With Islands, Scott Cossu builds on the group efforts of his first two Windham Hill releases, with a star-studded group of collaborators. Mining much of the same territory as Spyro Gyra and the Pat Metheny group, Cossu adds a romanticism and sweetness that belies the genuine complexity and ambitious appropriation of influences. Islands is Cossu’s second release on Windham Hill, following Wind Dance.
If you’re coming new to Scott Cossu, you may be in for a treat. But for me, this is a tough album to review. I’ve heard the tracks that made it onto samplers (Ohana and Oristano Sojourn) too many times; they had lost freshness, and only hearing the non-sampler tracks allowed me to appreciate the album as a whole. The relatively flat and thin recording (when compared to other Windham Hill releases) doesn’t help. This was the early days of digital, and the recording doesn’t do justice to the amazing musicianship that courses throughout the album. What a treat to listen to the album anew.
After opening with the high-energy, if over-synthesized Ohana, Cossu fears nothing by delving into the near eight minute Gypsy Dance – wending its way from a quiet piano piece through a spirited two-step between piano and violin. St. Croix is a richly colorful and plaintive conversation between piano and horn, and Islands gives a cheery Caribbean vibe with the facile flute playing of Dave Valentin.
Cossu seems to save his more relaxed and experimental tracks for the second side, from the 7 minute crescendo of Harlequin Messenger to the pastoral Fawn, the feel is just right – searching, and with an optimistic, but not cloying or celebratory quality, Cossu’s musicianship and compositional skills shine.
I would call Islands underappreciated, but apparently it’s just me who was a late adopter. Both fans and critics celebrate Islands. You might, too. Thanks to the magic of YouTube and the very excellent WindhamHillLovers channel, you can listen for yourself below.
Mark Egan and Danny Gottlieb courtesy of Antilles Records
Tom Varner courtesy of Soul Note Records
Special thanks to Will Ackerman, Anned Robinso, Steven Miller, Steve Lowy and all the people at Windham hill for their long and continued support. Also to my family, Robin, Jenny and our Creator.
Islands: Recorded on Manhattan, the most famous island, represents my progression of travels and my love of islands, their inspirations and the gypsy spirit within. May this music help unite us all as a family of islands.
(c) (p) Windham Hill Records, 1984.
<<note: liner notes taken from the Canadian release, WH-9-1033 – it’s just what I had on hand>>
One of the best things about being a Windham Hill fan is that even though the label has gone away (or at least been exiled to reissue only status by Sony/Legacy), many of the original artists are performing and creating music more vibrantly than ever. Case in point: Liz Story, performing at Yoshi’s Oakland location March 4, 2012.
Liz was radiant at the “Women of Windham Hill” Holiday concert in December at the same location. With an intelligence, depth and beauty matched with technicals that perfectly deliver the music, Liz seems to be at absolute top form, and I’m looking forward to hearing an entire show.
To win 2 free tickets to see Liz Story in concert at Yoshi’s Oakland location on March 4, 2012, reply in the comments here, and Like Windhaming on Facebook. That’s it. The lucky winner will be notified via email the week of the show.
Shadowdance confidently strides into the Windham Hill catalog with the showstopping New Electric India, electric guitar and thundering bass resounding. This is a slightly different approach than the bands eponymous label debut which was specifically composed to work within Windham Hill’s established acoustic sound. After the success of the first, the band was clearly given a little more freedom to follow their live sound than they dared on their original Windham Hill release. While Shadowfax has incredible depth texture and flow, Shadowdance brings dynamics and drive to the band’s gorgeous melodic sensibility.
From the opening note of New Electric India through the closing hum of the track Shadowdance, every note carries you through a churning river of sound depositing you at the end both thrilled and relaxed. Indeed, maybe the water analogy comes easily because Shadowdance has been used at the plankton exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for the last 20 years.
Side Two carries the torch with the Don Cherry-penned track Brown Rice – a standout from the live performances, and closes with the more conventional fusion track A Song for My Brother, a fan favorite.
