LATEST ADDITIONS

Young Dutch saxophonist Ben van Gelder’s 2012 debut album Frame Of Reference, published by his own BvG Music enterprise and released on vinyl as well as CD, is followed up by a fresh outing recorded in New York’s prestigious Sear Point Studios. Less contemplative than his auspicious debut and featuring pretty much the same line up of Craig Weinrib (drums), Peter Schlamb (vibraphone) and Rick Rosato (bass on all but two tracks), but with pianist Aaron Parks replaced by Sam Harris, van Gelder’s quintet once again exhibits a medley of styles, shifting from angular unisons to freewheelin’ blowing. It’s hard to believe they’re all in their 20s such is the maturity of their playing, van Gelder’s inventive compositions certainly belying his age. It’s a pity the sound isn’t more open and airy, the textures at times masked by the slightly cramped soundings.

192kHz/24-bit; ALAC/FLAC/WAV, naimcd026 (supplied by www. naimlabel. com) Recorded live in Hamar, Norway in August 1997, this is the later of Iona Brown’s two Naim programmes with the orchestra, resampled from co-producer Ken Christianson’s original tapes [see also HFN Oct ’13, p103]. She had almost reached the point where arthritis stopped her from playing the violin and allegedy she was found to be a hard taskmaster by the young Norwegian players.

Produced/engineered by Philip Hobbs in Sept ’11, for AAM Records’ first release, this programme takes us from the Sinfonia from Handel’s Saul to Haydn’s F-minor Symphony 49, ‘La Passione’, via works by FX Richter, Stamitz and Mozart: the remarkable K16 – written when he was eight! There’s a related documentary at www. aam. co. uk/birthofthesymphony where Egarr and leader Pavlo Beznosiuk describe the pieces and their salient features (such as the ‘busy’ bowing in the Stamitz opening Presto) intercut with film from concert performance – the two natural horns are quite a sight.

Still in his 20s, acclaimed pianist Giovanni Guidi is regarded as one of the most original and inventive pianists on the Italian jazz scene. While he accompanied trumpeter Enrico Rava on his ECM albums Tribe and the live On The Dancefloor this is his first album for the label as a band leader, where his creatively daring improvisations are shared with American bassist Thomas Morgan and Portuguese drummer João Lobo. ‘The Forbidden Zone’ demonstrates Guidi’s talent for creating sublimely haunting atmospheres, its meditative melody achingly beautiful in its apparent simplicity. And ‘Just One More Time’, in which the bass and drums are given space to work out, highlights the recording’s splendidly natural feeling of musicians performing in a room.