Nigel's Music
Reviews of Nigel's CDs and DVDs
(Courtesy kleinezeitung.at)
This is not
about Nigel’s music in terms of what he has composed or what he has played. On
BBC Radio you can hear a programme, hosted by Ken Bruce, called Tracks of My Years. Each week, a well
known artist carefully chooses ten tracks that have had a profound influence in
his/her life and career.
This week,
it's the turn of leading violinist and composer Nigel Kennedy and below is his
selection:
OH, WOW ! REPEAT: WOW !
My sincere thanks to my granddaughter Hilary Wells for her help in translating some of these comments from the German. The ones that make the most sense are hers...............the rest are mine !
Susanne writes:
Yes, The Four Seasons recording over two decades ago was astounding - but Nigel has evolved over the years - jazz being always on his agenda when all those years ago he played with Stéphane Grappelli whilst still under the tutelage of Yehudi Menuhin. Nigel is truly inspirational on the violin, you only had to listen to him playing solo Bach at the Proms this year to know that - how many violinists are there who could stand on a stage unaccompanied and play solo Bach to a sell-out Proms audience? Very few, if any!!!! I think this new album entitled The Four Elements is a true work of art - Air, Earth, Water, Fire, it's all in the music if you listen with an open mind - so for me The Four Elements is a sensational album and ALL THE ELEMENTS of genius are there with Nigel Kennedy's super brain power but you do have to like an element of jazz obviously to be able to appreciate the genius in it!
Mark writes:
I'm a big fan of Nigel Kennedy and have seen him live on several occasions performing with his band and in classical concerts.
While I enjoyed this album and welcomed the vocal additions, I felt he has rehashed some of his old material from previous albums.
I still give it 4 stars because it's the usual high quality NK.
Mainstream-is-exactly-weird-music writes:
That Nigel has an affinity for rock should already be visibly clear,and he lets exactly that come out in "The Four Elements".
The pieces are full of variety and just brim over with creativity and the joy of playing, in which I must once again observe that Nigel Kennedy possesses a gift that distinguishes him from very many solo instrumentalists: he can restrain himself. He essentially uses this gift in all of his albums, and here in The Four Elements it's once again clear that Nigel is certainly an exceptional violinist and technically accomplished, masters his instrument like hardly any other, but is not someone like Steve Vai who must act out hour-long noise- and tempo-orgies. Nigel Kennedy plays in a way conducive to the song; that means not too much, not too little – he applies just the right amount of his well-thought-out melody arcs, without overwhelming the listener with instrumental masturbation. It is like a kind of modesty with the sure knowledge that one is capable. An authentic music guy, one who likes to crack jokes and drink beer, who certainly is a master of his craft but doesn't put a gilded sign around his neck to attract attention.
On top of that, there is his capability to find melodies that are certainly complex but also always very harmonious and catchy, and exactly these elements make the CD The Four Elements another real … must-buy.
Carolina Bodura writes:
The suite The Four Elements refers to the music program and reflects the four elements of nature: air, earth, fire and water. Nigel Kennedy defines a suite as a twenty-first century response to the, eighteenth century The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi, which is an outstanding example of a suite describing the musical phenomena of nature. Kennedy’s . composition leads the listener on a musical journey through different styles of music that entertain, soothe and stimulate reflection. Kennedy gathers contrasting musical themes in the "Air" movement, some reminiscent of The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, passing from the blues, a cool dance groove to oriental melodies. . In "Fire," which is full of energy, funk riffs contrast with the violin, keyboards, female voices and percussion.
Petra Riess writes:
His punk image still sticks to star violinist Nigel Kennedy. This has barely changed since the first spectacular appearances of the brilliant Menuhin pupil Kennedy - on the contrary. For some years he has worked intensely on confirming exactly this over and over again: He is a punk who cannot be restricted and crosses stylistic borders over and over again. It’s sometimes in the direction of Klezmer music, or - like on his last but one CD - in the direction of Free jazz. He is famous enough to be able to afford such loops. Now a new album has appeared: The Four Elements, composed for violin, orchestra, tape and voices.
A wild journey
It is an admission which surprises, because, nevertheless, Kennedy seems to have prescribed a longer break for himself from the world of Beethoven and Bach. Earlier one would have called it coalescence what Kennedy does there: sounding like rock percussion meets jazz chords, pop meets worldbeats, free jazz interacts with Asian vocals
The wild Briton has composed a suite dedicated to four elements- air, earth, fire, water- framed by an overture and finale and a small addition. It is a wild journey which the Menuhin pupil expects us to take . However, he seems to feel with it very well. Kennedy lets off steam so properly, sometimes he wanders softly like the wind about woods and meadows, sometimes goes hunting like a fiery dervish about the plains - as if he himself is concurrent all elements. Besides, he plays not only the violin, but also the Hammond organ.
His own "seasons"
Of course, The Four Elements reminds us immediately of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons . As indeed it should . Kennedy's admission and interpretation of this classical period hit made the Briton with the punk haircut famous in the 1980s Now he plays his own idea of the "seasons". What the Venetian caught once in baroque musical language so expressively Kennedy doesn’t express less strongly with the means of his musical universe. This consists of John Coltrane, Earth Wind and Fire, The Doors, Edward Elgar and Beethoven.
