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SACD

Christian Willisohn – Hold On (2005) [SACD / Stockfisch Records – SFR 357.4038.2]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 178 Views

Title: Christian Willisohn – Hold On (2005)
Genre: Blues
Format: MCH SACD ISO

Christian Willisohn, pianist and singer from Munich, goes back to the roots of the blues, taking his listeners on a trip from the basics to the myriad facets of the music. In the midst of Scotland’s West Highlands, hidden between the Atlantic and the green hills, there is a very special kind of concert hall. Art-loving people have transformed a former farmhouse into a meeting place for musicians, dancers, painters and poets. A Scottish secret? Well, not enough of a secret, for ingenious bluesman Christian Willisohn came to know of that place via a friend. Without much planning Christian set up his dream team of staff and equipment. On the road and over the sea, five NAUTILUS 801 speakers, a whole range of CLASSE amps together with a SADIE DSD8 (1-bit) recording device made their way from Stockfisch-Records to the Scottish Isles. Here, the unique acoustic environment let impressive recordings find their way onto “tape”. It was just THE very thing for a 5.1 surround-sound recording on a Direct-Cut-SACD: On this SACD purists will find a stereo and a 5.1 layer in DSD quality. The surprising thing on this Hybrid-SACD is the CD version. Christian Willisohn has invited six fellow musicians to the studio who add drums, bass, guitar, saxophone and cor anglais to his original recording from Scotland.

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2 min read

SACD

Christian McBride, Javon Jackson, Jimmy Cobb, Cedar Walton – New York Time (2006) [SACD / Chesky Records – SACD314]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 194 Views

Title: Christian McBride, Javon Jackson, Jimmy Cobb, Cedar Walton – New York Time (2006)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

“New York Time offers jazz fans a wonderful opportunity to hear two rising stars of the genre (McBride, Jackson) performing with two respected elders (Cobb, Walton). The past also meets the present in other exciting ways on this recording. The set is highlighted by several of Walton’s original compositions and a cover of the legendary John Coltrane’s “Naima”. Meanwhile, McBride’s acoustic bass talents are spotlighted on his self-written composition “Grove” (for trumpeter Roy Hargrove) and Jackson represents the new vanguard of jazz with his own tune titled “Notes in Three”.

Having spent most of his time since the late ’90s re-appropriating pop, funk, rock, and fusion elements into his progressive jazz albums, bassist Christian McBride makes a joyously off the cuff return to straight-ahead acoustic jazz on 2006’s New York Time. Working here with the seasoned rhythm section giants of pianist Cedar Walton and drummer Jimmy Cobb as well as an equally engaging contemporary, tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson, McBride has crafted a back-to-basics album that, while firmly in the mainstream jazz tradition, works to remind listeners why they dug him in the first place. New York Time is as creatively inspired, forward-thinking, and unexpected as 2000’s Sci-Fi and 2003’s Vertical Vision are with their mix of electronic-funk and angular, postmodern jazz, and McBride can’t escape the fact that his true gift is for swaggering, double-breasted, no holds barred, late-night, straight-ahead modern jazz. Primarily, it’s his big, full, commanding double-bass tone that not only drives his bandmates forward, but buoys them on fat swells of sound. It’s that natural acoustic tone and earthy pulse of McBride that fit so well with this kind of no-fuss jazz. It’s also that sound, paired with the soulfully urbane and elegantly muscular chops of Walton, Cobb, and Jackson, that makes New York Time a jazz lover’s dream.

