Artist info
The Jazz Series is throwing a party for our Season Finale! Celebrating the release of Bruce Barth and Steve Wilson's new CD "Home: Live in Columbia, Missouri", recorded live in concert on June 27, 2009.
Join the Jazz Series as we welcome Bruce Barth and Steve Wilson in concert at Murry's returning to celebrate the national CD Release of HOME: Live in Columbia, Missouri. The gifted pianist and exceptional saxophonist reprise their intimate and personal performance here when they were captured in concert last June 27 in a "House Concert."
The CD, the second release by the Jazz Series, and first in four years, becomes available nationwide on Tuesday, April 27. HOME: Live in Columbia, Missouri, is a collaboration between the Jazz Series, which serves as executive producer and the two artists who serve as associate producers. The Barth-Wilson "House Concert" signaled the start the 2009/2010 season and marked the beginning of the Jazz Series'15th Anniversary Season. Now, with the help of the same two exceptional players, the Jazz Series gently closes the book on its nearly year-long season.
The setting for the recording, a good-sized, warm and comfortable house with a perfect living room, was perfect. Murry's as one of our venerable, true-blue venues and the site of many, many previous remarkable performances, again serves as the perfect backdrop for what promises to be a great concert and CD Release and Signing by two supremely talented individuals.
HOME: Live in Columbia, Missouri, features seven selections from the House Concert; four of them are Barth originals that were written specifically for the occasion. In addition to the Barth originals, HOME includes Cole Porter's "All Through The Night," taken from the hit show Anything Goes; an up-to-the-minute reading of "Sweet & Lovely," a standard; and a spectacular interpretation of Bud Powell's "Wail." Wilson plays mostly alto saxophone but also, as he will at Murry's, contributes stellar soprano saxophone on the date.
The new release, a gorgeously packaged CD, includes liner notes written by veteran and well-respected jazz critic and author Bob Blumenthal. The Jazz Series felt the quality of the music called for someone of his stature - and the jazz aficionado did not disappoint.
ABOUT THE MUSICIANS
Barth and Wilson both landed in New York within a year of each other in the late 1980s. They met shortly thereafter and have worked together - as members of others' and each other's bands - often since then. However, as frequently as they have shared the stage or the studio during the course of the past two decades-plus, they realized they had never recorded as a duo.
"I like Steve's earthy, funky, soulful approach, which at the same time is very sophisticated melodically and harmonically," Barth said to Blumenthal while being interviewed for the liner notes as offered an explanation of the musicians' mutual attraction. "He will always surprise you, and his improvisations are fantastic, but even in playing a melody he finds a way to put his stamp on it while still being true to the spirit of the original. I can identify him in three seconds when I hear him on the radio, whether on soprano or alto."
Wilson, when asked by Blumenthal about performing with Barth as a duo, said, "It's like tightrope walking without a net. There's that empty space, and the temptation to fill it all up keeps you honest. It forces me to be patient and listen even more closely I talk to my students about our `internal rhythm sections' and having a drummer's mentality I'm a frustrated drummer. Particularly with Bruce, his innate sense of time is there but is also unique; we can breathe together. It's a beautiful balance, keeping that internal drummer yet not worrying about when it slows down or speeds up."
Both Barth and Wilson have made previous Jazz Series appearances. Before appearing in June to record HOME, Barth had appeared twice before as a member of trumpeter Terell Stafford's group as well as a member of Wilson's quartet; Wilson, meanwhile participated in numerous earlier Jazz Series concerts, among them: performing as a member of Chick Corea's "Origin," working with the late pianist James Williams' Intensive Care Unit and, most recently, in March 2009 as a member of the all-star aggregation that went out as the Blue Note 7.
HOME, once released, will be distributed nationally through the Jazz Series as well as through both Barth's and Wilson's respective web sites. Additionally the project will be available through CD Baby where you can make digital downloads of a select number of tunes as well as the CD in its entirety.
