Montreal's six-piece Cordame and composer Jean Felix Mailloux arrange and interpret 18th century composer Erik Satie's work "17 Variations" in celebration of his 150th birthday, adding a lilting swing and beautiful features allowing the orchestration of piano, harp, violin, cello, double bass, and percussion to improvise over these enduring melodies.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: Canada Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels Recorded at Studio 270, in Montreal, Canada, on January 15th, 2016, by Robert Langlois.
17. Avant-dernieres pensees: III. Meditation et variations 3:44
18. Reflexions sur choses vues à droite et à gauche [Sans lunettes] 3:30
sample the album:
descriptions, reviews, &c.
"...Montreal's six-piece Cordame, whose interpretation of 17 Variations (Malasartes MAM 022 malasartes.org) by French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) adds free-floating swing to these animated miniatures. Composer/arranger Jean Felix Mailloux does so with agile shadings for his own double bass, Mark Nelson's percussion and Guillaume Martineau's piano, with themes largely interpreted by Sheila Hannigan's cello, eveline Gregoire-Rousseau's harp and Marie Neige Lavigne's violin. Like experimental chemists testing new substances Mailloux encourages the musicians to intermix their experiences. On a track such as Danses de travers for instance, Martineau moves from prosaic note reading to healthy swing, backed by drum pops; while four sets of healthy string slaps make Un morceau en forme de Poire peppier than what Satie envisioned. Avant-dernieres Pensees: III Meditation et Variations picks up on the lighthearted run-through of II Aubade that precedes it, but the churn comes from Neige Lavigne's fiddle and slippery piano comping. Novel tinctures beyond Satie's ken are suggested as well. Shades of jazz piano phrasing and almost rock-styled drumming are audible on Autour de Gnossienne III; while like the additional detailing added to the frame of an Impressionistic canvas, the centre section of Hannigan outlining the theme in careful fashion is preceded by call-and-response from the other string players and followed by rooted harmonies from piano, bass and drums. The sextet brings out the unblemished beauty plus looming unease that characterizes Les cloches du Grand Maitre with the skill of conservatory graduates, but pizzicato motion enlivens the pieces so that it climaxes with percussive plucks and thumps. More characteristically Cordame confirms its position as a group of more than mere interpreters on Airs a faire fuir. As if the players are superimposing a transparent diagram of new nations on top of the composer's Edwardian-era map, Gregoire-Rousseau's bell-like reverb and tick-tock drum beats provide a groove upon which Neige Lavigne sluices out passages that would be equally acceptable in a Balkan ditty or a Satie composition."-Ken Waxman, thewholenote.com