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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amparo: Ritenour, Grusin, Guests: Fun, Witty, Relaxed, Art-Music Inspired, August 26, 2008
This review is from: Amparo (Audio CD)
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In this album jazz players Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin are joined by various musical guests. These include singer James Taylor, jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, and a couple of friends from western classical art music, the violinist Joshua Bell, with Renee Fleming adding her own special touches.
At first uneasy glance, this disc looks like one of those cross-over repertoire efforts, geared up by the marketing department as much as by the musicians involved. But wait, do not dismiss the slightly odd mix out of hand.
Inspired by western classical art music, Ritenour-Grusin-and-company offer up their takes on famous melodies most listeners who go to classical concerts will probably recognize. Faure's Pavane gets turned into a floating melismatic vocalise - think Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasilieras maybe? - with Renee Fleming deftly avoiding the temptations to make it too operatic or too arch. You may or may not be all that vocally convinced by Ms. Fleming's oblique momentary slides into something closer to Ella Fitzgerald than to Renata Tebaldi. Then later Ms Fleming reappears, all gussied up in something way closer to a baroque duet with Chris Botti on trumpet. But hey, it is really all in good fun. The western classical composers in France were actually more musically interested in jazz than not. (You have already checked out Ravel, Gershwin, Copland?) So when a Satie Gymopedie pops up later in the disc, the listener is not going to be all surprised. And even from the earliest polyphonists, folk and popular musical influences were cross-fertilizing western art music, else why would Pierre de la Rue, Josquin Desprez, and Okeghem have all weaved L'homme arme into their masses?
The fusion of James Taylor's folk-country homespun directness at first note sounds outlandish, a stretch too far, but by the end of the cut, the superficial shock is gone, and all that lingers in the air is a surprising amount of suprisingly unhackneyed musical enjoyment. Yes, fun, plus. Renee Flemings jazzily set baroque duo has similar impact - at first outlandish, then all too quickly settled and transformed into music artfully less than solemn art.
Textures vary quite a bit, now leaning towards more elaborate larger ensemble settings with a halo of strings at least suggestive of western classical orchestral origins, now dropping back to something like a jazz quintet augmented or not in passing, with plenty of flexible open space for the guests to breathe a bit.
Is this disc an example of path-breaking jazz to turn the jazz planet all topsy-turvy? I think not. Yet many listeneres will still hear something way more than the simplest, blandest background musical soundtrack to a mellow evening, I am willing to bet.
Cuddle up with somebody you like, even if that is only yourself at the moment. Open a special bottle of this or that or the other thing. Sips, not gulps. You have been taking yourself or somebody else or some problem of life or work, way too seriously of late, no? This album may gently help you let go of all those silly attitudes, silly pressures, silly solemnities. Just ease out of being so strictly self-important.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A missed opportunity, August 29, 2008
This review is from: Amparo (Audio CD)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The title "Amparo," sums this whole album up for me. Not because of its meaning ("shelter" or "protection" in Spanish), but because it has nothing to do with the music. I think they picked a pretty-sounding Spanish word because there was some Spanish influence, but in the process lost the meaning of a very meaningful word. The music here is similar: technically proficient, but lacking meaning. Its like advanced elevator music.
The album has no discernible direction. There is a lot of classical, with somewhat jazzy piano, and a hint of latin influence through some very nice spanish guitar. But, some of the tracks don't really fit in at all. It's no good for listening to while you work (too distracting), or to relax (too uptempo), or just for listening (too boring). Maybe good for driving music.
The artists are still outstanding. However, you can find better work from all of them. I hoped matching Ritenour and Grusin would be something special - not so much. This is a big missed opportunity because, I think, it was more about production than substance. In the legal context, that's the exact opposite of an amparo - an action designed to protect substantive rights from bad process.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fairly Good Ambiance Music for Work, Home, and/or Pleasure, August 27, 2008
This review is from: Amparo (Audio CD)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
As more of a casual music lover than a die hard critic I prefer to rip CDs and play them in the background as a large play list rather than analyze them like a critic you'd see on the show Frasier. That said, I am nowhere near qualified to critique X octaves used in Y song akin to artist Z as opposed to artist A who did it back in the day. To me, music is meant to sooth the savage beast either during the hard day or after it; as a graduate student slowly progressing on my thesis, I like any easy listening that caresses the senses but not putting me to sleep.
I obtained this mix believing a nice jazz or classical ensemble might help me pour the midnight oil and increase productivity. After integrating this CD into my easy listening play list and working I am fairly satisfied with my acquisition of this mix.
The instrumental mixes such as track 1-3 and "English Folk Song Suite" (track 5) were especially nice relaxation pieces although they differ greatly in terms of style. 1-3 were more jazz and (dare I say) seemingly tango mixes that would be better suited for a jazz club or cocktail party rather than a concert hall. Nonetheless, they made it into my final mix. Meanwhile, "Pavane, Op. 50" (track 4) was an opera mix that seemed too... it reminded me of the opera scene from The Fifth Element in terms of pitch and musical accompaniment. It's not bad but the opera voice seemed too distracting to be adequate background noise.
James Taylor has a good voice but track 6 seemed to be the tolken vocal track (aside from the two opera tracks), creating an inconsistency in the flow of the CD. The opera singers are talented, but it didn't seem to fit well with the other 80% of the CD. Furthermore, track 12 seems to be missing from my copy so I cannot comment on that one.
All in all, this mix is a potpourri of different style from classical, opera, jazz and folk music. It's a novel idea, but the style contrast so differently to make it nearly impossible to classify the genre of the CD other than "instrumental" when there are two opera tracks and one vocal. This also makes it impossible to be a mix for one particular mood as you have to mix and match the songs to match each setting. While I backed up the entire CD, only a handful made it into my easy listening mix due to the sharp contrasts in style.
All in all, this is a worthy investment but it should be dissected into different play lists given the diverse nature of the mix.
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