Ties Mellema and friends - Songreader by Beck - featuring Nora Fischer & The Four Baritones (MP3 Version)

Name: Ties Mellema and friends - Songreader by Beck - featuring Nora Fischer & The Four Baritones (MP3 Version) — Ties Mellema
Brand: Ties Mellema
Price: 4.0 EUR
Availability: InStock

€4.00

With Ties Mellema, Nora Fischer, The Four Baritones

Songs by Beck interpreted in an entirely new way for female vocalist and four baritone saxophones.

I’m always searching for new musical ideas. And increasingly I find myself looking in between the various styles. It’s that undefined grey area that interests me. Despite being classically trained, I struggle more and more when it comes to labelling music. On this project I wanted to explore that grey area, dig deep and open it up. I wanted to take all those different genres we have today, that inspire me and so many other musicians and I wanted to merge them into a hybrid style that may still be nameless, but which inspires me tremendously and gives me the freedom to produce an entirely new, personal and unique sound.

For this project I didn’t want to make new music based on elements of songs by Prince, as I did on my previous CD Princepiration; instead I chose to have composers of jazz, pop and classical music rigorously rewrite songs from Beck’s Song Reader.

Beck didn’t record this album himself, but he published the sheet music, inviting everyone to come up with their own versions of his songs. If you want to listen to the music, you must sing it yourself and play it on the mandolin, guitar, piano, or whatever instrument you choose. A hundred years ago sheet music was the only means of distributing music. The Edison phonograph, wax-cylinders, the LP and CD and later the iPod and streaming video caused a revolution enabling the sound of music to be spread far and wide. Song Reader is a beautifully designed book, containing 20 songs and it’s a tribute to, or rather a reminder of, the past and the many hours spent rummaging through dusty piles of sheet music at the antiquarian’s.

At songreader.net you will find many renditions of these songs and they all pretty much stick to the sheet music. The task I gave the composers was to do what Beck says in his introduction to Song Reader, to completely dissect the songs and turn them into something wholly unique: “The new Beck album reads great. How it sounds is up to us.”

When I considered the line-up I had two conditions: I wanted to work with close friends and the line-up had to be entirely new. My intention was for the songs to be arranged for whichever combination of saxophones, as long as it wasn’t a traditional saxophone quartet (SATB). But in the end most of the orchestrators opted for four baritone saxophones. As I already had a group with four baritones, the choice was obvious: 'The Four Baritones'. This ensemble was formed at the end of the 90s by a few students and following the tragic death of one of its members, the ensemble lay dormant for almost 10 years. This project is part of the resurrection of the ensemble. These days my buddy Niels Bijl and I form the hard core of the ensemble. As we are both classically trained, for this project I teamed us up with saxophonists Jan Menu and Tini Thomsen, who come from a jazz and pop background.

I heard Nora Fischer perform at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. She had me at the first note. I have never before heard such a pliable voice. Nora can sing any style, but each one she puts her own signature to. Her sound is unmistakable. Nora doesn’t have a puffed up opera voice but a completely natural sound, singing the text audibly. And she sings everything, Wolf, Wagner, Ter Veldhuis, old music, new music, pop, rock, it doesn’t matter. She could very well be a saxophonist.

Niels felt we should record this CD live. This music must live; it should be rough at the edges. Splendor, the new Amsterdam concert hall was completely sold out and that gave us so much energy. Live recordings are always special. The power of the moment, you know it was just that one time that it sounded like that, in that tempo, that vibe… That’s magical.

Plus, this is the very first CD to be recorded at Splendor. Splendor is a terrific venue right in the heart of Amsterdam: two concert halls, one café and rehearsal rooms. It was set up by 50 musicians who came together to create a concert hall. One where we get to do everything we ever wanted.

This project sits in between everything. It’s not rock, pop, classical, jazz... But it is a unique merger with the playful signature of Nora Fischer and The Four Baritones.

Thank you: Beck, Niels Bijl, Jan Menu, Tini Thomsen, Nora Fischer, Bert en Nina Mellema, Albert van Veenendaal, Maarten Ornstein, Morris Kliphuis, Rob Horsting, Konrad Koselleck, Ian Wilson, Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, Maarten van Boven, Rutger Verberkmoes, Marit Hendriksen, Splendor

Vocals:

Nora Fischer

Saxophones:

Ties Mellema, Niels Bijl, Tini Thomsen, Jan Menu

Recording: Rutger Verberkmoes

Production: Ties Mellema, Nora Fischer, Jan Menu

Graphic Design: Christiane Smit

Recorded live at Splendor, www.splendoramsterdam.com