Volume 24 Issue 6 - March 2019

Heiser is a beautiful and accomplished work,
a really great addition to the flute ensemble
repertoire. Track eight, Domingo Semenzato’s
Divagando (choro) with guitarist, Darren
O’Neill is played with just the right blend of
vitality and sadness to lift the notes off the
page, so to speak.
A real surprise for me, and at first glance
an incongruous part of a primarily contemporary
program, is the Sicilienne by the
Austrian composer and contemporary of
Mozart, Maria Theresia von Paradis. This
enchanting melody has a strangely contemporary
feel to it though, and is actually a
good fit. Many thanks to Patricia Lazzara for
introducing us to some fine new repertoire
by mostly not-well-known contemporary
composers.
Allan Pulker
Launch
Admiral Launch Duo
Albany Records TROY1752
(albanyrecords.com)
!!
Launch may be
described as a way
to introduce something
new, which is
precisely what the
US-based Admiral
Launch Duo is
achieving with their
uncanny/intriguing
instrumentation. Since their 2013 Fresh Inc
Festival debut, saxophonist Jonathan Hulting-
Cohen and harpist Jennifer R. Ellis have
spent years working together. Their debut
10-composition release features wide-ranging
stylistic commissions, transcriptions and
premiere recordings.
Five Admiral commissions are included.
Patrick O’Malley’s three-movement
Thaumaturgy is a current day exploration
of harp and sax effects. Amazing how
the performers can match colours on two
such diverse instruments in an arpeggiated
ripple section, while the loud programmatic
final meteor movement stuns with harp glissandos
and high pitch sax notes. More wailing
sax extreme high dramatics with mournful
contrasts appear in Christine Delphine
Hedden’s Amhrán na Cásca, while dark low
and high tones emulate emotional distress
in Angélica Negrón’s Still Here. Close atonal
interchanges and tight playing are heard on
Jasper Sussman’s …nice box! “Oh So Square”
and Natalie Moller’s nature-inspired starshine
& moonfall.
The other works include changes of sonic
pace. Highlights include traditional Romantic
harmonies and melodies in the duo’s arrangement
of Marcel Tournier’s La Lettre du
Jardinier, and a contemplative lyrical harp
part against sensitive saxophone phrasing
and surprising flute-like tone fluttering on
composer Ida Gotkovsky’s own arrangement
of her Eolienne.
Musical common sense assumes that it
just won’t work but like anything different,
the Admiral Launch Duo’s talent, balance
and sonic experimentation blossoms with
repeated listening.
Tiina Kiik
Crosswind
Tower Duo
Ravello Records rr8003
(ravellorecords.com)
!!
Based in
Columbus, Ohio the
flute and saxophone
Tower Duo specializes
in performing
contemporary
works by emerging
composers. Flutist
Erin Helgeson
Torres performs
regularly in various Ohio orchestras, while
saxophonist and composer Michael Rene
Torres serves as the artistic director of the
Columbus Ohio Discovery Ensemble (dedicated
to the promotion and performance of
contemporary concert music in Central Ohio).
Both are active teaching their respective
instruments at area universities.
Performing new repertoire for their
unusual wind instrument pairing (since
2007), Crosswind is Tower Duo’s debut
album. It features eight of the duo’s favourite
compositions by as many American and
international composers. The album displays
the duo’s mission: commissioning and
performing new scores. Included is Scott
Brickman’s epigrammatic Epic Suite (2012),
Charlie Wilmoth’s disruptive Three Pieces
(2013), Philip Sink’s Places Never Painted
(2012), inspired by the composer’s poem
evoking the quiet beauty of the natural world,
as well as Michael Rene Torres’ four-part
character study Four Short Episodes (2011).
The title track from 2013 by Hong Kong
composer Chin Ting Chan (b.1986), written
for the duo, is an album highlight. Full of
extended techniques and reflecting Chan’s
harmonically exact, rhythmically defined and
structurally strict M.O., it pays close attention
to instrumental timbre and colour, and twovoice
polyphony. It’s also infused with a playfully
dramatic, tonally exploratory mood.
This lightness of mood and unstrained
virtuosity happily permeate this album,
enjoyable to listeners far from the borders of
the Buckeye State.
Andrew Timar
JAZZ AND IMPROVISED
One Night in Kensington
Laura Hubert
Independent (laurahubert.com)
!!
Toronto singer
Laura Hubert would
be familiar to many
readers as the energetic
vocalist of
the popular JUNO
Award-winning
Canadian folk/
rock band the Leslie Spit Treeo (1988-2000).
Hubert continues her musical journey
singing jazz in this live recording from the
Poetry Jazz Café in Toronto’s Kensington
Market, supported by a superb jazz quartet
comprised of pianist Peter Hill, guitarist Eric
St-Laurent, bassist Steve Wallace and Davide
DiRenzo on drums.
Hubert performs with an astounding,
memorable sound. Her clear articulations
of the storytelling lyrics are still present as
she develops her expanding, still intense
singing style in 13 contrasting cover tracks.
The opening Mercer/Carmichael tune Lazy
Bones is a great introduction to Hubert’s
personal and at times idiosyncratic sound
style, complete with swells, warble and
growling vocal effects, and never over-thetop
loud singing. A vocals/piano start leads
to a full band rendition, with upbeat instrumental
solos and background cymbal crashes
nicely contrasting the vocal effects. The slower
Ellington/Russell song I Didn’t Know About
You has Hubert singing in a tenderly lush way,
with dramatic held notes against standard
jazz band backdrop sounds. The upbeat quasi
cha-cha-cha tune Comes Love (Stept/Tobias/
Brown) is another intense, unique rendition
driven by a tight rhythmic groove.
Great musical interplay between Hubert
and her band, extended colourful and
exciting instrumental solos and clear production
values, including the appreciative audience
applause, complete this excellent live
release from this musically evolving artist.
Tiina Kiik
Settling Up
Simone Morris
Independent (simonemorris.ca)
! ! Toronto jazz
vocalist Simone
Morris’ debut album
Settling Up is an
absolute treat to
the listener, a pop
of delicious and
sultry goodness in
an otherwise dull
and dreary day. The album was born out of
a longtime collaboration with guitarist Mike
Freedman, who is featured as a co-writer on
each track along with Morris. Freedman’s
thewholenote.com March 2019 | 85