ClassicalCDReview reviews Charles Fussell: Wilde

Nice. Charles Fussell has established his career in New England. He studied at Eastman with Thomas Canning and Bernard Rogers but has also worked with Boris Blacher and Virgil Thomson. His musical orientation is largely tonal (although structural elements of serialism hover at the edges), with no fear of dissonance.

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December 1, 2008
Media Source 
ClassicalCDReview
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Gil Rose and his BMOP players make handsome work of both scores.

Media Contact Name 
S.G.S.

MusicWeb International reviews Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz

The Variants for Jazz Quartet and Orchestra prove the point that jazz and straight music don’t mix!

Media Date 
February 1, 2009
Media Source 
MusicWeb International
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Schuller is to be congratulated on his Journey Into Jazz piece, which is very perceptive and captivating.

Media Contact Name 
Don Mather

All About Jazz reviews Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz

What might seem the most innocuous music is often the most avant garde, the most challenging, the spark that forces us to question the boundaries of what we might call jazz. Gunther Schuller’s Journey Into Jazz, composed in 1962, is just that: a children’s narrative, telling the story of one Eddie Jackson, “a boy who learned about jazz,” a communal mode of music-making that is free, ostensibly, of all the restraints that come with genre labels.

Media Date 
February 1, 2009
Media Source 
All About Jazz
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Though the piece is over 40 years old, BMOP's new recording captures Schuller's strong aesthetic statement about the "third stream" of jazz and its staying power throughout history.

Media Contact Name 
Ted Gordon

BMOP/sound releases its fourth album

BMOP/sound, the nation’s foremost label launched by an orchestra and devoted exclusively to new music recordings, announces the release of its fourth CD Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz. Representative of the “Third Stream” genre, a revolutionary style of music brought forth into the mainstream by Schuller in the 1950’s, the three pieces on this album unite the structural complexities found in contemporary classical music with the improvisational elements of jazz.

Media Date 
June 17, 2008
Media Source 
All About Jazz
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Thanks to BMOP/sound's diverse aesthetic, Journey Into Jazz offers a new sound as it weaves jazz vernacular into the symphonic world.

American Record Guide reviews Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz

This fascinating recording is a window into one of the most underreported cultural stories of our time: the decisive effect of jazz on 20th Century classical music - greater in the long run, as Constant Lambert predicted in the 1930s, than the influence of serialism or neoclassicism. Written in the late 50s and early 60s for symphony orchestra and jazz ensembles, these rather austere but vital works by Gunther Schuller come in the middle of a phenomenon that began with Gottschalk and continues with Golijov.

Media Date 
November 1, 2008
Media Source 
American Record Guide
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The slow sections, colored by vibraphone and piano riffs, have a sinister, sultry beauty.

Media Contact Name 
Sullivan

Still swimming in the stream

During each of jazz’s growth spurts, opportunity for greater complexity and freedom arose. When jazz went from Dixieland to hot, the improvisations and prominence of the soloist’s voice grew. Then from hot to swing and the big band era, the arrangements began to take on a new complexity. The music during the big band era further absorbed colors for its palette from the modern classical music coming out of Europe. Groups lead by Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman were some of the main proponents of furthering the sophistication factor on the bandstand and in compositions.

Media Date 
November 4, 2008
Media Source 
Jazz Police
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Merits repeated listening. Part of the reason for this is not just the top-notch musicians but the compelling way smaller groups of instruments, groups within the group, appear.

Media Contact Name 
Maxwell Chandler

Gramophone reviews Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz

The late 1940’s to the early 1960’s witnessed several cross-fertilizations of then-contemporary classical music and modern jazz fashions. Given Gunther Schuller’s strong background in both worlds, it made sense for him to try and synthesize the two, decades before polystylism became a norm.

Media Date 
November 1, 2008
Media Source 
Gramophone
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Media Quote 

BMOP and stellar instrumental soloists give performances that are not likely to be surpassed for some time. Superb sound and documentation add value to this important release.

Media Contact Name 
Jeff Distler

Downbeat reviews Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz

Composers of today’s Olympian jazz-classical concertos would do well to listen to these deceptively understated, coolly creative pieces that capture the zeitgeist of the 1960’s. These three newly recorded 20-minute works (dubbed “Third Stream” by Gunther Schuller himself) explore and synthesize myriad interactions between a jazz combo improvising and a chamber orchestra reading a through-composed score with some big band gestures. All the new recordings reward relistening.

Media Date 
November 1, 2008
Media Source 
Downbeat
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Media Quote 

All the new recordings reward relistening.

Media Contact Name 
Fred Bouchard

Downbeat Best CDs of 2008

Composers of today’s Olympian jazz-classical concertos would do well to listen to these deceptively understated, coolly creative pieces that capture the zeitgeist of the 1960s. These three newly recorded 20-minute works (dubbed “Third Stream” by Gunther Schuller himself) explore and synthesize myriad interactions between a jazz combo improvising and a chamber orchestra reading a through-composed score with some big band gestures.

Media Date 
December 1, 2008
Media Source 
Downbeat
Media 
Media Quote 

Composers of today's Olympian jazz-classical concertos would do well to listen to these deceptively understated, coolly creative pieces that capture the zeitgeist of the 1960s.

Media Contact Name 
Fred Bouchard

ClassicalCDReview reviews Gunther Schuller: Journey Into Jazz

Arnie the Hep-Cat. Gunther Schuller became a working musician at the young age of 16, picking up professional gigs as a horn player in New York. By the time he turned 18, he was principal horn of the Cincinnati Orchestra under Goossens. By 20, he had joined the horn section of the Met Orchestra. He also became a busy studio musician. Perhaps his most famous dates came to him as a player in the Gil Evans-Miles Davis Birth of the Cool sessions.

Media Date 
August 1, 2008
Media Source 
ClassicalCDReview
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Here, they manage to give a great imitation of a high-end jazz orchestra, no easy job. A superior recording.

Media Contact Name 
S.G.S.

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