ALEX MAGUIRE/NIKOLAS SKORDAS DUO - Ships & Shepherds
SLAMCD 582 – 2 CDs
Alex Maguire, piano; Nicolas Skordas, soprano sax, tenor sax, gaida, bells, penny whistles; Plus on some tracks: Don Stavrinos, trumpet, flicker; Stathis Diamantidis : double bass
Recorded live in Athens, Greece, November 2016
The music on the first of these 2 CDs is highly emotive, as is gathered from the album title. There is a romance, deeply expressed, though with sporadic steely edges. The music roils warmly. Both tracks 4 and 5 relax this, both less musically archaic and more contemporaneously abstract. The final track on CD1 reverts to its earlier character, thus setting the scene for the changes due in CD2.
Significantly, the tenor of the second CD is even more abstract, more incorporeal, the music ascending to a different plane of experimentation. Throughout CD1 there was an atmosphere of a close musical discourse between the two players and this even more remarkable in CD2. Whilst there are sometimes longer pieces of solo work, the return of the second instrument is always assured and the improvisation sweeping and confident.
Ships and Shepherds has emerged from a close liaison between musicians with a common wish to express something of the heart of ancient Greek music, but in the manner of today’s idioms and genres.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
SLAMCD 582 – 2 CDs
Alex Maguire, piano; Nicolas Skordas, soprano sax, tenor sax, gaida, bells, penny whistles; Plus on some tracks: Don Stavrinos, trumpet, flicker; Stathis Diamantidis : double bass
Recorded live in Athens, Greece, November 2016
The music on the first of these 2 CDs is highly emotive, as is gathered from the album title. There is a romance, deeply expressed, though with sporadic steely edges. The music roils warmly. Both tracks 4 and 5 relax this, both less musically archaic and more contemporaneously abstract. The final track on CD1 reverts to its earlier character, thus setting the scene for the changes due in CD2.
Significantly, the tenor of the second CD is even more abstract, more incorporeal, the music ascending to a different plane of experimentation. Throughout CD1 there was an atmosphere of a close musical discourse between the two players and this even more remarkable in CD2. Whilst there are sometimes longer pieces of solo work, the return of the second instrument is always assured and the improvisation sweeping and confident.
Ships and Shepherds has emerged from a close liaison between musicians with a common wish to express something of the heart of ancient Greek music, but in the manner of today’s idioms and genres.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
