The Hungarian composer and pianist Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer from the Serbian province of Vojvodina has written eight hymns in commemoration of the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, an artist he has called a homo moralis whose remarkable visions cast a small but significant light on the tragic world of the previous century. The Georgian composer Giya Kancheli has written a silent prayer for two dear friends: the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and the violinist Gidon Kremer. The meditative emotionality of the hymns and the ascetic tranquility of the prayer are offset by César Franck‘s Piano Quintet in F minor like a premonition of Beethoven’s Appassionata, whose second movement, marked Lento, molto sentimento, in turn takes up the mood of the other two works. This combination does more than provide a superficial contrast: it is beholden to an intrinsic principle of the sort that the painter Paul Klee developed in his theory of harmony in the visual arts: any compositional harmony will gain character through dissonances, with the balance being restored by counterweights. (from the liner notes)This album “Hymns and Prayers” from master violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica spans a characteristically wide range of music, from the spirited to the spiritual, all of it broached with conviction. The three featured works were recorded in 2008 at the Lockenhaus Festival, that annual event which ECM helped to put on the map a quarter-century ago, when Kremer and producer Manfred Eicher introduced the Edition Lockenhaus on ECM New Series.
Intensity and concentration, differently calibrated, are the watchwords here. At the centre of this disc is César Franck’s piano quintet, a work which ranks alongside the Brahms Quintet as one of the outstanding – and technically daunting – works of the late 19th century. It is a work that Gidon Kremer holds in special affection: it was one of the first pieces of chamber music in his own repertoire, and he performed it in Latvia when he was 16.
Kremer and Giya Kancheli have a long association that has already resulted in several recordings on ECM, including “Lament: Music of Mourning in Memory of Luigi Nono” (recorded 1998) and “Time...and Again” (1999) and “V & V” (2000) on the album “In l'istesso tempo”.
"Silent Prayer" was composed on the occasion of the 80th birthday of Mstislav Rostropovich and the 60th birthday of Gidon Kremer in 2007. After Rostropovich’s death that same year, the composer entitled the just-finished work "Silent Prayer." The world premiere took place on 7 October 2007 at the Kronberg Cello Festival which was dedicated to the memory of the late virtuoso, with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica.
Kremerata Baltica will again be performing Kancheli’s “Silent Prayer” on their North America tour this autumn. Earlier performances have been much praised by critics. “The spare and ruminative music seems to drift off the stage with infinite slowness, like a mist. Kremer and his colleague, floating wispy lines from the highest reaches of their instruments, were compelling guides to this ethereal landscape”, wrote Jeremy Eichler in the Boston Globe.
Long a champion of original compositional voices, Kremer here presents also music of Stevan Tickmayer, born in the former Yugoslavia in 1963, and currently a resident of France. A musician of diverse background, Tickmayer has been studying with Kurtág since the mid-90s, and has had his own work played by ensembles from the Netherlands Wind Ensemble to the Moscow Soloists – but he has also collaborated with improvisers and avant-rock players including Chris Cutler, Fred Frith and Peter Kowald. On Kremer’s invitation he was composer in residence at Lockenhaus in 2003 and 2009.
Tickmayer began his “Eight Hymns” in December 1986, on learning of the death of his favourite filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky, and played the (unfinished) work in his solo concerts for several years. He revised it in 2003 after working with the musicians of the Kremerata, “the ideal messengers” – given their Eastern European backgrounds – for this musical mourning. The “Eight Hymns” is the first recording of Tickmayer’s music on ECM.
Gidon Kremer’s relationship with ECM dates back to Arvo Pärt’s album “Tabula Rasa”. This was followed by several volumes of live recordings from his famous Lockenhaus festival. Kremer’s second recording of the complete sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin by Bach, released in 2005 on ECM New Series, met with unanimous international acclaim. Kremerata Baltica which first appeared on ECM on the Kancheli record “In l’istesso tempo” (2005) made its official label debut in the same year with a highly original interpretation of Schubert’s G-major string quartet.
