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Vienna Art Orchestra - Concerto Piccolo (1980)

Posted By: Designol
Vienna Art Orchestra - Concerto Piccolo (1980)

Vienna Art Orchestra - Concerto Piccolo (1980)
EAC | APE | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 370 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 159 Mb | Scans included | 01:04:34
Avant-Garde Jazz, Experimental Big Band, Creative Orchestra | Label: Hat ART | # hat ART CD 6038

Recorded live at the Zurich Jazz Festival in 1980, this was America's first taste of the wild abandon that is the Vienna Art Orchestra and expatriate Lauren Newton's glorious vocal instrument. This is a 13-piece big band led by the beautifully weird compositional, instructional, and arranging craziness of Mathias Rüegg. They trash and revere all traditions – both historical and avant-garde at the same time – while using them both along with carnival and circus music, classical forms and fugues, and French salon music. They swing here like a Mingus big band playing "Jelly Roll, But Mingus Rolls Better," with soloists who could care less what the ensemble chart says and vice versa. Newton, mixed high above the prattle, soars with the intensity of a pianist while blowing Jon Hendricks away at his own game. The fun really begins when the ensemble changes tempos two or three times and sections play against each other as in "Concerto Piccolo," even if begun by the lilting line of the title's instrument.

Vienna Art Orchestra - All That Strauss (2000)

Posted By: Designol
Vienna Art Orchestra - All That Strauss (2000)

Vienna Art Orchestra - All That Strauss (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 482 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 196 Mb | Scans included
Experimental Big Band, Creative Orchestra | Label: TCB | # 20052 | Time: 01:13:58

From Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin to Mahler and Bartok, European classical music has been a source of inspiration to numerous jazz musicians. The 19th Century compositions of the Strauss family are the subject of All That Strauss, which documents a New Year's 2000 concert by the Vienna Art Orchestra–one of Europe's most adventurous big bands. It is quite appropriate that this Strauss tribute concert was performed in Vienna and that the orchestra has Vienna in its name; for many classical greats have lived in Austria's largest city, including Johann and Eduard Strauss. While the Vienna Art Orchestra's love of the Strauss legacy is obvious, the band doesn't treat its compositions like museum pieces. Instead, time-honored compositions like "Donauwalzer," "Albion Polka," "Ein Morgen, ein Mittag, ein Abend in Wien" and "Lagunen Walzer" are given serious jazz makeovers, and arranger Mathias Rüegg sees to it that the orchestra takes a lot of chances with the material.

Vienna Art Orchestra - The Minimalism of Erik Satie (1989)

Posted By: Designol
Vienna Art Orchestra - The Minimalism of Erik Satie (1989)

Vienna Art Orchestra - The Minimalism of Erik Satie (1989)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 275 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 177 Mb | Scans included
Experimental Big Band, Creative Orchestra | Label: Hat Hut | # hat ART CD 6024 | 01:15:11

Mathias Rüegg's Vienna Art Orchestra had always been an eclectic bunch, working in the odd jazz or classical cover into its repertoire with some regularity, but for this release, the ensemble went whole hog, leaping into the oeuvre of that grandfather of minimalism, Erik Satie. Originally issued as a two-LP set, every track (save one evocative Gil Evans-y piece by Rüegg) is a Satie composition rearranged, often brilliantly, and generally highlighting two or three individual VAO members. This reductionist technique serves the band well, as it has often had a tendency toward weighty ponderousness. Here, the arrangements are light and linear, affording a supple but transparent platform for the soloists, who are clearly encouraged to venture out into jazzy territory.