Jazz Articles about Vienna Art Orchestra
About Vienna Art Orchestra
Instrument: Band/orchestra
Article Coverage | Calendar | Albums | Photos | Similar ArtistsVienna Art Orchestra: The Minimalism of Erik Satie
by Raul d'Gama Rose
This is starting to look like the year of Erik Satie. How else could there be two magnificent albums dedicated to his music? The first was Dan Willis and Velvet Gentlemen's The Satie Project (Daywood Drive Records, 2010), while this rerelease of 1984's classic, The Minimalism of Erik Satie, features Mathias Rüegg's large ensemble tribute to the late-19th/early 20th Century French composer. Both albums are unique: Willis' essentially transposing for reeds and an ensemble slightly larger than a quartet, playing ...
read moreThe Vienna Art Orchestra: A Centenary Journey
by Jack Bowers
One has to hand it to the Vienna Art Orchestra; this is one adventurous band of Austrians. On Centenary Journey, recorded live in March ’01 at the Sofiensäle, Vienna, the VAO makes an heroic (and broadly successful) effort to compress a century of ever–shifting Jazz styles into one expansive snapshot. Unlike Ken Burns’ recent (and controversial) television series, Jazz, which was weighted heavily in favor of the music’s early pioneers with the last forty years or so telescoped into one ...
read moreVienna Art Orchestra: Duke Ellington's Sound of Love
by Dave Nathan
The Vienna Art Orchestra's (VAO) tribute to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn is made up of tunes culled from several performances during VOA's Spring Tour 99. This is not the group's first encounter with Ellington, having in1994 released its The Original Charts of Duke Ellington & Charles Mingus. On this album, they “do" Ellington/Strayhorn quite differently than one usually hears the masters' works. Mathias Ruegg's arrangements are challenging to both those who play them and to those who listen and, ...
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