David Friesen & National Academic Symphonic Band Of Ukraine
Release Date: 30 April 2021
Label: Origin Records
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 805558280924
Genres: Jazz Contemporary
Description
A major international jazz figure for over 50 years, bassist-composer David Friesen continues his unflagging process of creating new defining works, with the ambitious, expansive, and deeply personal musical explorations found on Testimony. Through the desire to better understand his Mother's Ukrainian heritage, and with inspired leg-work from his Czech-based assistant, Natalie Digtyar, Friesen found himself on a 2015 tour of family landmarks in Smila, Ukraine, fully researched and led by a television crew and the local historical museum. Meeting Oleksandr Pirozhenko, director of the National Academic Symphonic Band of Ukraine, set in motion the collaboration heard here, beginning with a sold-out 2016 "homecoming" concert in Smila's Concert Hall, followed by this live recording from Kiev's National Philharmonic Hall in December, 2018. Arrangements of Friesen's profoundly spiritual compositions unfold, offering passages exploding with orchestral grandeur alongside lone whispers from solo piano, vibes or bass, and intimate quartet vignettes, all reflecting the myriad emotions exposed through his journey of ancestral discovery.
"Once in a great while, a musician emerges with such authority and such seemingly effortless originality that his place in the front ranks of his instrument is unquestioned. So it is with David Friesen." - Nat Hentoff
Tracklisting
Xose Miguelez
Joachim Mencel, Steve Cardenas, Scott Colley & Rudy Royston
Thomas Marriott, Orrin Evans, Luques Curtis & Mark Whitfield Jr
Ted Moore Trio
Jared Hall
Meridian Odyssey
Ben Patterson, Shawn Purcell, Chris Ziemba, Paul Henry, Todd Harrison
Brent Jensen
Gary Smulyan & Frank Basile
Chris Byars
Trialogue
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Tomasz Stanko Quartet
Jiem
Ant Law & Brigitte Beraha
Tom Green Septet