The sound quality is again extraordinary. Ackerman once again looked to Mobile Fidelity for the mastering and RTI for the pressings. Playing the album on my current vinyl rig was a shocker: the recording is so dynamic and detailed. I’m sure that in part that’s because this album is seared into my memory from countless plays on a Maxell cassette. In 1984-85, I was an exchange student to Yugoslavia, specifically Serbia, and due to space restrictions I could only bring 10 cassettes for my year there. Shadowfax/Shadowdance was the one Windham Hill tape I brought. Truly, for me, this was a “Desert Island Disk.”
Unfortunately, Stuart Nevitt, Chuck Greenberg and Bruce Malament have all passed away.
You can find Joy’s site, and samples from her book here: http://www.joyhornergreenberg.com/jghome.htm She shares fascinating anecdotes and details about the band, as well as personal remembrances, in an easy engaging style; I highly recommend it for any Shadowfax fan.
Joy has generously permitted the reprint of an excerpt here:
Excerpt from the Chuck Greenberg biography “A Pause in the Rain” by Joy Greenberg
The success of Shadowfax enabled the band to go into production on a second album. For material, they didn’t have to look too far. Intuitive businessman that he was, Chuck began thinking about all those old Watercourse Way masters over at Passport Records.
Although Watercourse Way had been out for eight years, the band had never received a dime in royalties. Chuck knew that there were many copies in print, however, and that the demand for them would increase with the release of the new Shadowfax. He also believed that if Shadowfax turned out to be a hit, there might be a renewed interest in the band’s first album, Watercourse Way. However, he wasn’t willing for Passport to be the beneficiary of any newfound success, particularly since he felt that Passport had burned the band for nonpayment of royalties. So, Chuck and the band’s attorney Steven Lowy devised a scheme to buy back all the old master tapes. Chuck knew he’d have to move quickly—before the release of Shadowfax. Once Passport suspected it might be able to gain more mileage out of Watercourse Way, the price for the masters would go up.
It worked—Chuck made them an offer and Passport was only too happy to rid themselves of what they perceived to be a “dead horse.” On the very day that the Billboard review hit the stands raving about Shadowfax, Chuck was collecting the master tapes from the Passport warehouse and blithely walking out the door with them.
Gaining the rights to Watercourse Way turned out to be more significant than even Chuck imagined at the time. In addition to re- releasing it en toto, Windham Hill selected one of its cuts, a lilting Chuck/G.E. duet called “Petite Aubade,” to be on the first of their Winter Solstice series, which went on to achieve Gold Record status. It also made it possible to “borrow” those tunes which the band felt were basically worthy but which had not succeeded as well on Watercourse Way as they had expected. For this reason, the title song from Watercourse Way, along with G.E.’s “Song for My Brother” were selected to be rerecorded for the second Windham Hill Shadowfax album, Shadowdance.
As with Shadowfax, Chuck and G.E. shared song writing duties on Shadowdance, with the exception of a piece by Don Cherry which was a medley of two tunes, “Brown Rice/Karmapa Chenno.” G.E., Phil, and Chuck were big fans of Cherry’s music and had been performing “Brown Rice” live, traditionally as the closing number of their set. It was the only non-Shadowfax composition they ever recorded or performed, and likewise one of the few with lyrics. Nonetheless, it was a testament to the band’s arranging skills. A consistent and perennial show-stopper, “Brown Rice” featured rap-like (before it was in style) nursery rhyme lyrics growled out by G.E. and backed by his searing guitar, with Chuck screaming on tenor sax, building to a crescendo then switching to a wailing lyricon—all pushed forcefully by Phil and Stu’s rhythm section.
Shadowdance became another showcase for Chuck’s burgeoning production genius. Although it cost slightly more than Shadowfax to create, he brought it in on time and under budget. In addition to the seven touring band members, he enlisted Emil Richards in the studio again, with Michael Spiro and Mickey Lehockey to beef up the percussion. The title tune from Shadowdance went on to become a featured number live, often receiving the greatest recognition and applause whenever they performed it and deservedly so. “Shadowdance” combined all the best qualities of Shadowfax: a catchy melody, rhythmic beat and interesting assortment of instruments.
