Results for "Adam Berenson"

Adam Berenson: Songs from the Garret

by Karl Ackermann
February 1, 2023

Adam Berenson's Songs from the Garret is a two-CD solo collection but the essence of other composers prowl in the shadows. The lofty album title pays tribute to particular compositions from Steve Swallow, Carla Bley, Michael Gibbs, Chick Corea and a host of others. Berenson, a well-versed composer/keyboardist, takes the unusual approach (for him) of focusing ...

Homages and Worlds

By Adam Berenson

Label: Dream Play Records
Released: 2022
Track listing: A spectral field in the early evening (homage to Eberhard Weber and Lyle Mays); Napoleon's return from Egypt; Registration of births, deaths, and marriages; Vashkar homage to Carla and Paul Bley; Deus ex machina (a cautionary tale) homage to Brian Eno; An Empty Signifier (Identity Crisis); National Security Action Memorandum; Temporary Insanity (to know her is to hate her); The Dimension of Truth; The fabric of our society (homage to Genesis); Deus Absconditus; Prince Rupert's Lament: Robert Fripp & Peter Sinfield (homage to King Crimson).

Adam Berenson: Homages and Worlds

by Karl Ackermann
March 7, 2022

Adam Berenson's Assemblages (Dream Play Records, 2021), a trio outing with bassist Scott Barnum and drummer Bob Moses, was the pianist/composer's return to an acoustic piano trio setting. But Berenson is a restless pioneer who plants a flag and moves on to new territory. Never far from his collection of electronics and synthesizers, he found a ...

Assemblages

By Adam Berenson

Label: Dream Play Records
Released: 2021
Track listing: CD1: Ideology is Consciousness; The Desert; Before it Died (it gave us the code); Sinthome; Majestic Desolation; Fernando Pessoa; Anxiety Dream; Can You See Your Puppet Strings?; Catacombs; Shadows of What it is Not. CD2: The Elusive Ground of Reason (glimpsed in the gesture of its withdrawal); Rachel Carson; The Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company; Pit of Acheron; Demotic Rhythms; The Phantasmatic Frame; The Ecclesiastical Fashion Show; The Ninth Amendment; Satyagraha; Guide From Beyond (for Stefano Battaglia).

Karl Ackermann's Best Creative Music of 2021

by Karl Ackermann
December 14, 2021

2020 was a disaster and 2021 was less than a beacon of hope. COVID-19 is in the rear-view mirror but closer than it appears. The political clown cars are over capacity, still running on fossil fuel and spilling occupants into the drinking water. That said, jazz and creative music flourished in ways that could make us ...

Adam Berenson, Scott Barnum & Bob Moses: Assemblages

by Karl Ackermann
November 24, 2021

Keyboardist and composer Adam Berenson has at his disposal an arsenal of instruments, electronics, synthesizers, etc. But to hear him in the traditional acoustic piano trio setting is immensely enjoyable, while hardly “traditional." On the double-disc Assemblages, Berenson puts aside his Korg Triton Extreme, Yamaha Symphonic Ensemble and other impressively named and plugged-in instruments in favour ...

Instrumental Duos

by Karl Ackermann
April 20, 2021

The early days of jazz were not always harmonious. Converted dance orchestras often sounded like unbalanced acoustic junkyards; a single violin, cornet, trombone, clarinet, tuba, drums, banjo, and piano, all fighting for attention. The piano was meant to be the glue holding the shrill and boisterous elements together. In 1921 a prodigy pianist named Zez Confrey ...

Every Beginning Is A Sequel

By Adam Berenson

Label: Dream Play Records
Released: 2020
Track listing: Volume One-Part One: Virtual Duet; Overmorrow; Pars pro toto; Dreaming Philosophy; Aphanasis; Anthropocene; Strange Dramaturgy; Jesus Maria; 1215 CE; Transcendental Empiricism; Time Crystals; Amor Fati; The Poetics of the Prosaic; Argot; On Friendship; The Liberating Embrace of Death (Part One).

Volume One-Part Two: Dreams So Real; A Spider God; The Pull of the Past; Reality Is Always Multiple; Song of Roland; Don’t Ever Leave Me; Mind Control; Patterns In A Tunnel; The Digital Big Other; Our Mutual Acquaintance; The Problem of Evil; The Thing Outside of Itself; An Ancient Lament; Metathesis; Enjoy Guilt.

Volume One-Part Three: Strange Bright Signals; The Liberating Embrace of Death (Part Two); Denude Oneself Before the Ghosts; Interpretosis; Vulgar Soul; The Clementinum; A White Spectrum; A System of Suffering; Lines of Flight; Afternoon of Remembrance.

Volume Two-Part One: Queen Isabella the Catholic; The Constitution of the Id; Nausea of Ambition; Humans of New York; The Logic of Poetics; Noise Pollution; Chamber Tomb; Mevlevia; The Lights Were Shining; Out of Joint; A Precious Sort of Necromancy; The Liberating Embrace of Death (Part Three); Alone With The Pain; Helen of Troy; Xibalba.

Volume Two-Part Two: Psych Ward; A Corner of the Attic; Listen to the Listener; Blues for Gille Deleuze; Lonely Woman; The Mirror Stage; Unfinished Reality; One Consolation; Giant Steps; It Hardly Seems to Matter; The Domination of Identity; Another Way To Be Alive; A Mental Lapse; The Scene Changes; Negative Free Will; Why Didn’t They Ask Edmund?

Volume Two-Part Three: This Doesn’t Communicate Anything; Muons; Alarm Bells; Actants; Secrets at Twilight; Motion Painting In Black; Lack Itself is Lacking; Home Invasion Thriller; Creating Plans; The Mysterious Forest is just off of Johnson Highway; Adagio for Glass Harmonica.

Karl Ackermann’s Best Releases of 2020

by Karl Ackermann
December 9, 2020

2020 abridged: A staggering loss of lives and livelihoods. We had worldwide social unrest, wildfires, locust swarms of Biblical proportions, killer hornets, killer drones, kids in cages; an impeachment, an election, an attempted insurrection. Oh, and Poland accidentally invaded the Czech Republic. It was not exactly the Gilded Age. Yet, amid doom-scrolling, the creative music community ...

Adam Berenson

Classically-influenced jazz pianist/composer Adam Berenson has been described by author and Juilliard professor David Dubal as: "what is needed in our over specialized society— a true polyartist— Pianist, Playwright, Composer, Teacher, Humanist, and a man to get to know because in his smooth, respectful style, Mr. Berenson has a lot to show and tell us about art, behavior, and the ability to survive with humor in a harsh and rough time where we have decided art is not of utmost importance." Mr. Berenson's music reflects a wide range of influences, including Keith Jarrett, Eric Satie, Anton Webern, Ornette Coleman, Helmut Lachenmann, Gary Burton and Gyorgy Ligeti