The compositional ideas and impromptu passages seem to follow each other, however, rather arbitrarily but that does no damage to the fascination of the play and whole sound. However, it takes a while, until one has grasped everything. This speaks again very much for the admission. Kennedy’s new album is certainly not everybody's taste: authentic, highly virtuosic and a little crazy - a genuine Kennedy !
Hans Czerny writes:
It is the same person and at the same time, it's another person. His million times sold Vivaldi recording of Four Seasons made magic violinist Nigel Kennedy famous in 1989 in the well-behaved classical period field. Now the crossover specialist who cannot be content in one field and over and over again changes the genres , brings us his own composition with the associative title Four Elements . To say it immediately: this has nothing to do. with Vivaldi. Kennedy is wild here and presents himself once again – as he did already on his Very Nice Album from 2008 - above all as a Jimi Hendrix on the violin.
The numbers of the album are headlined after the four elements, 'Air', 'Earth', 'Fire' and 'Water', and sandwiched between a far-ranging Overture and a grandiose Finale . Then as an encore there is even a comical Dada ditty which is sung by Kennedy in a rough rock voice..
The far swinging, freely impromptu pieces with their ingenious electric sound demand anyhow a multimedia show, so psychedelic and sci -fi filmic they seem. Music for taking off and dreaming. Detached from the earth one surfs with Captain Kennedy in the Yellow Submarine...
We do not need at all the request of the sweet Asiatic voice, ' Let yourself go ' with the ' Air ' movement in our ears. Rock-like, the movement ‘Earth’ where the planet is celebrated as the mother all being is well contrasted with 'Fire' where Kennedy honors a ' Freedom-Fire'. The eroticism is left according to tradition to ‘ Water.’ In the Overture Kennedy uses an easy basic melody and surrounds it with soul and even sorrow with all kinds of electronic stereophonic sounds.
This Nigel has his audience, and now it will probably follow him, will forgive him for the arbitrarily elective breaks and for the acoustic escapades with pleasure. Kennedy is a cult, and here he does it once more to the extreme.
The pictures are all courtesy the SonyClassic website at
www.nigel-kennedy.net
Although having been admonished
not to perform in Carnegie Hall with Stephane Grappelli early in his career, jazz had been a seminal part of Nigel Kennedy’s life many years before that moment. It is reported that the young Nigel would pick out Fats Waller tunes on the piano at a young age after hearing them on jazz albums, and while he was a student at the Yehudi Menuhin School the late Nadia Boulanger praised Nigel for his interest in jazz, citing jazz as a very important movement. Having established himself as one of the most important violinists and musicians of our day (his classical discography includes all of the major violin concerti, two interpretations of the Elgar Violin Concerto, a disc containing both the violin and viola concerti of William Walton and his record-breaking Vivaldi Four Seasons recording which remains the biggest-selling classical album of all time) it is therefore fitting that at the age of 53 Mr. Kennedy would devote a great deal of his active musical life to performing and recording jazz in addition to the standard violin repertoire.
Kennedy’s penchant for “following his bliss” – and for his forthright opinions on matters both musical and worldly - should not be surprising considering the influence of Yehudi Menuhin. During the course of his life and career, Menuhin was very outspoken regarding human rights abuses ranging from Soviet treatment of Rostropovich to Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Menuhin also maintained profound personal and creative relationships with both Ravi Shankar and jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. In a 2006 interview with Alfred Hicking of the UK Guardian, Nigel spoke very strongly about prevalent attitudes in the classical world while also honoring both Grappelli and Menuhin: “…so many people from the classical establishment are stuck in closet on top of their ivory towers. The great thing about Menuhin was that he wasn’t like that, which is why he was such an admirer of Grappelli. If I learned anything from those two, it was the value of keeping an open mind.”
"Following his bliss".......wherever it takes him
(Courtesy vesti.bg)
Coincidentally, violinist Daniel Hope, another Menuhin protégée (although not a formal student of Menuhin’s, Hope was profoundly exposed to the man and later invited to play Bartok duos in concert with the master), has developed an equally multifaceted career and humanitarian profile, most notable in the creation and production of a multimedia event held in 2008 at Berlin’s Telpelhof Airport to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht and his collaborations with Mia Farrow and Stewart Copeland of the eighties rock band The Police. However, while Hope has received consistent critical and audience praise for his work, there are some who continue raising the skeptical eyebrow at Kennedy, not only for his interest in jazz and other musical forms but also for his dare-I-say nontraditional concert attire and behavior.
To write Kennedy off as an irascible brat, however, is to seriously underestimate the man: when speaking of Nigel Kennedy, Simon Rattle once said “To know who Nigel is, you have to listen to his playing – and look at his eyes while he’s playing”. (Rattle’s partnership with Nigel Kennedy has included recordings of three very profound works – William Walton’s Viola Concerto and the violin concertos of Sibelius and Elgar).