Founded in 1997 by Gidon Kremer, the Grammy-award winning chamber orchestra is one of the outstanding ensembles in Europe and beyond. Although it originally began as a "present to myself" to celebrate his 50th birthday in 1997, Gidon Kremer soon realized the potential of this ensemble of young musicians from the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as a medium with which to share artistic experiences, and, at the same time, to promote and inspire the musical and cultural life of the Baltics.
A young leader who has already conquered audiences across the world focuses on the most ambitious artistic project of his career. Herplay and an excellent technique for other undisputed talent in Europe. makes this record with the contribution of the young rising star Dino Rubino on piano and one of the most exciting, strong and creative Italian jazz rhythmic section: Paolino Dalla Porta ( double bass), has a story that really says a lot about his ability to bring inspiration and creativity. Again his personality gave harmony and elegance together with Stefano Bagnoli, ( the "Brushman" as people now call him), a drummer with an inte
Jobim, João Gilberto, Joyce – Brazil has given us so many brilliant composers, instrumentalists and vocalists. It is with great pride that Stunt Records releases this new recording by the revered Brazilian singer Joyce Moreno (previously known as Joyce), recorded in Rio last year with her own trio.
Elga Paoli è una raffinatissima compositrice cantante pianista che con questo nuovo lavoro "Profumo di jazz" ci regala un progetto a cavallo fra jazz e canzone d'autore dove accanto alla figura del "crooner" la Paoli reinterpreta il ruolo con sonorita' proprie del mediterraneo. La formazione è piu' che eccellente con i migliri musicisti della scena romana e italiana con Gian Piero Lo Piccolo al sax, Roberto Palermo alla fisarmonica, Stefano Nunzi al contrabbasso, Francesco Puglisi ospite al contrabbasso il molti pezzi, Alessandro Marzi e Marco Rovinelli che si alternano alla batteria. Infine, non certo per ordine di importanza, i bellissimi camei di Fabrizio Bosso. 
The people who heard Steve Lacy’s final solo performance in 2003 at the “Unerhört” Festival in Zurich will not have forgotten the experience. This rollercoaster of emotions. It didn’t just go under the skin; it went straight to the heart. It was so moving to see and hear the love, serenity, trust and sense of adventure that the totally weak Lacy displayed for his music. This is what was so wonderful and magic about that grey, cold November afternoon: we all witnessed what it is like when a master of improvisation gets carried away by the power of music. He became one with the music, drawn to it like a magnet. How beautiful: sadness found joy. Coldness found warmth.
Michael Jaeger keeps looking in the quartet KEROUAC with the pianist Vincent Membrez, the bassist Luca Sisera and the drummer Norbert Pfammatter since 2005 persistently and with more and more success for the labile balance between selffulfillment and control. Between freedom and structure. Between individualism and the collective. Today KEROUAC is on such an advanced level of the collective consciousness, that the four can launch each other almost telepathically into creative spaces. More than that: the collective understanding generates such a pull that even the guests Greg Osby and Philipp Schaufelberger are integrated almost on the spot, almost as if they were members of the band for years.