Virtuoso percussionist Emil Richards had filled up the whole room at Group IV Sound with his esoteric collection of instruments from around the world, and the result was astounding. “Shadowdance” became a consistently sought tune by filmmakers, TV and radio shows for background music. After more than a decade, it is still being used by the Monterey Bay Aquarium for what I call its “dancing plankton” exhibit.
The band was also now able to afford a better recording studio when they set out to do Shadowdance, finding in Group IV the perfect place financially, personally, and technologically. A few years earlier, Chuck had performed on a movie soundtrack at Group IV and managed to cut a deal for himself through the owners to use the place at night—traditionally “dead” time––at a bargain rate. Without Angel Ballestier and the rest at Group IV, it would have been impossible to cut such high quality records for the price. So began an illustrious multi-record liaison between band and studio.
WH 1029 Shadowfax Shadowdance back cover
Shadowfax members are active on the web, catch up with them on Facebook and MySpace.
Samples
Shadowdance
A Song for My Brother
Track Listings
Side One: 20:51
New Electric India 5:12, Stinson Ξ
Watercourse Way 5:06, Greenberg-Stinson Ο Ξ
Ghost Bird 5:04, Stinson Ξ
Shadowdance 5:20, Greenberg Ο
Side Two 17:14
Brown Rice/Karmapa Chenno 4:18, D. Cherry ◊
Distant Voice 3:46, Stinson-Greenberg Ξ Ο
A Song for my Brother 9:04, Stinson Ξ
Ξ Selections Greenshadow Music (BMI)
Ο Selections Dream Wheel Music (BMI)
All Selections Administered by Windham Hill Music (BMI)
◊ Selection Eternal River Music (BMI)
Credits
SHADOWFAX:
G.E. Stinson: 6&12 string guitars, vocal on Brown Rice
Stuart Nevitt: drums, percussion, kelon vibes on Shadowdance
Jared Stewart: piano, synthesizers
Jamii Szmadzinski: violin, baritone violin, alto psaltry on New Electric India
Additional Instrumentation:
Emil Richards: Paiste gamelon gongs, bass flapamba, metal and bamboo angklung, wood block marimba, marimba on Shadowdance; Chinese water cymbals, kanjgeera on New Electric India. The percussion ensemble on Shadowdance was conducted by Emil Richards.
Michael Spiro: conga, chekere, guiro on Brown Rice; hand percussion on Watercourse Way, Brown Rice.
Mick Lehocky: percussion on Shadowdance and Brown Rice.
This recording was made on Studer 24-track recorders and Trident consoltes with Ampex 456 tape at 30 inches per second. It was mixed to a Studer Mark III half-inch two-track recorder. No noise reduction, compression or limiting was used.
Thanks to Jilll and Don Stegman, Bruce Howard, World Percussion Inc. Phil Manor, Mike Flynn, Christ Andronis, Steven Lowy, Denni Sands and all at Group IV, and Charles Horton at TEAC.
Special thanks to Will Ackerman and Anne Ackerman Robinson for having the faith to make this album possible.
Vapor Drawings is the first album by Mark Isham, the 27th Windham Hill release, and the first electronic release on the label.
“Vapor Drawings was my first solo recording, my first adventure into a large-scale electronic music record. I played almost all the instruments on it — in fact everything except the drums. It was a big challenge and took a lot of hard work. I see it as the first of a series of records that experimented with this genre (whatever that genre might be considered – somewhere between New Age and Fusion) the second of which was Tibet, the third of which was Castalia.”
–Mark Isham
While it is possible to hear the echoes of Tangerine Dream and Vangelis in Vapor Drawings, it stands on its own as a clear new vision of what could be done with electronic music. Humor, pathos, and inspiration are all heard throughout the album, all with lucid orchestral colors.
There is so much to say about Mark Isham that I’ve held off on this review for a long time. Mark has gone on to become one of the most effective and most prolific film score composers in history, while continuing to make beautiful music across genres. I love jazz, I love new age (at least as defined by Windham Hill); I love English art rock (David Sylvian, Brian Eno, Dead Can Dance). I can think of only one person who has crossed all of these boundaries: Mark Isham. In the end, I must send you on your own journey of the man’s work. http://www.isham.com can keep you busy all day long.