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2 min read

SACD

Christoph Titz – Magic (2003) [SACD / Parashoot – PARACD001]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 184 Views

Title: Christoph Titz – Magic (2003)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Born in Aachen and now living in Germany’s buzzing urban metropolis Berlin, Christoph smartly moves within the jazz genre ever since the early 90s, but never felt responsible really to surrender to its boundaries and clichees. “Magic” is his first album.
Can’t believe this guy’s trumpet. Very creative, sultry, bright, subdued and always classy. The first two selections (Magic and Finally Alone) are typical jazz selections. Pearls for My Flat and Slow Mood are worth the price alone- very moody. Picked this up as a bargain SACD and absolutely love it. Trying to find other CDs from this lyrical genius. Will definitely keep my eye on him. – review from amazon.com

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1 min read

SACD

Christoph Pregardien, Michael Gees – Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin (2008) [SACD / Challenge Classics – CC72292]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 165 Views

Title: Christoph Pregardien, Michael Gees – Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin (2008)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees are, beyond the shadow of a doubt, among the greatest interpreters of Schubert’s song cycle “Die schöne Müllerin”. The cycle deals with a period in the life of a young miller lad as he wanders along a stream in search of work; he meets a mill-girl and falls in love with her; then loses her to another man and, in deep despair, drowns himself in the millstream. “Die schöne Müllerin” – consisting of twenty songs – is an amazing compendium of the human psych which deals with the miller’s emotions as he finds, and then loses, his love.

German tenor Christoph Prégardien has recorded Schubert’s seminal song cycle Die Schöne Mullerin before, with Andreas Staier for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 1991. One immediate difference in this recording for Challenge Classics is that Michael Gees serves as accompanist and plays a modern piano rather than a period fortepiano, as did Staier. Moreover, this SACD recording of Die Schöne Mullerin and the early digital DHM are worlds apart; the sound on the DHM is distant, recessed and rather clattery, whereas the Challenge Classics recording is a huge improvement. Prégardien’s voice is attractively centered, and Gees’ piano is captured in a warm perspective that cloaks and envelops the singer. It’s a great sound; as Prégardien’s voice soars, the piano rolls through both right and left channels as waves in a babbling brook, echoing the very sentiments expressed in Wilhelm Müller’s pre-Romantic texts. Prégardien’s interpretation is much the same as it was Staier, though one could argue in the Challenge Classics recording he achieves a greater emotional projection, not to mention a more lightweight delivery in the tenor range; in the DHM recording he had more of a tendency to borrow from the baritone range in order to gain more heft. That’s not to throw the DHM, still available in August 2008, under the bus; it remains a very good performance, particularly in the domain of versions with a period instrument keyboard. However, this version is clearly superlative; Prégardien has grown with this work in the intervening time and it shows. This is a sensitive reading of Die Schöne Mullerin demonstrating complete integration with the material, in addition to embracing a generally more mainstream kind of performance idiom than the earlier recording. Challenge Classics’ Die Schöne Mullerin with Christoph Prégardien and Michael Gees is a recording worthy of taking pride of place on the shelf alongside such “classic” versions as those by Richard Crooks, Aksel Schiøtz, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and is in considerably better recorded sound than any of them.

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3 min read

SACD

Christopher Wrench – Bach: Organ Sonatas, BWV 525-530 (2009) [SACD / Melba Recordings – MR 301125]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 176 Views

Title: Christopher Wrench – Bach: Organ Sonatas, BWV 525-530 (2009)
Genre: Classical
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Christopher Wrench commands a broad solo repertoire including the complete organ works of Bach, whilst also working as a liturgical musician, pedagogue & chamber player. He teaches organ at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University & directs the music programme at St Mary’s Anglican Church, Kangaroo Point in Brisbane. In 2008 he was awarded the Lord Mayor’s Australia Day Cultural Award for his outstanding contribution to the musical life of Brisbane.

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1 min read

SACD

Christoph Deluze – Dmitri Kabalevsky: Piano Sonatas Opp. 6, 45, 46 (2011) [SACD / Praga Digitals – PRD/DSD 250 279]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 140 Views

Title: Christoph Deluze – Dmitri Kabalevsky: Piano Sonatas Opp. 6, 45, 46 (2011)
Genre: Classical
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

The Preludes and Sonatas of Dmitri Kabalevsky are amongst the best piano works of the forties, and deserve a place on concert programs alongside better-known works by composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Pianist Christoph Deluze has become well known for his interpretations of Kabalevsky, and here he performs the three Piano Sonatas. The first is reminiscent of Scriabin, and the second and the third are war pieces filled with highly virtuosic passages. Deluze’s performances confirm their impressive stature, intense lyricism and rhythmic vigor. Sonatas on the SACD disc are excellent, with a very natural ambiance, and Deluze‘s performance are exceptionally good.

