ecarroll

Hello again TrumpetMasters and Mistresses,

I'm slowly learning who many of you are and am always curious to know what sort of stuff my friends listen to (I know that being trumpeters and not trombonists that you actually listen to music).

What music feeds your soul and inspires you? What music triggers your imagination or gives you peace? Is it trumpet music (the geek line forms on the right)? Music with easily discernible form? Music with a particular message? Music that you can't sit still to? Complex music? Improvised music?

Imagine that you're loading your iPod for an extended and solitary stay on a desert island. You anticipate being absolutely alone for weeks, even months. You will have everything essential to life available to you there -- food, shelter, books -- but your aural life will be limited to music that you yourself will pack and sounds that occur in the natural world. No Man Friday will appear.

Please tell me what you will bring and why? (note that it should withstand repeated listening)

Off-the-cuff examples from the EC library might include:

Sergei Rachmaninov: Vespers, op.37 (Shaw/Telarc)
What sounds better than the human voice? Many human voices.

Richard Wagner: Parsifal (Levine/DG)
Can there be a more perfect marriage of (MET) orchestra, singers, and recording technique? Fabulous live and equally so on disc.

Igor Stravinsky: Petrouska (Dutoit/Decca)
Stravinsky pounding my inner drum and Jim Thompson thrilling my inner geek (yes, I have one too).

Sergei Prokofiev: Romeo & Juliet (Gergiev/Philips)
Each of us has a score that follows us everywhere and this is mine. Music born at the Kirov and performers from the same.

J.S. Bach: Art of Fugue (Emerson 4tet/DG)
A meeting of masterful form/good friends that always makes me smile.

In a Silent Way (Miles Davis/Columbia)
I feel so much cooler after every listening. How often can we say that?

Have a go? I look forward to your contributions.

EC

TrentAustin

Here's my top 5... this is too hard of a decision so I had to make some general must haves in here. It's all music that inspires me more than the other albums in my collection. I could live with just these 5 discs and be happy:

1. Clark Terry: Clark After Dark (this is by FAR the best CD in my collection... and I have almost 1,000 CDs)

2. Freddie Hubbard: The Body and the Soul (1964, peak freddie with his best recorded trumpet sound...WOOWWOWWOWOWOWO and killer arrangements by Wayne Shorter)

3. John Coltrane: A love Supreme (I've listened to this disc probably 200 times and each time it's new and fresh to me).

4. Kind of Blue (duh... everything you'd ever want in jazz musicianship in my opinion...I guess that's why it should be in everyone desert island collection)

5. Mahler 5 with Solti/Chicago from the mid 70's maybe? I can't remember the exact recording but that's definitely in my top five.


OF COURSE if I was stranded I'd bring my 40GB mp3 jukebox with only 5,500 tunes currently on it. Three cheers for modern technology!

Now...if you were stranded and could only have one horn what would it be?

Forget it!
-T

Alex Yates

"Igor Stravinsky: Petrouska (Dutoit/Decca) Stravinsky pounding my inner drum and Jim Thompson thrilling my inner geek (yes, I have one too)."

A good start to my list Ed - this is also my favorite Petrouska recording by far. I never get tired of it. It seems to have a shimmer and pulse that no other recordings match.

2) Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs - Jessye Norman/Masur/Leipzig and Renee Fleming/Eschenbach/Houston.

3) Bela Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra - I have seven recordings and would take any of them. Probably Montreal/Dutoit with Jim

4) Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring - Atlanta Symphony/ Levi.

5) George Frideric Handel, Domenico Scarlatti: Murray Perahia plays Handel and Scarlatti - Murray Perahia, Piano. Sony Classical.

6) Aaron Copland: Symphony no 3, Quiet City (Phil Smith, Thomas Stacey) - Bernstein/New York/DG Deutsche Grammophon (has Bernstein and Copland on the cover)

7) Gustav Mahler: Symphonies 2,3 and 6 (Solti/Chicago) and Das Lied von der Erde.

8) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Opera Arias - Kathleen Battle/James Levine/MET Orchestra/DG 1997.

9) Led Zeppelin: BBC Sessions, Physical Graffiti

10) Ani DiFranco: ALL OF HER ALBUMS (CDs) www.righteousbabe.com

trumpetpimp

The music that tends to inspire varies. Usually it's the type of music that makes me say, "Oh! That's the way I want to do things!", either in performance or in composition. Off the top of my head...

1. Most of Bob Curnow's CD of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays.

2. Wayne Bergeron's O Holy Night. Every time I hear that I get so excited and am always a little surprised when I don't have a searing double A.

3. Blue Mitchell's Blue's Moods.

4. Lots of stuff by the Canadian Brass.

5. Arvo Part's Te Deum. If you're at all, whatsoever, a little, and even if you're not into minimalist music check this out. It's so gorgeous.

CGUM

1. Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.1 - I Musici de Montreal w/Jim Thompson and Dimitri Shostakovich Jr. Conducted by Maxim Shostakovich.
An amazing recording. Such tenderness and balance by both soloists. Leaves me speechless. Is it the familiarity to the material that the soloist and conductor have that elevates the performance?