Marco Detto was born in Milan in 1962. At first he studied cello, then he totally devoted himself, as a self taught musician, to the study of the pianoforte. He began his professional career in 1982, collaborating as a sideman in many different jazz bands. In 1987 he "gives birth" to his own first jazz group, carrying his name, favouring the trio, and he performs in many jazz clubs, In 1992 he recorded his first work of standard songs“Falling in jazz with love” , with Marco Ricci and Giorgio Di Tullio and with this ensemble the same year he recorded an original piece of work “I sogni di Dick”. In 1994 Marco Detto begins to collaborate with Palle Danielsson and Peter Erskine, with whom he recorded the “La Danza dei ricordi”. In 1998 with Marco Ricci and Stefano Bagnoli, he recorded “Altrove”, a piece of work consisting mainly of very original compositions. In 1999 he recorded with the same group “In The Air”. In 2000 Marco Detto receives an invitation by Eddie Gomez in person to perform three concerts with his band featuring L.White and J.Steig, as a replacement for McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea at the IV . International Festival of classical and jazz music (IV. Festival internazionale di musica classica e jazz) on Elba island. From this very lucky meeting a new Cd took life in 2001 entitled “What a Wonderful World” which was recorded in New York with E.Gomez and L.White and presented in Italy through a concert tour. In 2003 he recorded the Cd “Django”, excellently reviewed by japanese jazz magazine Sunny Side, remained in their charts for 2 months on second position. In 2004 he recorded “Da Lontano” (Massimo Manzi drums, Marco Ricci bass). In 2005 the japanese label Sound Hills reprinted “ What a Wonderful World”. In 2006 he recorded BlueStones (Mauro Beggio drums, Stefano Profeta bass, Kyle Gregory trumpet, Antonello Monni tenor sax, Guido Bombardieri clarinet). "Lasciarsi andare” one song of this album, has won Honorable Mention in the Jazz category in the 2006 International Songwriting Competition (ISC). In 2006 he also published “ Ripples”, a piano solo album. He took part in many different radio broadcasts on Rai Radio Tre. He also took part in one theatrical project of a cultural association “NOEHMA Servi di Scena” directed by professor Teresa Pomodoro in the prisons of Opera and San Vittore, in theatre Strelher and at University La Statale of Milano. In parallel to such activities, that keep him busy as a leader, Marco Detto collaborates with historical guitarist Franco Cerri, with whome is recorded “Ieri e Oggi”, with singer Lorena Fontana, with whom he recorded “Guccini in jazz” and continues a collaboration with the saxophonist Antonello Monni, with whom he recorded “Friends”.
With his new album To The One (Abstract Logix/Mediastarz), iconic guitarist and composer and 2010 Grammy Winner John McLaughlin looks backwards and forwards simultaneously. The six original songs are hauntingly evocative – with roiling rhythmic swells, modal expanses, and telepathic group interaction echoing the profound influence of John Cotrane’s 1965 spiritual jazz masterpiece A Love Supreme. Mostly written in July and August of 2009, the music composing To The One was set down in the studio in November and December, with very few overdubs, by McLaughlin’s current performing outfit, the Fourth Dimension: Gary Husband (keyboards, drums), Etienne M’Bappe (electric bass), and Mark Mondesir (drums). Compositional devices clearly inspired by Coltrane are fused with elements of McLaughlin’s own multi-faceted approach, all delivered with a group empathy and shared vision that harkens back to Coltrane’s fearless mid-‘60s quartet of Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Jimmy Garrison. The effect of Jones’ kaleidoscopic approach to rhythm and drumming is especially felt, brilliantly recast and explored via McLaughlin’s gift for complex metrical structures. 
On February 10th, 2010 poet Philippe Jaccottet received the important èprize "Gran Premio Schiller" and has been mentioned as one of the most important poets in french of the 21st century. In this circumstance, Silta Records is pleased to produce this fine and delicate work of Anna Garano: a tribute in music to great writers like Verlaine, Baudelaire and Jaccottet, who personally expressed to the artist his appreciation for this work.
In the summer of 2008 multiple Grammy award winning jazz artist Wynton Marsalis and his quintet teamed-up with French accordionist Richard Galliano at the annual Jazz in Marciac festival in Southern France to pay tribute to the late jazz legends Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf.
Riproponiamo questo cd grazie al meraviglioso concerto che questo straordinario gruppo Klezmer Funky ha tenuto domenica 25 aprile a Milano presso la prestigiosa rassegna "Aperitivi in Concerto". Abraham Inc nasce dall'incontro tra David krakauer di radici musicali Klezmer con uno degli artisti funky piu' creativi sulla scena contemporanea Fred Wesley nome non sconosciuto a tutti i fans di James Brown. Ma a rendere ancora piu' unico e se si vuole contemporaneo il progetto è Socalled proveninete da area Hip Hop. La miscela che ne è scaturita è pura energia funky con la ballabilita' propria della musica Klezmer. Pronti allora per il party ?