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RECENT CD RELEASES:
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Joe Hill, 16 Actions for Orchestra, Voices and Soloist was released on
New World Records on
April 1, 2008. From the liner notes by Paul de Barros:
Perhaps the best way to characterize Wayne Horvitz's Joe Hill: 16 Actions for
Orchestra, Voice, and Soloist, based on the life and times of the legendary labor
activist and organizer is as a radio play that tells the story of a man's life in
words, instrumental music and songs. Like a song cycle, Joe Hill incorporates
much previously-written material (nearly all of it re-harmonized). There are
songs by Hill himself, such as The Rebel Girl and There is Power in the Union,
but also by others, including the folk poem The Lumberjack's Prayer,
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Mississippi John Hurt's Spike Driver's Blues, and an old English street
cry, Chairs to Mend. It also employs spoken word, including Joe Hill's
famous Last Will and Testament, plus words used as narration and dramatic
dialogue. But song cycles don't usually include ravishingly beautiful
stretches of chamber music, much less a completely open line in the score for an
improvising guitarist in this case, the most influential one of our time, Bill
Frisell. This Rubik's cube of jazz, folk, classical and popular music is
strikingly elegiac and autumnal in tone, more requiem and lament than celebration
or call to action. This is appropriate to its theme of martyrdom, though
there are also many exhilarating, jaunty, and humorous sections. Apart from
classical music and the blues, its' other major influences are what has come to
be called Americana, or to be more specific, Appalachian music's nasal
vocals, affection for open fifths, ambiguity between major and minor thirds, and
the jazzy Broadway writing of Leonard Bernstein, particularly his penchant for
rapid time-signature changes. Horvitz has chosen to tell Hill's story in
music that is both complex and direct, ironic and sentimental, dissonant and
gorgeous, popular and artful, and that relishes a well-wrought song as much as
long-form development.
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beautiful solos, and the group interplay that the band is so well known
for. "This is more of a playing record", says Horvitz. "It
isn’t live, but it’s a lot closer to that feeling than Forever or Sweeter
Than the Day - a little looser and a little edgier: it’s got more up-tempo tunes
and we stretch more. Tim does some things that just knock my socks off. We
actually recorded this the same week I recorded the new Gravitas CD, and we do three
or four of the same tunes. The contrast is fantastic between the two bands, and
I am blessed to have not one, but two ensembles bringing so much life to my
pieces."
Some of that edge can be heard on The 29th Day of May, despite its gentle
theme, as well as on A Moment for Andrew (for pianist Andrew Hill),
and Between The Floors, both featuring a mutated swing feel driven by newest
member Eric Eagle (drums). Other highlights include Tim Young’s
blues groove on A Walk in the Rain, two gorgeous ballads, Good Shepherd
and Undecided, and the lovely Waltz from Woman of Tokyo, excerpted from
a score for the silent film of the same name by the iconic Japanese director Yasujiro
Ozu.
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