With its six movements, a playing time of around 50 minutes and the grandeur of its musical lines it puts all earlier chamber music compositions in the shade – but was its greatness appreciated in Mozart’s time?

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Reinier Voet tells us “I would say I have been as much influenced by Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery as Django Reinhardt, but I started out listening to Django, he was my first love, he was the reason I picked up the guitar.

My dad had some Django and other jazz records as well as some records with traditional Eastern European gypsy music. Somehow that music spoke more to me than the pop music of the day that my friends were listening to. I taught myself at first but eventually did end up studying Jazz at the Royal Conservatory of the Netherlands. Later I also accompanied gypsy jazz guitar masters like Fapy Lafertin and Jimmy Rosenberg.

I learned a lot from these guys, but also from listening to more modern guitar players in that style, like Birèli Lagrene and Boulou Ferré. The most important lesson from these masters has been that, as Kenny Werner says, “Innovation is the Tradition”, they encouraged me to find my own voice and not to be afraid of incorporating my other influences in my version of ‘Jazz Manouche’. After all Django listened to Charlie Christian and Charlie Christian listened to Django!

The roles in this quartet are clearly defined, you could say that the solid rhythm guitarist Jan Brouwer and steady bassist Jet Stevens represents the tradition, they know how to hold a groove, they have a deep pocket, the beat is completely secure in their hands.

Karin van Kooten’s playing is refreshing. She has her own voice. So often in our field of music violin players tend to copy a bunch of Stephane Grappelli licks and then think they are set to go. Not so with Karin, she respects the tradition but dares to incorporate outside influences from classical to modern jazz music. So, getting back to Kenny Werner, she represents the innovation.

I loved this entire process of recording with only one mic, it seems so well suited to this music, it’s back to basics, but what a sound! Nothing basic about that.”

Reinier Voet – Guitar
Karin van Kooten – Violin
Jan Brouwer – Rhythm Guitar
Jet Stevens- Double Bass

The post Ballade Pour La Nuit (Ballad for the Night) (One Microphone Recording) appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

For the Lifeline Quartet’s debut album, Yarlung chose “If I Can Help Somebody” to be the opening track. This song not only honors Harriet Tubman, but reveals Michelle’s generous heart as well. Harriet Tubman is one of the better known heroes who escaped slavery herself and then worked as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, helping subsequent groups of people flee to the North.

“Wade in the Water” serves as a reminder of where to walk in the rivers to make it harder for dogs to scent people escaping at night. “I’m On My Way to Canaan’s Land” talks about the route to Canada.

Michelle lives what she sings. In addition to directing choirs, performing spirituals and helping to coordinate and lead veterans singing groups, Michelle Mayne-Graves supervises a team and works as a nurse assisting homeless veterans at the Veteran’s Administration in Los Angeles.

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I Want You by Vanessa Fernandez is her third DSD release at Native DSD Music.  This album from the team at Groove Note sees Vanessa return to the ’70s R&B classics and modern soul catalog that she delivered so very well on her debut album Use Me but with the addition of some Pop hits as well from the likes of Radiohead and Rag & Bone Man. I Want You includes songs made famous by Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Gloria Gaynor, Amy Winehouse, and Hall & Oates.

The album was recorded at United Recording Studios (former known as Oceanway Studios) in Hollywood and was mixed at Sphere Studios in Burbank and Capital Recording Studios in Hollywood. All recording, tracking, and mixing was done 100% analog. Michael C. Ross recorded the album in United Recording Studio B over four days on a 24 track Studer Recorder using 2-inch analog tape running at 30 ips. The final 30 ips 1/4 inch stereo master tape was used by Bernie Grundman to create the Stereo DSD 64 master.

NativeDSD exclusively offers this recording in Stereo DSD 512, DSD 256, and DSD 128. These special editions of I Want You were created in the DSD Domain by Tom Caulfield at NativeDSD Mastering Studios using the Signalyst HQ Player 4 Pro mastering software.

Tim Pierce handled all the arrangements as on the first two Vanessa Fernandez albums (Use Me and When The Levee Breaks). Musicians on I Want You include former Michael Jackson bassist Alex Al, current Jimmy Kimmel Show Band keyboardist Jeff Babko, top L.A.-based horn player Ricky Woodard as well as returning musicians from her album When The Levee Breaks (Tribute to Music of Led Zeppelin) – also available at NativeDSD Music.

Vanessa and the band deliver some truly exceptional performances on this album with fabulous sonics. Some say it is her best album yet. It is a must-own release in DSD.

