American Voices

• Main performer: Brian Sacaw
• Booklet languages: English
• Time: 65:39
• Release Date: 2007

Review

Brian Sacawa is a first-rate concert saxophonist who, though not yet 30 by August 2007, has risen to the top of his game. Sacawa is very plugged into the downtown New York arts/composers scene, collaborating with Hugh Sung, Eve Beglarian, Beata Moon, and his own group, Hybrid Groove Project, where he is joined by turntablist Erik Spangler. Yet that has not prevented him from appearing as a soloist with more ostentatious instrumental bodies such as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra or the U.S. Army Field Band. Innova's American Voices is Sacawa's first solo recital, and from the very beginning you can tell that variety and eclecticism are the rule of the day, as it shifts from the fluid modality of Philip Glass' early Piece in the Shape of a Square to the jagged, twisted fragments of Lee Hyla's Pre-Amnesia. Spangler is heard, along with that rare commodity in a classical work -- a drumbeat -- in "pastlife laptops and attic instruments," a good example of the kind of work Sacawa undertakes in Hybrid Groove Project. Sacawa is heard in a wide variety of contexts -- with pianist Wenli Zhou in Chris Theofanidis' Netherland, with electronic sounds in Derek Hurst's Bacchanalia Skiapodorum, with himself in Michael Gordon's gnomish The Low Quartet. Perhaps the most striking and challenging of the pieces here is Keeril Makan's Voice Within Voice, which more or less sidesteps the presence of the saxophone's reed and utilizes the instrument as a kind of amplifier for breath. Brian Sacawa's American Voices makes an excellent case for Sacawa's skill as a player, but it also provides insight to the wide variety of options that composers are making available to artists of his caliber and specially developed talents. Rest assured, with players like Brian Sacawa on the scene, guys like John Harle should be running scared. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis , Rovi

Performances

Composer	Title	Time
Philip Glass	Piece in the Shape of a Square, for 2 flutes	12:00
Lee Hyla	Pre-Amnesia, for saxophone & piano	2:17
Erik Spangler	Pastlife laptops and attic instruments, for saxophone, piano, turntables & electronics	13:48
Christopher Theofanidis	Netherland, for alto saxophone & piano	11:12
Derek Hurst	Bacchanalia Skiapodorum, for alto saxophone & electronic sound	9:08
Keeril Makan	Voice Within Voice, for saxophone & piano	8:55
Michael Gordon	The Low quartet	8:19

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