Christoph Deluze’s second album devoted to the music on Dmitry Kabalevsky covers the composer’s sonatas. The three sonatas together fill just about an hour, but there is enough substance in the music that listeners who can appreciate Kabalevsky’s style should feel satisfied. Deluze presents the sonatas in reverse, beginning with the Sonata No. 3, the most popular one. For those who don’t know this music, but do know the music of Prokofiev, this may strike them as a lightweight imitation. Kabalevsky’s sonata often has some of the same staccato sound, but the character is not as outspoken as Prokofiev’s, even though there is clearly sarcasm in the final movement. The second movement is gentler, played with nuanced touch and phrasing by Deluze. Sonata No. 2, written during World War II, is the centerpiece of the recording, literally and figuratively. The succession of changing characters and moods in each movement seem to tell a story of the war, perhaps how it played out in one village or town. It is more substantial in that respect than No. 3, which was written a year later, and even the textures in it seem weightier. At times, particularly in the third movement, the different lines and voices Deluze brings out give it orchestral-like dimension. The much earlier Sonata No. 1 (1929) is a different animal, with an indebtedness to Scriabin. The melodies don’t quite seem to settle into anything that’s immediately easy to follow or into a single tonality, and there’s the impression that the young Kabalevsky was aiming to be modern and shocking, to not follow the more romantic path of Rachmaninov or others. Its finale does pay homage to those ever-present bells that are found in so much Russian music. Deluze understands this music thoroughly and performs with utmost skill, demonstrating that even though Kabalevsky was obviously a more conservative composer than his contemporaries, he was nonetheless a talented one with a unique voice.

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3 min read

SACD

Chris Lomheim Trio – The Bridge (2002) [SACD / Artegra – ART2004]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 189 Views

Title: Chris Lomheim Trio – The Bridge (2002)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

Pianist Lomheim is a regular performer at clubs in the Minneapolis St. Paul area, and his rhythm section have both played with top names in jazz. The Trio has a very polished and straight-ahead approach to nine tunes that happened to includes five jazz favorites and three originals played by Chris Lomheim, Gordy Johnson, and Phil Hey, three leading players in the Minneapolis/St. Paul jazz community. The original title tune by Lomheim was recorded away from the studio in a chamber music hall at Hamline University.

All tracks are complete takes with no editing. This audiophile recording was made using tube and ribbon mics, Millenia Media preamps, Meitner converters, and DSD editing with the Sony Sonoma. The surround speakers are used simply for hall ambience. This album also has the technical warning about assigning the center channel string bass to the left and right front channels if you lack a center channel speaker.

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1 min read

SACD

Chris Gestrin – Stillpoint (2002) [SACD / Songlines Recordings – SGL SA 1540-2]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 162 Views

Title: Chris Gestrin – Stillpoint (2002)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Vancouver pianist and composer Chris Gestrin has drawn comparisons to Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, if either of those masters were young today and equally at home with the acoustic and the electronic, jazz and ambient. Gestrin’s handpicked versatile quintet, featuring trumpeter Brad Turner, creates rich images in sound. From a tender solo piano improvisation to swirling group inventions, a narrative of almost cinematic sweep unfolds. Gestrin’s compositions range across jazz, experimental music, new age and world music for their ideas, but this is not “fusion” in any ordinary sense; there is too much originality and panache for that. The multi-channel remix opens on an imaginary environment that connoisseurs of surround sound, whether jazz fans or not, will surely appreciate.
Vancouver, Canada-based keyboardist Chris Gestrin crosses an amalgamated array of perceived borders on this curiously interesting release. As an acoustic pianist, he often insinuates a theme via delicately constructed melodies and an open-ended approach. Gestrin and his musical associates pursue ambient dreamscapes and climactically driven passages throughout this beautifully recorded production. Moreover, this high-tech recording (Direct Stream Digital) might be analogous to the sonic characteristics often witnessed on the German ECM Records label. Nonetheless, a good portion of this outing features Gestrin’s clever use of synths, dulcimer, and various electric/acoustic percussion instruments. Saxophonist Jon Bentley and trumpeter Brad Turner frequently serve as the equalizers due to their ambient and/or fiercely enacted exchanges, while drummer Dylan van der Schyff’s cymbal swashes and rumbling tom fills provide the undulating rhythms. Many of Gestrin’s frameworks are built upon simple melodies and modulating crosscurrents, as the musicians delve into a few dark corners here and there. The ensemble is equally adept at segueing through a multitude of free jazz/crash-and-burn type endeavors or executing ethereal soundscapes amid multifarious perspectives. Recommended.

