Tone Poets
|
Our Price: $20.98 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $8.50 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Tone Poets
Free Music Review: Super collection : )
Hit: 5 Stars
I am so glad I bought this CD set. The best mandolin and guitar players with new songs
I've never heard them play before. Excellent music and high quality sound. I love David Grisman for
bringing so much great music into my life. He is the best, and so are all these musicians he brought into this
great collection.
Free Music Review: It has its moments but its no Tone Poems or Tone Poems 3
Hit: 3 Stars
I was enthused about this at the time of release but having owned it since Christmas 2005 I think it suffers from too many cooks in the kitchen. I don't think some of these people should have been on here as "tone poets" to begin with. David Bromberg, I'm looking at you. His duo track is painfully trite. A Grade-A example why fewer people, each playing more tracks, would have been better. John Reischman and Jim Nunally's duo track is beautiful. Gorgeous tone from both of them, and a great little melody. It's a shame they only got the same amount of disc time as Bromberg's wieney-toned exercise in sterile blues cliches.
Having said this, obviously there are some very nice tracks on here. Eva Scow (mandolin) and Carlos Oliviera's (guitar) Brazillian duo track is a highlight. She is an excellent find and I really hope I get to hear alot more of her in the future. I listen to Mike Seeger more often than Jody Stecher but Jody is the star of their 2 duo tracks, both of which I enjoy.
Bob Brozman's track is one of the more interesting tracks here if, like me, you're a big fan of him. It's actually just a so-so track made interesting by the fact that this is the sort of tune he'd play on a National. It really shows just how much smaller the range of this Martin is, as compared to the incredible, dynamic Nationals on which he'd normally play this tune.
Jerry Douglas' plays a beauty of a Down in the Willow Garden. Jim Hurst's solo track is also a real winner. Mike Compton's is nice but ultimately it's just a teaser for the recent Acoustic Disc album you really need, Mike Compton & David Long's Stomp.
I haven't counted the minutes but I feel confident that all the stuff on here I really love could have fit on 1 disc. Still, Carlo Aonzo, Mike Marshall, Mike Compton, Jerry Douglas, Jim Hurst, O'Brien & Sutton, John Reischman & Jim Nunally, Eva Scow & Carlos Oliviera, Chris Thile, Bush & Lawrence... 2 discs full of them could have been fantastic. More Grisman of course also, and Brozman is truly one of the greats but once you know him on Nationals and Bear Creek Weissenborn-types, etc... it's rather anti-climactic hearing him hog-tied by this Martin.
As much as I love the Acoustic Disc label, this set pretty much follows their trend of the past couple years in oftentimes making me continue to wish, hope and pray that their next release will finally be the Carlo Aonzo solo disc and/or the new Andy Statman & Grisman "Songs of Our Fathers, Vol. 2" type of album. Or my long hoped for Tone Poems disc(s) of banjos (Mike Seeger) & mandocellos/mandolas (Grisman).
Free Music Review: A great addition to the series
Hit: 5 Stars
I love Tone Poems I, II, and III. Tone Poets is a great
addition to this series of acoustic music. The solos are
lovely, and the duets are truly spectacular. I really love
this kind of music -- timeless songs, unamplified. I can
feel a connection with the musicians as they play.
Free Music Review: the Dawg is back on top
Hit: 5 Stars
In previous reviews I was a tad tough on the old Dawg for the Tone Poem projects, especially Tone Poems III, which I still think is a complete bore. (I say that about number 3 even though I love resophonic playing; I even own and regularly play a National mandolin.) I've grown to love Tone Poems I, however, mainly because I discovered the accompanying Mel Bay sheet music and have spent many hours strumming the tunes. (I'm now using Tone Poems III to level the legs of my desk, and I haven't purchased or heard Poems II and so can't comment on it.)
Tone Poets, however, is spot on the money. The tunes are varied and wonderful, and of course the mucisianship is first rate. (I never questioned the talent on the Tone Poem recordings; many of the tunes just put me to sleep, but that's just my taste in music.)
There's no need for lengthy comments on this one. If you love good pickin', buy Tone Poets. You won't go wrong.
Free Music Review: Creative artistry at its very best
Hit: 5 Stars
CD1 Solos (57:37), CD2 Duos (57:31) -- Good tone is all about what sounds good to one's ears and when the instrument sounds full with plenty of depth in the notes. They ring out in clarion fashion and sustain. An instrument's player and their technique determine tone, but the instrument must be reasonably well-made also. Hearing good tone is a rather subjective exercise because people hear tone differently. One musician's priorities may be different than another's. Sounding nice should be the main objective and not necessarily playing a lot of notes or technically challenging material. As an experiment to investigate tone, David Grisman assembled a number of gifted musical poets able to express beautiful and lyrical music. What a great idea that both titillates and stimulates our aural sense. The lean arrangements result in splendid clarity on an entire body of music that is both relaxing and ethereal largely because tone is often best captured and demonstrated in slower selections.
The 2-CD set features a stellar cast of mandolinists and guitarists who all performed and recorded over a 4-year period on the same vintage 1922 Gibson "Lloyd Loar" F-5 mandolin and 1933 Martin OM-45 guitar. The mandolin is affectionately nicknamed "Crusher," and the orchestra model guitar was produced for only five years in the 1930s and was chosen for its ringing treble. The same microphones were also used (Neumann KM-84s for the mandolin; Neumann KM-84 and KM-85 for the guitar), and recording was done directly to the same ?" 2-track analog Ampex ATR-100 tape recorder. No equalization was added during recording. Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes both used a metal nut to temporarily convert the OM-45 to a slide guitar. Tone Poets is a continuation of the Acoustic Disc label's successful Tone Poems projects that explored the unique relationship between musician and instrument.
Besides Dawg himself, the contributing tone poets (42 altogether) include David Bromberg, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, John Jorgenson, Mike Marshall, Ronnie & Del McCoury, Tony Rice, Andy Statman, Bryan Sutton, Tim O'Brien, Frank Vignola, Chris Thile, Don Stiernberg and Frank Wakefield. I was a little sad to see only one woman (17-year-old Eva Scow) included, but she wasn't the youngest player invited to participate. That honor goes to 16-year-old mandolin prodigy Jacob Henry Jolliff of Forest Grove, Or.
As Grisman offers in the liner notes of the 28-page well-illustrated CD booklet, "It ain't the car, it's the driver!" Disc one alternates solo mandolin and guitar pieces. What is so exhilarating is that each player's techniques (whether using flatpick, fingerpicks, duo stylings, slides or bare fingers, standard or alternate tunings) are a sheer treat to experience by these masters. Multiple genres of music are also represented in the pieces chosen. There is classical, bluegrass, blues, jazz, gypsy jazz, hymns, traditional folk, Brazilian, and new acoustic. I am reluctant to pick a few favorite selections because every single one demonstrates penetrating virtuosity and innovation. The 15 duos on disc two range from Tim O'Brien and Bryan Sutton playing "You Are My Flower" to David Grisman and Tony Rice closing nearly an hour later with a 7-minute rendition of "Blues for Vassar." Tone Poets is creative artistry at its very best. As with an earlier Tone Poem project, I wonder if a companion book of music and/or tablature for the Tone Poets project would be possible. I'd love to hear another volume in the Tone Poets series, and it could even include one disc of trios and one of quartets. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)
More Free Music Notes:
1 2
1 2