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CD Reviews: Panos Vassilopoulos, “The Acoustic Sessions” DVD/CD Set
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Posted by: editoron Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 09:08 AM |
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By: Edward Blanco
Panos Vassilopoulos is one of Europe's most respected drummers and producers with a history of producing educational drumming DVDs such as “Ostinato and Polyrhythms” and “A Step Further.” With this new project, Vassilopoulos marks a new course in his series of DVDs capturing a high-octane performance from his trio and guest vocalist that's far more than educational, it's down right electrifying, entertaining and extremely infectious. Filmed in high definition at one of Athens' top recording studios, “The Acoustic Sessions” takes the best of a twelve-hour recording session, filmed with four high-definition cameras from all angles, and records the group's creative interpretations of classic standards like “Autumn Leaves,”Cole Porter's “I Love You,” Horace Silver's “Nica's Dream” and Van Heusen's “Darn That Dream” to name a few.
The other tunes found on this musical landscape are “Open Invitation,” a blistering read of Kenny Dorham's “Blue Bossa ,“ “Interplay,” essentially a brief intimate duet between the drummer an d the sound design engineer, Nick Papadopoulos and last but not least, there is a stunning play on the Bronislaw Kaper/Ned Washington tune “On Green Dolphin Street,”which was omitted from the DVD/CD cover and inner liner notes in the first promotional printing though it is included in the video and on the CD where the duet “Interplay” is left off also by accident. This is being corrected for the sale copies and second printing of the DVD/CD. But for these unfortunate glitches, “The Acoustic Sessions” can be considered one of the best performance from a standard piano trio one will ever experience—bar none!
Rounding out the cast of The Acoustic Sessions Trio are young bassist Pericles Trivolis and pianist Costa Anadiotis who plays like a wild man on the keys providing one phenomenal performance after another and guest vocalist Alaxandra Pashali who appears on “Darn That Dream,” and “Open Invitation.” The entire crew hails from Athens, Greece and may not be familiar to American audiences but are seemingly poised to change that in a big way with the release of this stellar project.
On the opening “Autumn Leaves” the pianist begins with a fast-paced introduction viewed from all sides including top camera shots of the pianist's fingers on the keys then draw ing back to capture glimpses from the studio showing the drummer looking at Costa with approval as he steers the sticks on the cowhide, the rims and creates crashing cymbal accents. The music is terrific, played with a lot of heat and generating a delicious Latin jazz texture. On “Nica's Dream,” inspired by an Oscar Peterson arrangement, has the drummer manning the red-colored brushes against the glaring flashing red lights of the studio background, then returns on the sticks delivering a steamy drum solo.
The beautiful Alaxandra Pashali joins the trio on “Darn That Dream” and “Open Invitation,”singing from another room separated with a glass window where she can see the others. The camera provides close ups of the lady and pans back at times to reveal Nick Papadopoulos, the engineer, on the mixers directing the vibrant sounds from the group on both of these tunes.
The signature piece of this project has to be “Blue Bossa” where Vassilopoulos displays his enormous chops on the drums providing an explosive performance almost in hyper mode beginning with a strong introduction, hitting the rims almost as much as the drums and splashing the cymbals with firmness. The other outstanding performance of the session has to be the incredible playing from pianist Costa who goes on a tare and let's it all hang out on the most energizing performance of all. Captured on the video, you will see camera shots of both the drummer and pianist playing as if they were side by side showing the intense play from both, a magical moment for sure.
Last on the video, not found on the CD, is an intimate duet where the drummer and engineer get together on a brief number blending the drummer's performance with his hands, the brushes and mallets with some interesting computer-generated sounds produced by Papadopoulos to complete a marvelous session of jazz. With “The Acoustic Sessions,” Panos Vassilopoulos has produced one of the finest recordings of jazz standards ever captured on film performed by one of the best traditional piano trios you may have never heard of before, highly recommended.
Year : 2009
Label: Self Published
Artist Web: www.panosonline.com
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