Orchestre National De Jazz

Steve Lehman, Orchestre National de Jazz – Ex Machina (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 4, 2023 · Comments off

Ex Machina is a collaboration between saxophonist/composerSteve Lehman, whom the New York Times has called “a state-of-the-art musical thinker,”and Orchestre National de Jazz (ONJ) that goes far beyond anything attempted before by a jazz big band. Featuring compositions by Lehman and Frederic Maurin, ONJ’s artistic director, the work incorporates elements of French spectral harmony into its compositional framework while also integrating live, interactive electronics developed atIRCAM (Institut de Coordination Acoustique Musique) in which abstract electronic sounds react to soloist improvisations in real-time. The new work is inspired by Lehman’s Octet, whose groundbreaking work were the first to utilize spectral harmony’s complex sonorities within a jazz context. Their critically-lauded releases Mise en Abime (Pi 2014) and Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi 2009) were voted the #1 album of the year in the NPR Jazz Critics Poll and the #1 jazz album of the year in The New York Times, respectively.

The album’s name evokes spectral composer Gerard Grisey’s iconic “Tempus Ex Machina” as well as Lehman and Maurin’s inspired fusion of electronic sounds with traditional instrumentation. While at many points the computer becomes an improvisation partner for the musicians, it’s still the crack soloists of the ONJ along with Lehman and his long-running musical partners Jonathan Finlayson (trumpet) and Chris Dingman (vibraphone) who carry the day. With its otherworldly sonorities, elaborate orchestration, and complex rhythmic propulsion, Ex Machina is a meticulously crafted work that continues to position Lehman at the leading edge of jazz.

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Orchestre National de Jazz, Olivier Benoit – Europa: Paris (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

The Orchestre National De Jazz led by Olivier Benoit has taken its first steps on stage on February 1st 2014 at Sons d’Hiver Festival and has presented its program EUROPA “PARIS”. This singular tribute to the French capital composed by Olivier Benoit will be the subject of the first album of the ONJ available on May 26 on the new “in-house” OnJazz Records.

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Orchestre National de Jazz, Olivier Benoit – Europa Berlin (2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

After Paris, Olivier Benoit turned to an exploration of Berlin for the second chapter of Europa. Paying even more heed to its architecture, this time the composer centred his efforts on history and memory of the city with a population that was young, creative and cosmopolitan. Declined in dense compositions with lyrical imprints, this shimmering portrait questions the various manners in which the Germans have confronted their recent past. Olivier Benoit captured the heterogeneous spirit of the city with contrasted music that makes brilliant use of all the orchestra’s resources. Faithful to his singular compositional methods associating the dynamics of timbres with a true “feel” for architecture in motion and a hypnotic rhythmical pulse, with Europa Berlin the composer opened up new perspectives in both sound and form, and which drew on the different musical currents that “inhabit” the German capital: minimalist music, free jazz, progressive rock and electronic music.

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Orchestre National De Jazz – Rituels (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

With his second program entitled Rituels, the first repertoire of original music marking the start of his mandate at the ONJ, the artistic director wishes, in an acoustic version of the orchestra, to reveal a more organic facet in the service of writings making the share beautiful phantasmagoria. In this orchestral setting, the voice is called upon like an instrument in its own right; the voice, the very first intimate vector of the human with the imaginary and the spiritual.

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Orchestre National De Jazz, Daniel Yvinec, Gil Goldstein – Piazzolla! (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

The ingenious artist, Piazzolla who crossed borders to mesh musical style and culture, symbolizes the many values that Daniel Yvinec holds dear, and that are inherent to the artistic approach he has used with his ONJ since 2009. Piazzolla’s works are the perfect exploration playground for an orchestra accustomed to in-depth examination of sound, color, individual and group playing that advocates open jazz far from parochial and stylistic concerns.

Daniel Yvinec worked closely on the conception of this new repertoire with the brilliant musician and arranger, Gil Goldstein. Their work focuses on the melodies and rhythm developed throughout the Argentinean master’s works, as much as it does on Piazzolla’s bandoneon playing – the essential components that give this music its very special flavor. Piazzolla! by the ONJ celebrates the diversity of this music, offering a new and audacious reading full of surprise.

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Orchestre National De Jazz – Dancing in Your Head(s) (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 28, 2022 · Comments off

Simple words, and yet that was the way Ornette Coleman summed up the reason behind his quest in music: a manifestation of the pure joy of sound and rhythm. And if the music of Ornette Coleman continues to move us today, it’s because it drives its roots deep down into the rural blues of America’s south, causing the emergence of a free and carefree jazz whose melodies form a vibrant, lyrical celebration of the moment. Ornette Coleman, incidentally, was a musician whose fervent admirers have included great artists of immensely varying styles, from Lou Reed to John Zorn and Leonard Bernstein, or David Cronenberg, Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore, Patti Smith, Claude Nougaro and Pat Metheny, to name only those.

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Olivier Benoit, Orchestre National de Jazz – Europa Oslo (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · July 26, 2022 · Comments off

Whether appearing solo as a guitarist or leading orchestras whose personnel and size couldn’t vary more — they range from the quartet to the big-band —, Olivier Benoit’s sole obsession has always been to further his explorations of territories still barely represented on the official map of contemporary music.

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