Dave Sewall
Absolutely love this recording. I listen to it at work. I listen to it in the car on the way home from work. I listen to it while falling asleep. Curtis’ cello is so amazing. Just got the vinyl in the mail from Discogs the other day! Can’t wait to play on my hi-fi system!
Favorite track: Piece for Cello and Saxophone.
cloudrecordings
the 2LP version sounds incredible! really good pressing! i was turned on to this by my former cello collaborator, alec livaditis. and connected with it after reading that curtis worked on this piece for years... kind of like how i've been working on tweaking my looped clarinets set for years. i've been listening to these LPs over and over again and i thank salturn for releasing this beautiful music!
Repress. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu and cut to vinyl via direct metal mastering by Hans-Jörg Maucksch at Pauler Acoustics. Pressed at RTI and housed in gatefold jackets printed at Stoughton. Includes a four-page insert with liner notes by La Monte Young, Charles Curtis, Anthony Burr, and Tashi Wada.
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Saltern’s latest offering marks the first-ever release of “lost minimalist” Terry Jennings’ visionary 1960 composition, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, as arranged in just intonation by legendary composer La Monte Young for renowned cellist Charles Curtis. Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Jennings was a close associate of Young, Terry Riley, and Dennis Johnson, and an early adopter of minimalist tendencies, creating slow, sustained music, influenced by jazz, modalism, and late romantic classical music. Jennings died tragically in his early forties, most of his work lost to a chaotic life; however, his forward-looking music quietly exerted a lasting influence on composers including Young and Harold Budd. Composed over sixty years ago, Piece for Cello and Saxophone, foreshadows a number of movements in postwar avant-garde music.
Despite the title, there is no saxophone on this album. At over eighty minutes, La Monte Young’s justly tuned realization of Piece for Cello and Saxophone for cello alone unifies and extrapolates Terry Jennings’ dense harmonies, creating an extended field of complex sonorities in motion, all brought to life by the immaculate playing of Charles Curtis. The recording captures Curtis in a performance from 2016 reflecting more than twenty-five years of dedication to the piece.
Listed #7 in The Wire’s 2022 Archive Releases of the Year
"This is dream music of the highest order, extending time before dissolving it entirely into the void." —Jarrod Annis, Aquarium Drunkard
"There are very few recordings of Jennings' work out there, and what there is, is for piano, so this would be an important release even if it wasn't completely brilliant." —Jennifer Lucy Allan, The Quietus
credits
released July 1, 2022
Produced by Tashi Wada
Recorded live on March 26, 2016, at Courtisane Film Festival in Ghent, Belgium
Recorded by Ludo Engels
Mixed by Anthony Burr
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Piece for Cello and Saxophone is released with kind permission from MELA Foundation.
The metal’s band revelatory new record crosses genres and styles, effortlessly combining seemingly incompatible subgenres. Bandcamp Album of the Day Apr 26, 2024