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Featured Release Danilo Perez

Title: Across The Crystal Sea

About: In reflecting on his latest CD, the lyrical and lushly orchestral Across the Crystal Sea, pianist Danilo Perez says it was not only the biggest challenge of his career, but also one of his highlights. Arranged and conducted by Claus Ogerman and produced by Tommy LiPuma, the album features a jazz trio of bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash, augmented by percussionist Luis Quintero and vocalist Cassandra Wilson singing on two tracks, as well as a full orchestra. Except for two standards given new life, the music consists of Ogerman material: an impressionistic original composition ("Another Autumn") and five pieces based on the works of such classical composers as Manuel DeFalla, Hugo Distler, Jules Massanet, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Jean Sibelius.

"This was a big test for me," says Perez, the Panama-born, Boston-based pianist who has been a member of Wayne Shorter's quartet for several years. "My experience with Wayne taught me how to go to unknown places. But when it came to working with Claus, it was another kind of adventure where I was called upon to touch the lyrical side of my playing. Claus is a master of colors. As the musical director, he provided me with both a story and a landscape, and then told me, 'I want you to paint.'"Renowned for his orchestral brilliance in working with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Frank Sinatra, Bill Evans, George Benson, Michael Brecker and Diana Krall, among others, Ogerman is both a master storyteller and a profound teacher, says Perez. "Claus taught me a lot, just in the way that he hears music and connects it to his life experience. He's a wonderful coach who knows how to get the best out of you."

Composers:

Artist(s): Claus Ogerman , Cassandra Wilson , Danilo Perez

Label: (P) 2008 Emarcy Records Inc.

Catalogue Number: 1764821

£7.90