Home » Jazz Articles » Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble

Jazz Articles about Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble

About Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble

Album Review

Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble: Remember Me, My Dear

Read "Remember Me, My Dear" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
November 5, 2019

When Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek first collaborated with The Hilliard Ensemble (a British vocal quartet that specialized in early music) it was an experiment, done at the suggestion of ECM founder/producer Manfred Eicher. No-one anticipated a huge crossover hit, but Officium (ECM, 1994) was so successful that it was followed by Mnemosyne (ECM, 1999) and Officium Novum (ECM, 2010). Remember Me, My Dear is taken from 2014 concert recordings, made during the year that the Hilliards disbanded. So ...

227

Album Review

Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble: Mnemosyne

Read "Mnemosyne" reviewed by Ian Nicolson

by Ian Nicolson
May 1, 1999

Half a decade ago, the visionary in Manfred Eicher met the marketing man head-on and the first collaboration between ECM's most popular artists - and an album called Officium - bridged the outwardly alien worlds of mediaeval ecclesiastical vocal harmony and Jazz saxophone. Garbarek's purity and economy of sound and his independence from the rhythmic history of Jazz allowed his saxophones to sing a fabulously evocative descant to the four Hilliard vocalists stunning recreations of vocal music before the Renaissance.