like a work of classical music, regardless of whether he's working with a quartet or an orchestra. The music is deep and intimate, rarely shouting louder than a whisper. It has the sound of the ve ...

DownBeat (Paul de Barros)
When David Friesen accompanied reed man Paul Horn on his historic 1983 tour to the Soviet Union, the eclectic Portland bassist was thrilled the trip might take him to what was then the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. Friesen's mother was raised in Smila, 18 miles west of Ukraine's Dnieper River, now a battle-torn front in the Russian war. ...



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