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Maria Schneider
Allegresse(Enja)
Maria Schneider has just released a new album,
Allégresse, performed by her nineteen-piece orchestra. This is her third album as a leader since her 1993 debut release, Evanescence. Her jazz orchestra has performed every Monday night in New York for six years from 1993 until 1998 and she has often performed and conducted in Europe.
Schneider studied composition at several schools and with composers Bob Brookmeyer and Gil Evans. The influence of Gil Evans is especially evident in her interest in and use of orchestral colors and textures (although her compositions are definitely in her own style.) Part of the way she changes the tonal colors is through shifting combinations of instruments. On her new album she uses such instruments as guitar, tuba, muted trumpets, oboe, percussion and flugelhorn.
Dance and movement inspired the pieces on the album. The album starts in motion with "Hang Gliding," which was inspired by her experience hang gliding in Rio de Janeiro. While listening, it was easy to imagine that I was flying through the air or watching a soaring hawk. "Nocturne" seems a bit static, but works as a quiet interlude after exciting flight of "Hang Gliding." Besides "Hang Gliding," the album's highlights are "Allégresse" and the commissioned dance piece "Dissolution," which is the dramatic centerpiece of album.
Her pieces are composed, but leave plenty of room for improvisatory solos. Some of the best solos are from Greg Gisbert on flugelhorn and Rick Margitza on tenor sax on "Hang Gliding"; Ingred Jensen on trumpet and flugelhorn and Rich Perry on tenor sax on "Allégresse"; Ben Monder on guitar on "Journey Home"; and Scott Robinson on baritone sax on "Sea of Tranquility."
Allégresse is one of the year's most beautiful releases.
— Alan Lankin, 3 Oct 2000
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last update 3 October 2000