Vanessa Fernandez – Vocals
Tim Pierce – Guitars & Arrangements
Alex Al – Bass
Victor Indrizzo – Drums
Jeff Babko – Keyboards
Luis Conte – Percussion
Charlie Bisharat – Violin
Ricky Woodard – Tenor Saxophone & Alto Saxophone

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Magnificat is the Virgin Mary’s song of praise to God after one of the Bible’s greatest wonders: the angel Gabriel visiting her with the message that she is to be the mother of God’s son. In his setting Kim André Arnesen expresses the feelings Mary must have felt. Wonder, devotion, gratitude, joy, humility, hope, and compassion.

God’s selection of an unknown woman living in poverty to be the mother of His son is a bottom-up view of the world if ever there was one – and Arnesen sees the Magnificat as offering support and hope for all people struggling against adversity or in need of strength. Musica Celestis portrays the ceaseless praising of God by angels in heaven.

Aaron Jay Kernis builds his work around a simple melody which he remolds in a series of variations. The intensely beautiful and mostly barren Hardangervidda mountain plateau inspired Ola Gjeilo to write Tundra, while his Song of the Universal expresses unabashed optimism, exuberance, and poet Walt Whitman’s unwavering confidence in our deeper humanity – all through the prism of a big, warm, beating heart.

Magnificat is one of 2L’s Best-Selling albums of the entire catalog! Along with the album Quiet Winter Night.

Featured in blog post Notes on Recent Finds, No. 9 – Endless Bounty from NativeDSD by music reviewer Rushton Paul.

Nidaros Cathedral Girls’ Choir (Nidarosdomens jentekor)
Trondheim Soloists (Trondheim Solistene)

NOTICE: For the time being, Dolby Atmos MKV dowloads are provided as direct download dropbox links and are not available for download through the downloader app. The download link will be supplied at checkout.

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Yuko Mabuchi’s debut recording on Yarlung, Yuko Mabuchi Trio, was a top seller in the Yarlung catalog and at the NativeDSD Music store last year. Yuko deserves this success.

Yuko Mabuchi Trio thrills audiences with every concert. Her January performance opening for Branford Marsalis in the 1,800 seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall whet international jazz appetites. She next headlined the Arlington Jazz Festival in Texas, and Yuko Mabuchi Trio performed in Blues Alley in April as part of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D. C. European and Asian stages beckon.

The Absolute Sound published a rave review of her recent concert at the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, CA in January 2019. Elaborating further, Rick Brown writes “Yuko Mabuchi combines sexy athleticism at the piano with serious musical poetry. The young fans in the house responded to both with great enthusiasm. So did audience members in their 70s and 80s. This was a fast up tempo set resulting in thunderous applause with audience members yelling and stamping their feet for the standing ovation at the end…. I recognized some audience members who had driven from San Francisco or flown in from Hong Kong and different parts of the country for the event…. Yuko signed CDs and LPs at intermission with the longest lines I’ve seen in years…. She returned for another hour to greet audience members and sign more after the second half of the concert. “

Yuko Mabuchi Trio with JJ Kirkpatrick
Yuko Mabuchi – Piano
Del Atkins – Bass
Bobby Breton – Drums
JJ Kirkpatrick – Trumpet

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“Since, I have spent a fair bit of time coaching cellists, both modern and baroque alike, and found myself playing along to demonstrate various points I gradually could feel these pieces joining the violin partitas and sonatas as another kind of ‘daily bread’. I started catching myself playing some of the movements I particularly loved while warming up and realizing that it was possible to play them on the violin, and to find a special expressive vocabulary at the higher pitch.

How could one justify it, especially with works that have peppered the recording catalog with some of the most iconic and adored string performances of all time, the Casals, Fourniers, Torteliers or Starkers? But what I was doing also seemed very much in keeping with Bach’s own habit of recycling his compositions for different instruments and different uses.

The examples are endless, but I immediately think of the concertos appearing as sinfonias in cantatas, or concertos for violins turned into harpsichord concertos. The more I reflect, the less I feel the need to be defensive because Bach did far more outrageous things! Think of the Prelude of the E major Partita for violin turned into a full orchestral cantata movement with trumpets and drums.”

Rachel Podger, Violin

The post J.S. Bach Cello Suites [Double Album] appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

For their second album at NativeDSD Music, singer Carmen Gomes and her ensemble Carmen Gomes Inc. bring our listeners an album of bluesy Jazz recorded with a single microphone.  The first in a new series of One Microphone Recordings from Sound Liaison.

