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| Improvisational Four |
| Olga Konkova |
| első megjelenés éve: 2009 |
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| (2010)
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CD |
| 4.701 Ft
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| 1. | River
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| 2. | Help Me
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| 3. | Big Yellow Taxi
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| 4. | Ladies of the Canyon
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| 5. | Coyote
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| 6. | California
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| 7. | A Case of You
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| 8. | God Must Be a Boogie Man
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| 9. | Woodstock
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| 10. | Little Green
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| 11. | In France They Kiss on Main Street
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| 12. | Both Sides Now
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Jazz
It is in the middle of the night, an empty concert hall, except for a large grand piano and a few microphones. Two people are sitting in the front row, quietly talking about a song by the Canadian singer and guitarist Joni Mitchell, and the meaning of its lyrics. After a short while they part, one walks into a control room, the other goes on stage and sits down in front of the grand piano. The instrument suddenly explodes with harmonies, melodies and rhythms.
At last, Caprice Records releases the fourth volume in the innovative recording series Improvisational, a unique series of piano improvisations. This time the Russian/Norwegian pianist Olga Konkova has been given the task of improvising over the songs of Joni Mitchell. The conditions are the same as for the earlier releases in the series: The recording session takes place during nighttime in the concert hall at Nybrokajen 11 in Stockholm, Sweden; and on the same Steinway D as on the other recordings. Besides the pianist, only the producer - who is also the engineer - is present at the session and the theme of the improvisations is not revealed to the pianist until just before the session starts.
Olga Konkova was born in Russia and educated at the Russian Academy of Music in Moscow and at Berklee College of Music in the us. In 1994 she moved to Norway, the same year that she started her professional career. She has played with musicians such as Adam Nussbaum, Gary Husband, Jojo Mayer, Ralph Peterson, Jon Christensen, Audun Kleive, Marilyn Mazur, Bobby Shew and Bill Bruford, just to name a few. She has released five albums in her own name: "Going with the Flow" (Curling Legs), "Her Point of View" (Candid Records), "Northern Crossings" (Candid Records), "Some Things from Home" (Candid Records) and "Unbound" (Alessa Records). She also plays with the Norwegian big band Ensemble Denada and was granted a working scholarship from the Norwegian government in 2007.
Olga is somewhat of a dark horse and could be considered one of the best kept secrets on the Scandinavian jazz scene, in spite of the large number of albums and concerts she has made during the last fifteen years. On this album, in spite of her explosive and passionate expression, she makes some very intimate and sincere interpretations of Joni Mitchell's best known songs. The music moves unpredictably between sudden fancies and torrents of sound and contemplative melodies and harmonies, but is kept together by Olga's original personality, that is present throughout this recording. The musical references on this album come not only from American and Scandinavian jazz, but also from classical music, a fact that becomes evident with Olga's excellent technique. In short, this is an album with a large portion of Russian heart and an equal portion of Scandinavian melancholy!
Olga Konkova
Active Decades: '90s and '00s
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Jazz Instrument, Piano Jazz
Born and raised in Moscow, Russia, and based in Oslo, Norway, Olga Konkova is an acoustic post-bop pianist/composer whose influences range from Herbie Hancock and John Lewis to Bill Evans, Chick Corea, and Keith Jarrett. Konkova, who favors a very clean and crystalline style of pianism, is also comparable to Ahmad Jamal and the underrated Walter Norris. Like Norris, Konkova is known for taking major liberties with familiar melodies -- while other jazz musicians don't really start to improvise until after they play the melody/theme (or "head," in jazz terminology), Konkova starts to seriously improvise the minute her fingers touch the keyboard. Consequently, she can make even the most familiar standards sound fresh. Konkova, who started taking piano lessons at the age of seven, wasn't always a full-time jazz musician; growing up in Moscow, she played mostly classical piano. Konkova studied classical piano and composition at the Russian Academy of Music, graduating in 1993. But not long after that, she moved to Boston to study jazz for two semesters at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Then, in the mid-'90s, Konkova left the U.S. and moved to Oslo (where she married Norwegian bassist Per Mathisen, the brother of saxophonist Ole Mathisen). In the late '90s, Konkova recorded two albums for the British Candid label: Her Point of View (the pianist's first release) and Northern Crossings. ~ Alex Henderson, All Music Guide |
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