Browse some recent Origin Reviews.
Dan Dean - Songs Without Words
by Melinda Bargreen, Author and music critic
Dan Dean will redefine what you think is possible to achieve with the human voice. In this recording, he makes his voice an orchestra that "plays" spectacular classics like Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," but it's all honest singing: actual sung notes, not sampled and manipulated electronically, What a range, vocally and stylistically; how subtle and artful the compilation of these tracks; what fine musicianship and ear-opening... read more
Chris Walden - Chris Walden: Symphony No. 1 - The Four Elements
by Victor L. Schermer, All About Jazz
Chris Walden is probably best known to AAJ readers as a big band leader and composer. But his interest in developing other forms has already garnered him two Grammy nominations, and here he ventures into the serious orchestral realm. He takes the four elements?Earth, Water, Air and Fire?and uses them as the basis of four symphonic movements in the post-romantic programmatic style of Richard Strauss, Holst, Sibelius, and others of the late... read more
Free Range Saxophone Quartet - Fireflies
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
Since inception, the Origin Classical imprint has existed as a stylistic hinge between classical music and jazz. Defying genre definition, Origin Classical's archive should properly be considered simply music?that which defies category. Only a single release, Linda Tsatsanis and John Lenti's And I Remain: Three Love Stories?Music of the Seventeenth Century for Voice and Lute (Origin Classical, 2009), deals with what might be considered the... read more
Daniel Barry - Music Of The Spheres
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Barry takes the opposite tack of Tsatsanis and Lenti by composing for the future and his approach is novel. Barry recorded Music of the Spheres in a two-million gallon cistern found on the grounds of the Fort Warden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington. The empty cistern has a natural 45-minute reverberation time that surrounds and extends all sounds made not unlike depressing a piano's sustain pedal to the nth... read more
Jim Knapp & Scrape - Approaching Vyones
by C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz
Twenty-first Century Orchestral Music. For a string orchestra named Scrape, this music is quite well behaved and well- integrated. Approaching Vyones is composed of ten short pieces, each independent of the other, yet melding well as a whole. Guitarist Bill Frisell contributes one piece, "Naomi" to the collection, while the remainder of the selections are Jim Knapp compositions. Traces of Barber and Piston can be heard among the... read more
Dan Dean - Songs Without Words
by George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly
Wanna know what heaven is going to sound like? Grab a hold of this album and you'll at least have a hint.
Dan Dean supplies layers of his voice as well as an occasional bass and whistle to this wonderfully arranged collection of "classic" classics. His wordless vocals create an ethereal mood that floats with sublime joy on Bach's "Air on a G String" while he makes you feel like you're in a dream on "The Sheep May Safely Graze." Dean creates a... read more
Dan Dean - Songs Without Words
by Chris Spector, Midwest Record
Recording on Mercer Island and giving the first special thanks credit to Nancy Rumbel - do you think this is going to be your usual egghead classical date? The protean bass player surrounds himself with his ax and his voice and a mic taking warhorse repertoire to places you'd never imagine. Deciding to do it for himself this time around, the unquestionable bass ace takes it to church and everyplace else in the course of this sterling recital.... read more
Yumiko Endo Schlaffer - Rhapsodie
by Alison Young, Harp Column
Like the luscious glamour of her CD cover, Japanese harpist Yumiko Endo Schlaffer plays with a luxurious richness as soft as the velvet she lightly places herself on. Rhapsodie is sheer grace and elegance.
I am convinced a great deal of planning went into this CD. It?s not just one beautiful number after another with several French pieces that leaves us breathless and relaxed?Yumiko takes us far afield. One of my favorites is from her native... read more
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