Prognostication Noriko Hisada (hat(now)ART 163 - 1963)
Performed by Ensemble Fuer Neue Musik Zuerich
“I'm Japanese and write music the same way other people do!" she disarmingly remarks as we talk about any possible connections to the Japanese music tradition... Noriko Hisada does not let herself be pinned down as to whether or not Japanese tradition clashes with the Western dominance of the music establishment. Only the first impression of her music sounds like Western European New Music that does not reject tonality and follows strict methods of musical organisation. In addition, there is Hisada's predilection for extended as well as microtonal melodic patterns and her antenna for the dramaturgy of extremes. Toru Takemitsu, the most renowned Japanese composer of the 20th century, once took a critical view of the “Japanisation" of the avant-garde and made a statement that could apply to Noriko Hisada too: in the painful tension between East and West all one can do is to find oneself and deal with the irreconcilable by way of one's compositions. ~Corinne Holtz
We Concentrate
WWU: Chris Wiesendanger -piano, Christian Weber -double bass & Dieter Ulrich -drums (hatOLOGY 626)
When a piano trio plays “Great American Songs", it is usually like a more or less amusing party with old friends. WWU, however, are different. Their interpretations of standards are actually downright metamorphoses. The compositions by Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Victor Young have been subjected to an extensive, though never malicious transformation process. Nevertheless, the basic substance of the pieces - their DNA, so to speak, or “intense flavour", as Ulrich puts it - will always remain intact. With reference to the French philosopher Deleuze, Wiesendanger explains that the point is to create a foreign language out of a mother-tongue. Uncovering the unfamiliar in the well-known, WWU do not content themselves with exploring the songs' beautiful surface, but delve into the psyche, so to speak, and coax secrets out of them nobody even knew about before: Stella on the couch. Just as much as the three musicians like to explore things they also enjoy playing, so they do a musical backward somersault every now and then, with a big wink of course, and try to outmatch each other in swinging. ~Tom Gsteiger
For more information contact All About Jazz.