It must be noted that shortly after the release of his now heralded recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto with Vernon Handley and the London Philharmonic in 1984, an album was released titled Nigel Kennedy Plays Jazz. That recording, a disc containing seven songs (including “The Girl from Ipanema”) played with pianist Peter Pettinger, was the first of EIGHT recordings - all of which have been released on major record labels - through which listeners were exposed to Nigel’s insatiable curiosity. This “second discography” includes Let Loose (1987) with Dave Heath; 1996’s Kafka, a progressive fusion that features Stephane Grappelli; Blue Note Sessions (2006), which features Kenny Werner, Joe Lovano, Ron Carter, Jack de Johnette; Nigel’s arrangements of Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige” and the Nigel Kennedy Quartet’s first release, simply titled A Very Nice Album (2008). “Shhh!”, the second recording by the Nigel Kennedy Quintet, was released in early 2010. The disc consists of seven songs, six of which were written by Kennedy and all performed by Nigel and the four incredibly well-versed and capable musicians with whom Nigel has performed across Europe since 2003 (Tomasz Grzegorski, tenor and soprano sax, bass clarinet; Piotr Wylezol, piano and Hammond Organ; Adam ‘Szabas’ Kowalewski, acoustic and electric bass; Krzysztof Dziedzic, drums).
Incredibly well-versed and capable musicians........every one !
(Courtesy rockmetal.pl)
The recording opens with “Transfiguration”, in which both the moods of the ‘70s (think Herbie Hancock’s “Fat Albert Rotunda”) and the acid jazz movement of the ‘90s are present. This is a well-written and well-performed tune, opening with what could be the sounds of travel (train horns, anyone?) leading into an easy saxophone/violin duo, later showcasing pianist Wylezol and saxophonist Grzegorski. Kennedy shows himself to be an incredibly very well-versed jazz musician from the start, the violin first serving a supporting role and later recalling the electric guitar stylings of both Mississippi Delta blues bands and heavy metal bands.
Boy George (of Culture Club fame) lends his captivating voice to ‘70s underground star Nick Drake’s“River Man”, a shimmering 5/4 number complete with sonic carpet provided by the Orchestra of Life, an orchestra founded by Nigel that made its UK debut in March 2010. Kennedy’s fascination with eastern European gypsy music is reflected in the melismatic opening of “Silver Lining”, as acoustic bass and violin wander through an introduction that leads to a cinematic 4/4 that features a playful and sensual saxophone solo from Grzegorski and some very sophisticated harmonic sequences.
All questions can – and should - be dismissed after hearing the title track of this CD, aptly named “Shhh!”. In one of the most magical and harmonically sophisticated openings on record, what at first sounds like a trumpet/saxophone duo reveals itself to be saxophone and violin, with the violin being almost inaudible while also leading the ensemble in an almost improvisatory succession of parallel fifths, sevenths, and tritones that takes us to a sentimental, nocturnal melody. To know who Nigel is – an incredibly sensitive and thoughtful musician - one simply has to listen, and particularly to these eight minutes of spacious, atmospheric musicmaking. Kennedy’s choice in musical partners is again shown to be both appropriate and convincing, as pianist Wylezol is featured in solos reminiscent of the late Shirley Horn.
who Nigel is.....an incredibly sensitive and thoughtful musician
(Courtesy polska_fot_4154226)
As if this recording were incidental music for a film, the bar closes and a couple walks at nighttime on Miami Beach (warm, music flowing softly through the air, a breeze from the ocean. Flash to bartender wiping a deep mahogany counter with a huge collection of clean glasses capturing the light from the ceiling)..to “The Empty Bottle,” which features a simple yet poignant melody played by Nigel and tenderly accompanied by his partners. Grzegorski is featured again, his solo bridging the space between statements of the melody (accompanied by a gentle, almost inaudible yet perfect pianissimo tremolo).
The scene and mood immediately change with the rhythmic and sunny violin playing that opens “4th Glass”, a nine-minute trip that features both Nigel and saxophonist Grzegorski in solos supported by Latin – influenced piano and a wonderfully driving rhythm section. Kennedy is especially impressive here: not only does he show himself to be exceptionally capable regarding harmony and improvisation, he also shows that he has a massive, solid, and flexible technique as he navigates passages of knotty and unusual double stops which are followed by both strings crossings and arpeggios that recall solo violin works of Bach and Ysaÿe.
Of course, this journey would not be complete without a bit of “noise”: the quintet turns into a hard-rock band and plays with tunes including “If I Were a Rich Man” in “Oy!”, a raucous, playful mosh-pit jam.
The album “Shhh!” is not only a wonderful addition to Nigel Kennedy’s discography (and everyone’s record collection), but also further proof of his deep knowledge of the ever-changing musical form known as jazz and truly a fine showing of his gifts as a modern violinist and ensemble player. To make comparisons with other jazz violinists, however – particularly the equally gifted American violinist Regina Carter – seems unnecessary, as every great artist does leave his mark on the world. Nigel Kennedy continues to be a challenging and welcome breath of fresh air, and we as a listening public owe to him the task of keeping an open mind.
©2010 Samuel Thompson
