We’ll forgive the slightly grandstanding title when the
music is so captivating. It’s another in Crystal Records’ long
line of repertoire expanding, sonority enriching releases devoted
to things that would doubtless otherwise lie unrecorded. So hats
off to a label that chases the new, the exciting, the overlooked
and the orphaned.
The line-up here is self-explanatory - a two saxophone line up
sometimes with piano accompaniment. Jun Nagao offers two pieces.
The first is
Paganini Lost, hot off the press or printer
in 2008. It takes
that theme from the Caprices. The exchanges
between the two altos are sinuous and contrasts with the fluid
unison work. At around the four minute mark things begin to generate
greater momentum and over a rolling piano platform there’s
real excitement. But there’s also lyricism as well, to
which the alto is tonally attuned - I needn’t cite Johnny
Hodges or Benny Carter in a jazz context - and things come together
nicely toward the end where the theme is playfully toyed with.
Lovers
on the Celestial Sphere is by complete contrast a restful
romantic discourse over a pliant piano bed - mellifluous and
verdant romanticism is the order of the day.
Masanori Kato was born in 1972 and his
Oriental is another
new work, written in 2008. Rolling vivacity informs this. It’s
nicely textured for soprano and alto saxophones and piano, very
tonal, lightly jazzy I suppose, with a vein of filmic drama as
well. It’s a very easy eight minute listen. By contrast
Guy Lacour’s
Suite en Duo was written the year before
Katoh was even born. The two altos
sans piano manage to
evoke both Bach and Messiaen in this baroquely inspired work,
which takes the Bachian Invention as its starting point. There’s
a rather beautiful but not at all oleaginous Aria - winding,
vaguely aloof - and a taut Fugue and well as a brilliantly fast
and ensnaring Scherzetto to end things.
It is probably appropriate to note here that the elder statesman
is Hindemith whose
Concert Piece for two altos shares
Lacour’s line-up. But this example of Hindemith’s
Gebrauchsmusik marries invention with utility is a typically
bracing and harmonically fetching way - clever, practical, and
emotively never straightforward. Which brings us neatly to Victor
Morosco’s
Contemporary Etudes in Duet Form, for
two alto saxophones written in 1997, of which we have Nos. 1,
2 and 4. It’s a broad ranging opus, this one, proposing
thrusting arrhythmic figures in the central etude here (No.2)
so zestful that you can hear the sax keys rattle and roll, if
not necessarily shake. No.4 is a delightful swing workout. It
ends the disc in warm and avuncular optimism.
All but the Hindemith are premiere recordings. The heroes of
the disc, Tse and Sugawa, have inspired a deal of repertory over
the years and are to be warmly commended for this and for their
outstanding contributions on what turns out, on closer inspection,
not to
be a grandstanding disc title after all. Excellent recorded sound
and full booklet notes round off a saxophonic feast.
Jonathan Woolf
Kenneth Tse and
Nobuya Sugawa (saxophones) 
