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THE BERLIN NIGHTBIRDS WOLFGANG MITSCHKE |
NAXOS 8.551425
1. I Love You Cole Porter [5:33]
2. Stella By Starlight Victor Young [3:20]
3. Midnight Piano Wolfgang Mitschke [3:45]
4. Bye Bye Blackbird Ray Henderson [4:02]
5. Corcovado Antonio Carlos Jobim [4:24]
6. Anthropology Charlie Parker [3:48]
7. If I Should Lose You Ralph Rainger [4:08]
8. The Berlin Nightbirds Wolfgang Mitschke [3:51]
9. Blue Monk Thelonius Monk [3:14]
10. Short Bridge Wolfgang Mitschke [0:51]
11. Black Orpheus Luiz Bonfa [4:44]
12. So What Miles Davis [3:47]
13. The Yardbird Suite Charlie Parker [4:13]
14. In Your Own Sweet Way Dave Brubeck [5:30]
TOTAL PLAYING TIME: [55:18]
Jazz pianist Wolfgang Mitschke (b.1957) has released his new album, The Berlin Nightbirds, with a fresh look at 11 familiar jazz tunes, plus three of his own compositions. Wolfgang is a well-known artist from Bonn, Germany and performs on this album as a one-man band, playing on piano and electronic keyboards. He is accompanied by pre-recorded and layered tracks on drums, strings, bass and guitar. The result is an interesting mixed bag of tight, synthesized smooth jazz arrangements. Cole Porter wrote the song I Love You for the 1944 musical Mexican Hayride. The melody is sparse with open intervals, which Wolfgang fills with fast-paced piano runs and improvisations on keyboard, accompanied by background tracks providing piano chords and drums. Victor Young composed the classic Stella By Starlight for the 1944 film The Uninvited, and the tune is performed following the same type of format. Charlie “Yardbird” Parker was a bebop pioneer and alto saxophonist who composed several tunes on this album. In 1945 he wrote Anthropology, a contrafact for Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”. A contrafact is a jazz tune that borrows the chord progression from an existing tune and adds a new melody and arrangement. Wolfgang performs on piano accompanied by tracks on bass guitar and drums. Parker also wrote The Yardbird Suite in 1945, another contrafact patterned after the tune “Rosetta”, composed by pianist Earl Hines. Wolfgang plays the simpler melody on piano at a moderate tempo and arranged with a separate bass and piano chord background.
A pair of bossa nova tunes add variety to the song list. Composer Luiz Bonfa wrote the beautiful Manha De Carnaval, the theme music for the 1959 Brazilian film Orfeu Negro. Also known as Black Orpheus and A Day in the Life of A Fool, Wolfgang performs on piano accompanied by a minimal bass background track. Corcovado, also known as Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars, is a bossa nova classic composed in 1960 by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Wolfgang arranges and performs the gentle melody on an electric keyboard with some odd trumpet voicing effects accompanied by a rhythm section track of piano chords, drums and a tambourine. One of my favorite tunes on this disc is In Your Own Sweet Way, composed in 1952 by the creative jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck. The story goes that his band needed a new song before going on stage, so Dave sat down at the piano and wrote two songs in 20 minutes. The band voted, and In Your Own Sweet Way was the band’s choice. The tune has been a jazz classic ever since. Wolfgang performs on a keyboard with electric guitar sound effects, accompanied by some unidentifiable background electronic instrumentation. Unfortunately, the recording on this disc is marred by about 30 seconds of fuzzy static at the very beginning of the piece, by accident or design, distracting from an otherwise acceptable recording.
This music was recorded in 2018-2019 at Mango Studios in Cologne. Wolfgang Mitschke was the producer, and Parida Wali was the executive producer. The sound quality is very good except as noted in the review.
Bruce McCollum