Hendrix: Purple Haze

A curious CD, for the silly season. Founded a few years ago on the initiative of five musicians rather bored by the usual daily routine, this ensemble resolved to fight against the irresistible torpor which rules over concert halls. Right from the first concerts (if we exclude the volley of stones of March 2004 and the hail of vegetables and over-ripe fruit on the occasion of a concert in Borgnasco in June last year), audiences have shown their appreciation for the performances of the five shady characters.The choice of programme, which ranges from New Age to refined classical, incursions into Afro Tribal Jazz and cerebral Neuro Swing, ensures a programmatic variety that can only satisfy all palates, from the refined to the boorish, in a mystical universal communion which makes every concert a miracle of ecumenical cosmopolitan harmony. Don’t be put off: this disc is tremendous fun and the Quintet play their socks off.

Past Future – for the first time a record featuring the electric bass as solo instrument with symphony orchestra. Magnus Rosén is a former member of multi-platinum and award winning heavymetal act Hammerfall, but has in later years pursued a career as an electric-bass soloist. On this his first album with a symphony orchestra, both Magnus’ own compositions as well as music written and arranged especially for this unusual combination are performed.

It is a monumental task to interpret the music of Jimi Hendrix on the flute. The incredible flute virtuoso Robert Dick has managed to do it with ease, finesse, and soul. There is almost no sound that he cannot create on the flute with his amazing technique. Chords, slides, colors, drum and bass sounds, all had to be created acoustically. There are no electronically altered flute sounds on this recording.

This recording represents a statement that Robert Dick has long dreamed of making. Like many people, musicians and nonmusicians alike, he has been inspired, provoked, moved, and challenged by the work of Jimi Hendrix. In the 1970s, inspired by Hendrix’s sound-world, Robert Dick spent countless hours experimenting with the flute and discovering thousands of new sounds. The traditional limitations of the flute-playing only single, chromatic notes with a more of less “sweet” quality-had become unbearable. Many musicians of Robert Dick’s generation, furthermore, share a belief that any instrument can perform any musical role. Fueled by the study of electronic music, world music, and John Cage’s aesthetic that anything can be heard as music, he formed his concepts of the flute.

This CD presents four original arrangements of classic Hendrix tracks: Third Stone From The Sun, Pali Gap, Purple Haze, and Voodoo Child (Slight Return). The other three tracks are original composistions written by Robert Dick, derived from other Hendrix tracks. Greenhouse is a blues that is directly descended from “Redhouse”It’s Still Like It Wouldn’t Be Yesterday, is an episodic work for overdubbed flutes. Hendrix’s atmospheric pieces, such as “Moon, Turn The Tides...gently, gently, away” or “Electric Ladyland” are the inspiration here. Tycho composed together with Dave Soldier, (featuring The Soldier String Quartet) uses the guitar coda of “Castles Made of Sand” in a totally transfigured way.