Regardless, Windhaming is intended to document the works of Windham Hill on their own merit. Fortunately, Vapor Drawings is as much of a masterpiece as a standalone album as it is the opening album in Mark Isham’s oevre. The music percolates, hums, and marches toward majestic peaks. Coming so early in Isham’s career, one could imagine that he was simply trying new styles in electronic music. But the effect is that the listener is rewarded by a walk through many possibilities.
It probably helps to like electronic music to truly love Vapor Drawings, but the classical underpinnings, organic drums, and emotional appeal give the album a draw much broader than “electronic” would imply. Also, the synthesizers used continue to sound fresh – include any of these tracks on an “ambient” sampler and you would be hard pressed to detect that they are 30 years old.
By the time Vapor Drawings came out, Ackerman had built such a trust level in his taste with Windham Hill, that I bought the album based solely on label and instrumentation. While the later “Interior” albums felt like synthesizer works, “Vapor Drawings” simply felt like music.
The wonderful “Many Chinas” was originally recorded by Isham on the 1976 Rubisa Patrol album (ECM 1081) with Art Lande, Bill Douglass and Glenn Cronkhite. Mark’s influence and horn playing is felt throughout that release, and anyone interested in his early work should seek it out. One of the joys of the Windhaming project is meeting people and learning more about artists I love. It was Record Store Day 2013 that I walked into Grooveyard Records in Oakland CA, and mentioned the Windhaming project to Rick Ballard. Turns out he was the original ECM importer before ECM had a major label partner in the US. A quick run through his bins yielded the Rubisa Patrol gem.
Track Listings
Side One
Many Chinas 4:05
Sympathy and Acknowledgement 8:17
On the Threshold of Liberty 7:27
When Things Dream 2:43
Side Two
Raffles in Rio 4:38
Something Nice for My Dog 2:49
Men Before the Mirror 6:07
Mr. Moto’s Penguin (who’d be an Eskimo’s wife?) 3:18
All selections Windham Hill Music (BMI) except “Many Chinas” published by ECM Records Verlag, GMBH (GEMA)
Thanks to Phillip Bagenall, John Kongos, Michael Dignam, David Croft, Neil Richmond, Joe Berger, Ned Hearn, Will Ackerman, the Dutch Balloonist, Ferrari and PC.
On the Threshold of Liberty is named after the Rene Magritte painting:
Magritte on the threshold of Liberty
It’s a pleasure to see that portions of Vapor Drawings were recorded in the same studio as Thomas Dolby’s “The Golden Age of Wireless.”
On Photographer Larry Bell’s work, which was used for the cover art:
Two large bodies of work on paper, Bell’s “vapor drawings” and the more recent “mirage works”, are also the products of Bell’s use of thin film deposition technology. The vapor drawings are created by using PET film to mask paper sheets, which are then coated. Bell describes the advantages of this process and medium:
Masking the paper with thin PET film strips to expose areas related to the shape of the page plane enabled me to generate images spontaneously. This work gave me a conscious glimpse of the inherent power of spontaneity and improvisation. The work happened intuitively…In a short amount of time I created a number of interesting pieces. I liked this way of working. It was different from tediously coping with the weight and risk of glass. In my mind, I was investigating improbable visuals using improbable means.[7]
The mirage pieces, on the other hand, are collages constructed out of pieces of coated materials that are then arranged and laminated. As Bell says, “I colored sheets of various paper materials, strips of PET film, and laminate film. Then I fused them to canvases and stretched them. Tapestries of woven light differentials resulted.” [7]
WH-1026 An Evening with Windham Hill Live featuring George Winston, Alex deGrassi, William Ackerman, Michael Hedges, Liz Story, Scott Cossu, Darol Anger, Chuck Greenberg
Review
Truly one of the great Windham Hill albums of all time, “An Evening with Windham Hill” features the classic Windham Hill artists at artistic peak of the label. While Ackerman, Winston, de Grassi continue to perform and record, often with even greater artistry than here, this album represents a clarity of vision and cohesion of styles that places it at the pinnacle of Windham Hill’s output.
