Nora McCarthy
Voice, Composer, Lyricist, Poet, Educator
A Small Dream in Red - Vox & Sax Duo
Manna For Thought Improvising Trio
The Nora McCarthy Trio
Nora McCarthy People of Peace - Akara Moi Moi
Jorge Sylvester
Alto Saxophone, Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Educator, Bandleader
ConceptualMotion Orchestra
The ACE (Afro-Caribbeean-Experimental Trio
The ACE (Afro-Caribbeean-Experimental ) Collective
The ACE (Afro-Caribbeean-Experimental ) Collective Extended Edition
Trio Imagination
Reimagining Dolphy - The Music of Eric Dolphy
David Haney
Pianist/Composer,/Storyteller
Publisher of Cadence Magazine
Video from New York Jazz Stories Joe's Pub residency
Link to new book: The Jazz Stories Project
http://www.cadencejazzworld.com/the-jazz-stories-project.html
Link to new CD Live Construction vol. 2
http://www.slamproductions.net/menus/main.asp?PN=Detail&QItemID=377
Link to new CD Birth of a City
http://www.bigroundrecords.com/catalog/br8956/index.html
BIRTH OF A CITY
FOR STRING QUARTET AND IMPROVISING QUARTET
DAVID HANEY
Jason Kao Hwang violin
Melanie Dyer viola
Adam Lane bass
Tomas Ulrich cello
Julian Priester trombone
Steve Swell trombone
Dave Storrs percussion
Bernard Purdie percussion
Even though the tracks on BIRTH OF A CITY are loosely grouped by their titles, the recording is very much a concept album. Haney, himself an accomplished pianist who also studied composition, scored the pieces for a kind of string quartet (violin - viola - cello - double bass), interspersed by varying quantities of brass instruments and percussion. Naturally, as one would expect from this kind of music, all works are scored with exactitude – for the most part, that is. Remarkably, Haney grants the performers a great amount of improvisatory freedom – indubitably owing to his own background in jazz, the genre which definitely and definitively shines through in all his compositions.
It is for this great freedom that all tracks – not only the eponymous Birth of a City, but also the Variations on a Theme as well as Improvisations on a Theme – come across as very dynamic, organic, free-spirited, occasionally even chaotic, all contributing to the impression that this is not a sterile recording of painstakingly thought-out music, but very much a living organism of several musicians' joint forces. And it is this liveliness that rouses interest and exudes the particular charm familiar to jazz audiences.
Haney's benevolence towards his performers pays off a hundredfold. BIRTH OF A CITY is a testament to how musical thought can take and even shift shape in the hands of an ensemble, if only it is given the right amount of freedom.
Release Date: July 26, 2019
Catalog #: BR8956
Format: Physical & Digita