2. Pink Floyd- Wish you were here.
takes me away......

3. Mos Def- Black on Both Sides
Yes yes It's hip hop. But he speaks truth and wisdom. A modern day poet.

4. Lee Morgan- Leeway
One of the first albums I bought. And Man it swings so hard, the whole album burns.

5. Ensemble Modern -Yellow Shark
An awesome recording of music that is so full of life it hurts.


CG

ecarroll

Alex,

The Norman/Masur recording of Strauss' Four Last Songs (Philips) should have made my list as well. As Trent points out, it's an impossible task to make such choices.

Have you noticed the similarity between the color of Jessye's voice and that hornist? Spectacular. The quotes from earlier works, made at the apotheosis of a dying composer's career, go right through me as well (goosebumps right now hearing them in my head).


Charlie,

I'll check out Yellow Shark. I don't know the recording but know and admire the group (Valentin Garvie for the geeks and fans of Argentine football).

Keep 'em coming. This is fun.
EC

Alex Yates

Ah yes Ed. Not much can top this recording w/Jessye's incredible rich voice surrounded by such a rich-sounding orchestra....they were a perfect match. This recording is one of my most treasured. This work, I find, is one of the most painfully beautiful in the rep. It travels deeply emotionally and that is painful to experience. As you said about the quotes from earlier works made at such a time in Strauss' career.....the music goes right through you. Mahler 6 does that to me for similar reasons. When I performed this years ago with the Louisville Orchestra, there was not a dry eye in the orchestra after the heart-wrenching horn solo of the third movement. We had to get ourselves together quick to continue, but all of us were so deeply affected by this piece......the hammer blows finished everyone off emotionally. It still does every time I listen to it.....but I love it.

Alex Yates

Derek Reaban

Eine Alpensinfonie - My favorite recording of Strauss' Eine Alpensinfonie is the one by the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1976, conducted by Zubin Mehta. I'm amazed at the power of this music. I am literally moved to tears every time I reach track 11 (Gefahrvolle Augenblicke Auf dem Gipfel). The power of the music is equally matched by the power of the orchestra. And it's more of a gentle strength, with no forcing or raucousness. I will have to say that the bass trombone player (Jeffrey Reynolds) absolutely captivates my attention with his sound. His sound is so present and resonant through the entire piece that it grabs me, shakes me, and says, "listen up!" (Especially in track 11). The brass chords are so balanced with his amazing sound cutting through the orchestra.

Beethoven 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 – I have a box set of all the Beethoven Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic. The second of the two disk sets holds symphonies 5 through 9. I will typically get on a Beethoven cycle and listen to these disks for weeks at a time. I never tire of them!

Mahler 2 – This is the first major orchestral literature that I worked up in great detail. I spent several months working with my instructor (I was preparing the 2nd trumpet part). I organized a group lesson with a bunch of players from ASU and we played through a lot of the parts (the chorale from Ulrich was very memorable). The “Great Call” was another section that I really fell in love with. I ended up having a lesson with Ramon Parcells on this piece one year when I was in Santa Fe for the operas. What a great ride I had working this up and organizing meetings with really fine players! I have the LSO with Solti, BSO with Ozawa, and NYP with Bernstein. I would take any of them!

Die Fledermaus – One of my very favorite operas! I have seen this live in Santa Fe many times over the years. Surprisingly, I don’t have a recording of this one, but I would certainly find a good one for a desert island experience. Gotta have some fun, light hearted music for an outing like this!

Petrouchka – I will also nominate the Montreal recording to my list. When I was preparing for auditions a couple of years ago, I listened to this CD countless hundred times. I love the musical message that Stravinsky has created for all to enjoy. There is such a "groove" to this music. It's really quite powerful. Thompson is clearly my benchmark for this piece.

PINT-O-MURPHY'S

1. stravinsky-rite of spring (the old cleveland/boulez one) tight rite .

2. rimsky-korsakov sheherazade (CSO-reiner)-my intro to classical music, given to me by my band director in high school. never get tired of listening to it.

3. The Essential Michael Nyman Band (hypnotic. I'm a huge Nyman fan. It can almost get goofy, but you just can't turn it off. It rocks.)

4. Purcell Odes. English Concert/Trevor Pinnock-amazing recording of some of the best tunes by my favorite baroque composer.

5.Purcell-Dido and Aeneas. English Concert/Trevor Pinnock-unreal balance between orchestra and chorus. imaginative phrasing. just plain ethereal.

6. Nielsen-complete symphonies. Scottish National Orch/Bryden Thomson
Some truly fine brass playing on some much underappreciated music.

7. Empire Brass-music of gabrieli. yes I prefer it over the OTHER one. OK all you purists, don't start flaming just yet. Just another recording I got when I was young, and later I got the chance to study chamber music with these guys. It's a bunch of guys making music who are all on the same page, and it's bliss for me. I mean some starkedly different trumpet sounds (smedvig, curnow, tim morrison) but they're all thinking the same way, and it comes together. sweetness.

8. Chopin Nocturnes dreamy, soothing. sure-fire way to relax. good stuff.

9. Miles Davis Kind of Blue (no explanation needed)

10. Beatles White Album (none needed here either)