Relaxed but uplifting, complex but with clarity, An Evening with Windham Hill is a required recording for any fan of the label.
Most telling about the label overall is Alex de Grassi’s introduction to Turning: Turning Back where he recounts how people tell him that they play the music at weddings and births – but “it’s really just about a trip Philadelphia.” de Grassi was writing about everyday places and moods – but touched a special chord with his fans.
Track Listings
Side One 19:59
Rickover’s Dream 4:30
Michael Hedges – Guitar
Composed by Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges Music (BMI)
Turning: Turning Back 9:00
Alex deGrassi – Guitar
Composed by Alex deGrassi
Clockwork 6:23
Alex deGrassi – Guitar
Chuck Greenberg – Lyricon
Darol Anger – Violin
Michael Manring – Bass
Michael Spiro – Percussion
Composed by Alex deGrassi
Tropo Music (BMI)
Side Two 22:01
Spare Change 5:29
Michael Hedges – Guitar
Liz Story – Piano
Michael Manring – Bass
Composed by Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges Music (BMI)
Visiting 4:48
Will Ackerman – Guitar
Chuck Greenberg – Lyricon
Michael Manring – Bass
Composed by Will Ackerman
Hawk Circle 5:10
Will Ackerman – Guitar
George Winston – Piano
Michael Hedges – Guitar
Composed by Will Ackerman
Reflections/Lotus Feet 6:25
George Winston – Piano
Reflections Composed by George Winston
Windham Hill Music (BMI)
Lotus Feet Composed by John McLaughlin
Warner Tamerlane Publishing Corp. and Chinmoy Music Inc. (BMI)
Samples
Reflections/Lotus Feet
Liner Notes and Credits
Produced by William Ackerman
AlexDe Grassi
Steven Miller
On October 9th, 1982, a group of ten Windham Hill musicians gathered for two shows at the Berklee Performance Center, Boston, Massachusetts. It was during those two shows that these recordings were made. The success of the Berklee Performance Center shows made it inevitable that other Windham Hill Evenings would follow, including Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the Wax Museum in Washington, DC, and Symphony Hall in Boston to date.
William Ackerman
Chief Executive Officer
Windham Hill Productions Inc.
Engineered and Mixed by Steven Miller
Recorded by the Fedco Audio Labs Remote Truck
Remote Recording Crew – Bill Straus (Crew Chief), Nick Gutfreund and Bob Dickson.
Mixed at Different Fur Studios, San Francisco
Assistant Engineer – Don Mack
Original half-speed mastering by Bernie Grundman, A&M
Matrix and Pressings by The Pressing Plant, Irvine, CA
Cover photo by Jerry Lukowicz
Design by Anne Ackerman Robinson
All selections published by Windham Hill Music (BMI) except where noted. KEF speakers were used for audio monitoring and referencing on this recording.
Thanks to Steve Backer, Fred Taylor, Bill Strauss, Sue Auclair, Eric Jackson, Ron Della Chiesa and Al Goldman.
Frozen branches overhead, snowy drives in the evening, and the quiet of a snow covered landscape. Winston invokes all of these on his landmark album December. While Winston named his compositions after moments in time – months or seasons, he was really playing music about places – creeks, and trees, passes and roads in Montana and the high-plains and prairies.
The music holds up year-round thanks to its simplicity and beauty. Even the carols are stripped down enough that they can be enjoyed even as we endure the heat of a July afternoon. In his discography, December stands as a crowd-pleaser – neither as resonant and redolent as Autumn, nor as cold and brittle as the first side of Winter Into Spring. December is an album that inspired a million insipid imitators, yet always maintains a beautiful and thoughtful poise; relaxed, yet energetic.
December is often incorrectly identified as the album that made Windham Hill Records a crossover success. That honor goes to George Winston’s Autumn, which sold millions of copies and was the breakthrough success for the label. That being said, December was another high-tide mark for the label, and laid the groundwork for the extraordinarily popular Winter Solstice series.