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2 min read

SACD

Chris Gestrin – After The City Has Gone: Quiet (2007) [SACD / Songlines Recordings – SGL SA1568-2]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 170 Views

Title: Chris Gestrin – After The City Has Gone: Quiet (2007)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

In the summer of 2004 Vancouver keyboardist Chris Gestrin spent three intense days in the studio on a Steinway D, recording in high resolution DSD with nine different duo and trio groupings of musicians from Vancouver’s vibrant music scene. Apart from a handful of compositions including a few solo piano pieces, all the music was completely improvised, exploring the process of spontaneous composition with concentration, finesse and expressive power. In the exposed settings on this 2007 release, success depended on sustaining the inspiration of the moment.

Recorded over a three-day period in 2004, this two-disc set of stark improvisations places pianist Gestrin in ever-changing trio, duo and solo settings with a dozen compatriots from Vancouver’s creative music scene. The pieces are quiet and roomy, suffused with a cool northwestern mist as they roam through soft scribblings, mysterious foreign landscapes and composed-sounding impressionist sketches. Remarkably, the diverse pieces all feel like parts of a planned whole, a freeform Zen suite to be contemplated and absorbed.

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1 min read

SACD

Chris Botti – Night Sessions (2001) [SACD / Columbia – CS 85753]

adminSeptember 13, 2025 149 Views

Title: Chris Botti – Night Sessions (2001)
Genre: Jazz
Format: MCH SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

At the precise moment when a corporate reshuffling and a reduced roster led to death knells in the press for Columbia Records’ jazz division, Chris Botti was signing on after three albums at rival Verve, the jazz arm of Universal. Along with Bela Fleck, poached from Warner Bros., Botti seemed to represent the new lean-and-mean Columbia Jazz, an eclectic, contemporary artist with considerable crossover potential to go with his jazz legitimacy. While the dominant sound on Botti’s Columbia debut is naturally his haunting, minor-key trumpet playing, highly reminiscent of the more introspective aspect of Miles Davis, his original music, co-written with one-name producer Kipper, is strongly reminiscent of the pop-jazz approach of his most recent employer, Sting, whose tour hiatus created the opportunity for the recording of the album. Sting even contributes a song, the samba-paced “All Would Envy,” complete with lyrics describing a wealthy May-December marriage, sung by Shawn Colvin. But elsewhere his spare, stylish, multi-cultural music provides a guiding principle. Botti is true to the basic tenets of smooth jazz, which hold that a steady beat within a propulsive rhythm track must be maintained, over which the soloist makes his presence felt. But he and Kipper keep things simple, often using an acoustic guitar to create musical textures more suggestive of Rio than west Los Angeles, where the record was actually cut. And even with his less-is-more style of playing, Botti is capable of coming up with melodies that would be strong enough to support lyrics if someone wanted to write them. (A good example is “Light the Stars.”) “Easter Parade,” the final track, is by the members of the Blue Nile, another good touchstone for the trumpeter’s moody, atmospheric sound. The result is a step above most of the cookie-cutter contemporary jazz albums of the day.

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2 min read