Beyond The Sky

Rob Schwimmer (Artist, Composer), none (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: none
• Composer: Rob Schwimmer
• Audio CD (September 12, 2006)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: NuNoise Records
• ASIN: B000HA3YIS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #612,310 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

ROB SCHWIMMER is best known as a jazz pianist and composer, and as a member of Polygraph Lounge, a boundary-crossing, satirical rock duo (with the guitarist Mark Stewart). But threads of the classical tradition also run through his work, as does the kind of crisp, disciplined keyboard technique that thrives best in rhythmically complex and coloristically varied music. "Beyond the Sky," a collection of short pieces and miniature suites, offers a tour of Mr. Schwimmer s musical house, moving from room to room without much concern about whether the material at hand is classical or jazz, improvised or carefully plotted. The Prelude and Postlude that surround a three-movement suite, despite the formality of their titles, are couched in jazz harmonies and played with an off-the-cuff freedom. Yet the suite itself includes a short perpetual-motion finger-breaker, "Ostinato," with roots in Chopin and Bartok; and the alternately graceful and lurching "Waltz for Clara," a tribute to Clara Rockmore, the theremin virtuoso. Overt showpieces are scattered among the 19 works. "Quicksilver" and "Repeated Notes," like "Ostinato," are demonstrations of machine-gun speed and clarity. Mr. Schwimmer s unequivocally classical pieces also include "Double Helix," a dense, rhythmically involving work, and "Inside," which makes inventive use of the avant-garde technique of striking the strings inside the piano. You might expect Mr. Schwimmer s "Hallucinations on Popular Songs" to be straightforward jazz. Yet alongside jazz signatures like the slurred run of fast grace notes adorning a laconically played melody, Mr. Schwimmer draws on the kind of dark harmonies more typical in Frederic Rzewski s concert music than in jazz. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," "Stormy Weather" and "All the Things You Are" dance easily between both worlds. ALLAN KOZINN --Sunday New York Times--Arts & Leisure 3/25/07

Product Description

In turn (and sometimes at the same time) virtuoso, sensual, intimate, very personal, lyrical piano music.

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