It is curious that with all of the detailed credits, there is no listing of which brand of piano is played by by George Winston. According to engineer Harn Soper, Winston used a Yamaha grand for Autumn. Based on the sound, I would imagine it was another Yamaha for this recording. It should also be noted that in the recoding of Autumn, Winston would indeed drop and pickup in mid-song, only to be edited together later. This saves an enormous amount of time during the recording section, and I certainly can’t hear it in the recordings, which is remarkable given that Winston will often hold the sustain pedal down throughout an entire song, and the reverberations must undoubtably be different as he plays through a track different times.
WH 1025 George Winston December Back WHS C-1025
Track Listing
Side One: 20:56
Thanksgiving 4:04
Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head 2:40 – An Appalachain carol of the late Eighteen Hundreds, Collected by the eminent folklorist John Jacob Niles.
Joy 3:13 – Inspired by an arrangement by David Qualey
Prelude 1:16
Carol of the Bells – A Nineteenth Century Ukranian carol.
Night 5:47
— Part One: Snow 1:51
— Part Two: Midnight 1:56
— Part Three: Minstrels 2:00
Minstrels was inspired by St. Basil’s Hymn, a traditional Greek Children’s New Years’s Carol based upon a rendition by Malcolm Dalglish.
Side Two: 18:18
Variations on the Kanon by Johann Pachelbel 5:21 – Composed circa 1699, the Kanon was originally an organ piece.
The Holly and the Ivy 4:52 – An Eighteenth Century English carol based upon an earlier French carol.
Some Children See Him 3:43 – Composed in 1951 by jazz trumpeter Alfred S. Burt (1921-1954), Some Children See Him was one of fifteen carols written as gifts for friends. The piece was originally a song with lyrics by Wilha Hutson expressing the universal love of children.
All other compositions are traditional and in the public domain.
Special Thanks to Steven Miller and Cathy Econom for their valuable contributions in production.
Liner Notes
This recording was mande direct to two-track using a Studer A 80 VU MK III half-inch recorder at thirty inches per second. No noise reductin was employed. KEF speakers were used for audio monitoring and referencing on this recording.
There is a great wealth of traditional and contemporary music to draw from in doing an album for the winter season. These four albums have been most inspirational to me in conceiving of this album and in doing albums for the seasons.
Thanks to Doc Bochenek, Larry Boden, Mario Cassetta, Janea Chadwick, Megan Corwin, John Creger, George Cromarty, Jane Crosier, Alex de Grassi, Melissa Dufffy, Sylvan Grey, Howard Johnston, Gail Kennedy, Jerrol Kimmel, Silvia Kohan, Marin Moon, Steve Reich, Bola Sete, Sari Spieler, Liz Story, Marie Winchester
Promotional Single WS-17528 Mark Isham from the album Vapor Drawings WH-1027
Happy Fourth of July to our American readers. In honor of Independence Day, Windhaming presents Mark Isham’s On the Threshold of Liberty.
Interestingly, this track exists as the only 45 RPM Windham Hill 12″ promotional single I have ever found. See the comments below for a few more that the inimitable Caitlyn Martin found.
Liner notes and credits below the video.
On the Threshold of Liberty
Liner Notes:
In a decade where we have been bombarded with countless numbers of cold and mechanical recordings of synthesizer, it is like a breath of fresh air to work iwth an artist who is capable of utilizing the synthesizer to convey a more human perspective. Mark Isham is such an artist. Just looking at some of the musicians with whom he has worked gives you an idea of his depth and diversity: Van Morrison, Pink Floyd, Gil Evans, Horace Silver, the Beach Boys, the Oakland Symphony, Esther Phillips, and Dave Liebman. And to round all this out, this past year he composed and performed the musical score to the new Carroll Ballard (the Black Stallion) film “Never Cry Wolf”.
This music has heart and it has soul — always a rarity, but an even more surprising feat considering that one man plays all the instruments (there is a percussionist added on these two pieces). I am quite proud, along with Mark, to have given birth to this music. Hopefully if will fill your hearts with as much joy as it does mine.
