GUSTAV MAHLER/URI CAINE

GUSTAV MAHLER/URI CAINE
URLICHT/PRIMAL LIGHT (1997)
320 KBPS

This auspicious, surprising, release debuted the Winter & Winter imprimatur, which carries on German producer Stefan Winter's longstanding role in blurring musical boundaries, as he did for so many years with the jazz label JMT. Pianist Uri Caine, known mainly for playing in the polystylistic mode of New York's downtown jazz scene, steeped himself in Mahler's music in preparation for the 1995 series of concerts leading up to this CD. Caine's ensemble--14 members strong, at points--recasts portions of Mahler's symphonic cloudbursts into a setting that smacks of klezmer, jazz, and crazy combinations of the scores' lavish bombastics. It's clear that Mahler's works tested the boundaries of so many available sounds at the turn of the century, from cantors to martial brass to Wagnerian bulk. Caine attempts it all, succeeding most somberly in the sections based on the Resurrection Symphony and most clangorously in the First Symphony's third movement, transformed into a serious klezmer bash by Caine, clarinetist Don Byron, and drummer Joey Baron.

1. Symphony N°5 : Funeral March
2. The Drummer Boy From "The Boy'S Magic Horn"
3. Now Will The Sun Rise As Brightly From "Songs Of The Death Of Children"
4. I Often Think They Have Merely Gone Out ! "Songs Of The Death Children"
5. Symphony N°1 "Titan" : 3rd Movement
6. Symphony N°2 "Resurrection" : Primal Light
7. I Went Out This Morning Over The Countryside "Songs Of A Wayfarer"
8. Symphony N°5 : Adagietto
9. The Drunkard In Spring "The Song Of The Earth"
10. Who Thought Up This Song "The Boy'S Magic Horn"
11. The Farewell "The Song Of The Earth"