Search - Maria Schneider :: Maria Schneider - Sky Blue [Limited Edition] CD - (RARE 8 panel digipak with (2) 40 page booklets)

What Art Should Be

T. Giampietro | Nashville | 08/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I wept!! I actually started to weep during "Cerulean Skies". The beauty,and emotion of the music were so exquisite that I started to weep. That has only happened to me on a few occasions while listening to music. (Listening to Aretha Franklin sing "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" is the only other time I can remember.)



What is even more impressive is that I wept on about the 10th listening! I thought I loved it the first time. I felt moved the first time I listened to it. Little did I know that this music is so powerful that it had yet to exact it's full emotional impact on me!!



I have said on other reviews that we really should not worry too much about categorizing music. This album is a beautiful example of that! It is jazz, but it is SO much more.



What more can I say other than it made me cry......"

Her best yet...

Dunbarton Oakes | 08/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...and that's saying a lot considering Cocert in The Garden and for that matter, anything that Maria Schneider released. Several years ago when I had first heard Coming Around, I wondered why more jazz composers were not lending updated treatments to the jazz orchestra/ensemble genre. And while Carla Bley has done compelling things in this area, it is easy to see that Maria Schneider owns a unique and consistently appealing style that somehow gets better with each recording. BTW-you can get this CD from the "ArtistShare" web site for a normal price and help the creative process at the same time."

Some things to do with a 22-piece jazz orchestra...

Eric C. Sedensky | Madison, AL, US | 07/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Some things to do with a 22-piece jazz orchestra...



1) Write some intriguing, intricate, delightfully complex yet soothing songs and allow the orchestra to use their masterful musical skills to bring the compositions to life to comprise a fine CD's worth of wonderful orchestral jazz music.

2) Divvy up into two teams and play soccer against each other.

3) Make notes about and take pictures of each of the members and edit them into two informative books - one about the pieces that were written for the orchestra and the other, more detailed book about the orchestra itself. Be sure and catch all the orchestra members in candid poses to provide the best possible insight into the music and recording process.

4) Establish long-term collaborative relationships with the soloists and backing musicians to assure a faithfulness and devotion to the music you are trying to present.

5) Use the orchestra to develop a non-swing, non-experimental, steady sound derived from music from the likes of Gil Evans, thereby establishing your sound and the sound of the orchestra as uniquely your own.

6) Hold a bridge night - 10 teams, 5 tables, with two alternates. (Since they are musicians, they may prefer poker, in which case you can have two tables of ten with two designated dealers.)

7) Encourage your fan base to participate and financially support you and your music so you can keep the orchestra together for as long as possible.

8) Have some of the members of the orchestra imitate birds for ethereal - but realistic - sound effects on at least one of your songs. (With 22 members, there have to be at least four or five that can make sounds indistinguishable from the real thing.)

9) Have a costume party where pairs of members have to dress up as one of the characters in Ocean's Eleven (Widescreen Edition).



In Sky Blue, Maria Schneider had done all of the above except numbers 2, 6, and 9, but including number 8, and the result is maybe not the "jazziest" recording ever made, but it is sonically satisfying and "entrancing". This CD requires (yes, requires) studious and devoted listening, and thereby it rewards the listener by continually and gradually exposing more and more of itself as the listener becomes familiar with its passages. Indeed, like Maria has done over the years in her association with this group of musicians, the listener becomes intimately familiar with each of the players, allowing him or her to experience the songs differently each time. Myself, I prefer the big band swing of CD's like Consummation and The Complete Atomic Basie, but this CD is extremely useful to me in my jazz education, with the generous and informative liner notes and the supplementary recording material available from artistshare.com. I give it five stars because although I would only rate the recording itself at 4, all the extras put this one over the top. Just a great recording.



For the record: I do not officially know that Maria Schneider and her orchestra have NOT done numbers 2, 6, and 9."