Steven Miller Producer, Vapor Drawings, Mark Isham November 1983
Selections from the Windham Hill Records Album Catalogue
Review
Windham Hill was truly hitting its stride in 1981-82. It took four years for Ackerman to release the first nine Windham Hill Albums, and of those, only six remained in print. Numbers 14-23 came in just over a single year, and each became a defining album for the label – either the first release of important new artists such as Liz Story, or genre-establishing discs like Alex de Grassi’s Clockwork. Sampler ’82 excises one track from each of the nine discs that Windham Hill released since the initial sampler came out in 1981.
Side One opens with the rather somber “Remedios” and continues in a generally solemn vein throughout the side, with Hedges’ “The Happy Couple” being the happy exception. Side Two picks things up a bit, and ends with the upbeat “Clockwork,” an ensemble piece which will be familiar to any Windham fan today thanks to its appearance on countless samplers since its initial release.
Ackerman was enraptured with the new digital technology of the time – his album Passage was one of the first commercial digital releases in the world. Each of the tracks here were remastered in digital – at some expense to the dynamics, detail and warmth of each of the recordings. Indeed, only “The Happy Couple” benefits from the increased detail and brightness of the remastering. Nonetheless, unless you’re a die-hard vinyl fan with a revealing system, the sound quality is still excellent.
In the end, I’m sure Sampler ’82 has its fans – it was the first introduction to many of these artists for many tens of thousands of people. However, the album is a broad overview rather than a cohesive statement of where the label was at the time, and each of the albums represented are strong and complete on their own. Nonetheless, while I do hesitate to second-guess Ackerman’s selections, for the modern listener, I would recommend you skip this one and buy the individual albums from the era. Sampler ’82 is an important snapshot of Windham Hill’s development, but not necessarily the place to start as a listener.
All of the recordings included in the Windham Hill Sampler ’82 are thirty inches per second, no noise reduction analog masters with the exception of “Remedios” which is a digital recording. This collection was transferred to digital and mastered as a digital recording to maintain the sound quality of the master recordings. KEF speakers were used in audio referencing.
Solid Colors is the auspicious debut of Liz Story. In the wake of the massive success of George Winston’s December a river of cassette demo tapes that would have stretched around the world came pouring into William Ackerman’s Palo Alto PO Box 9388. Liz Story’s recording was the beautiful bucket drawn from the torrent.
Rich, dense, and impressionistic – but always still pretty – Story draws from jazz, particularly as expressed by pianist Bill Evans, in much the same way as George Winston drew from folk. Liz Story’s style has continued to develop over the years. She continues to record, and each release deserves close listening.
The recording quality, as always, is excellent, with Story’s rich harmonics lovingly presented, and while the vinyl is the standard, even the CD transfer holds up well.
Solid Colors is a must-have recording for any fan of piano jazz, new age music, or Windham Hill.
Here’s the review I wish that I had written, by James Rotundi from Amazon: Story’s remarkable 1983 debut is the intellectual sister of Winston’s December–a discursive series of solo piano improvisations that draw on the rich jazz harmony of pioneers like Bill Evans, Story’s acknowledged chief inspiration. Yet Colors is almost minimalist next to Evans’s more densely textured works–a spacious blend of polychords, breezy runs, and finely timed sustenutos, with an accessible spirit and memorable melodies–like the uplifting figure she plays over a simple descending bassline in “Hymn,” or the indelible major-key main theme of “Things with Wings.” More economical than Keith Jarrett, more florid and changeable than Winston, Story finds a compelling middle ground here between jazz harmony and classical technique, outside improv and sturdy songcraft, complex performance and inner stillness. –James Rotondi
All Selections Windham Hill Music (BMI) except where noted
*Peace Piece is Acorn Music (BMI), Composed by Bill Evans
Manufactured by Windham Hill Records
A Division of Windham Hill Productions Inc.
Box 9388, Stanford, CA 94305
(c) (p) Windham Hill Records, 1982
This recording was made direct to two-track using a Studer A80 VU MKIII half-inch recorder at 30 inches per second through a Harrison board. No noise reduction, limiting or compression was used. KEF speakers were used for audio monitoring and referencing on this reecording.
Our thanks to Steven Miller for his many contributions in production.
Without You is for Terry.
Peace Piece is a homage to its composer, Bill Evans.