Peter Bjørnild from Sound Liaison tells us: “The ideal recording would be one that sounds as if the band is right there in front of you. We have one pair of ears, so why not take a stereo microphone, place it in front of the band and press record? Simple …but somehow it does not work like that. At least we had not yet heard one microphone recording of a whole band that we found completely satisfying.

At Sound Liaison, we are big fans of Josephson microphones. They are the secret to our critically acclaimed double bass sound. So, we thought that if one mic were able to do the impossible, it would be the Josephson C700S stereo microphone.

We had hoped to be able to try it out on a Carmen Gomes’ recording session, but there was an unforeseen problem with the delivery, the mic would not be on time. Having booked the studio and the musicians, we decided to go ahead and record the album the way we mostly do, a stereo pair and spot mics on the individual instruments.

We had just recorded the last song of the session when the Josephson C700S arrived. The band had to go and play a gig in the evening and Frans had a lot on his mind that day, so nobody was really in the mood for testing a new microphone, but Carmen said: Come on, let’s just make a quick take of something simple; “Let’s play ‘How Long’!”. So, we all gathered around the mic, made the take, packed up and rushed off to the gig of the evening.

Next day Frans called me up and said, “I can’t stop listening”.
“Did you already make a premix of the session”, I asked.
“No, I am talking about the one taken with the Josephson C700S; there is something very special about it, we need to really test that mic. Could you all come back next month?”

The band has just spent 3 days recording an album and we were pleased with the result. So as not to waste any precious studio time, we grabbed a bunch of songs that have been in our live repertoire for years and went back in.

Multi track recording has advantages and disadvantages. The good thing is that you can make an instrument louder or softer as you please. The bad thing when the recording is done in one room is phase. The most time-consuming aspect of our way of recording is getting the phase between the mics right. Frans de Rond is a true genius in that field and his expertise is one of the secrets to our well-defined sound stage.

Now with only one mic the challenge lay elsewhere. Mixing was no longer possible. We would have to make the complete sound stage right there by carefully moving each instrument closer or further away as well as left and right in relationship to the microphone.

Carmen was given headphones so she could hear exactly what the mic was hearing. She could then direct the musicians and with hand gestures let each band member play louder or softer.

Special credit goes to drummer Bert Kamsteeg who, while playing a full modern drum kit, managed to drive and color each tune with his unique style, but never overpower the pure non amplified sound of Carmen’s voice and my upright bass.

Guitarist Folker Tettero (also featured on Tettero plays Eddie Harris and Les McCann at NativeDSD Music) decided to play the whole session on his old archtop guitar. It is quite unique that you can hear the pure acoustic sound of the guitar blending in so well with the sound from his custom-made amplifier. Listen to Folkers comping during the bass solo in ‘Where can I Go’; that’s the pure sound of his guitar and not to forget; the sound of his hands.

Almost all the songs are first takes. Except for ‘Billie’s Blues’ and ‘How Long’ where second takes where needed to get the balance right.

Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen told me how Ben Webster was the only musician he knew that could play himself to tears while playing a ballad. I know one more, Carmen Gomes.

It happened on the Little Blue album and again on this recording as she was singing the last words to Gershwin’s beautiful ballad ‘Summertime’. Carmen was very apologetic and wanted to make another take, but Frans refused to press the record button. “I’ve got goosebumps all over. And why is it a problem to shed a tear while singing; ……‘don’t you cry’… !?”

Carmen Gomes Inc.
Carmen Gomes – Vocals
Folker Tettero – Guitar
Peter Bjørnild – Double Bass
Bert Kamsteeg – Drums

The post Don’t You Cry (One Microphone Recording) appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

“I am happy that the Dutch TV company VPRO made a documentary of our recording of this great symphony. This film is available on the internet. [YouTube/Mahler 7/Iván Fischer] It documents my efforts in proving that the last movement of Mahler’s seventh symphony – despite some doubts of Mahler experts – is a masterpiece. This work is often seen as enigmatic, fragmented, less accessible than the other, beloved Mahler Symphonies. May this recording contribute to a revalidation!

Mahler returns here to a perfect balance. He ended the 6th Symphony in a tragic minor key. Here he offers us the full journey from darkness to light. And what a journey it is! Please note the most magnificent scherzo framed between the two unique night music episodes! I love this symphony.”

– Iván Fischer

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