Mark-Anthony Turnage / John Scofield: Scorched

Mark-Anthony Turnage (Artist), John Scofield (Artist), Fsr (Artist), Hr Big Band (Artist), Wolff (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 13, 2004)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• ASIN: B0000CGP4N
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #260,684 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Ori. Release '04 work composed by Turnage & John Scofield. Live recordings featuring John on Guitar John Patitucci on electric bass & Peter Erskine on Drums with Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester Frankfurt hr Big Band conducted by Hugo Wolff.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Is anybody ever completely comfortable in these sessions?, January 29, 2004

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mark-Anthony Turnage / John Scofield: Scorched (Audio CD)

What we have here is an attempt to blend jazz and classical music. And I thought the Third Stream was dead. It seems that contemporary composer Mark-Anthony Turnage has been taken by the music of John Scofield for quite some time and decided to write some material based on it for orchestra and big band, incorporating Sco + bass and drums into the soundscape. Does it work? Not very well, to these ears.

There are, it must be admitted, a few moments when things sound pretty natural, both from the orchestra/big band side as well as the small-group setting. But Sco certainly has sounded a lot freer and hipper in more natural small-group contexts. Even the audience's responses seem somewhat tentative (this was recorded live in concert).

Falls between two stools. Neither fish nor fowl. A Jackalope (not the great jazz improv group, but an amalgam that simply doesn't work).

The problem is that you can't make classical orchestras swing. Just doesn't happen. So what you get is some mildly interesting new music-ish orchestral passages punctuated by fairly standard small-group (Sco, guitar; John Patitucci, e-bass; Peter Erskine, drums) playing (not that this group is in any way deficient; it's just that they seem restrained, unable to completely cut loose). Why not just listen to either, say, Ligeti or Nono or Part, or one of Sco's latest discs?

You'd be a lot better off.

4.0 out of 5 stars This composer (and guitarist) likes it, June 19, 2011

By 

English Setter "Winifred" (Chasing Birds in Vermont) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mark-Anthony Turnage / John Scofield: Scorched (Audio CD)

I attended NEC, and taught there, and I know Gunther Schuller a little, even played with his one of his sons on some jazz sessions. But my main interest is composition. I say this because I'm still sympathetic to the Third Stream project, and my background is partly why. However, aside from that, this is good music, and I'm breaking my silence to write this here.

I've heard a lot of forced attempts to combine styles -- that fail in one area or another. But this isn't one of them. Nor does it sound anything like Ligeti or Nono or a jazz session by Scofield, nor does it sound like Pops, nor Gunther Schuller's own Third Stream music, nor does it sound like film music. It's too densely composed and concise to be film music.

To my ear it sounds quite fresh -- equally successful in the jazz trio parts, the big-band parts, the orchestral parts, and the combinations.

Erskine is one of my favorite drummers, and he's in good form. So is Scofield. It's also well-recorded and well-balanced.

This doesn't really swing, but it *does* groove, and it has too much integrity to sound like film music. (I would know about film music without much integrity, because I spent over ten years writing the stuff.)

I specialize in composing microtonal music, with some jazz influence. I would be proud to have written this myself.

I'm only giving it four and a half stars because maybe only Mozart should get 5 stars.

A pleasure to listen to, and an inspiration, in every way.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Music in search of a story, January 18, 2008

By 

Edward Thomas (Venezuela) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mark-Anthony Turnage / John Scofield: Scorched (Audio CD)

Very suggestive music, in a way conveyingly cinematic. One piece is even called "Kubrik"... other is called "Nocturnal Mission"... you can hear a wide rannge of dramatic arrangements that will undoubtely carry you through the scenes of a very interesting imaginary movie.