Brad Terry & Joachim Mencel: “All About Spring”

(Art of Life AL1006-2)

Digital Downloads | About the Music | Liner Notes

Brad Terry: clarinet, whistling Joachim Mencel: piano CD $14.99 Free Worldwide Shipping Less than 5 copies left in stock. To purchase this CD using PayPal, please click the "Add To Cart" button below.

All Alone (by the telephone) Moon River (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi) You Must Believe In Spring Noble Accents (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi) Some Other Time Blue In Green (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi) Springtime Django (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi) Who Can I Turn To? Cry Me A River (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi) Blue Bossa Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi) Goodbye Love Like The Sea (Listen with Real Audio: lo-fi)

Digital Downloads {top}

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About the Music {top}

American clarinetist Brad Terry, born in 1937, is an established, even legendary artist, also admired for his unique ability to whistle Jazz. During his 30-year long career he scored many honors and successes, and so, universal admiration. He has played with scores of distinguished Jazzmen, notably Dizzy Gillespie, Lenny Breau, Roger Kellaway, Buck Clayton, Buddy Tate, Steve Swallow, and Red Mitchell. Brad is also an experienced, socially oriented Jazz educator, who has led workshops and clinics in many countries including Poland. Brad can also be heard with guitarist Lenny Breau on the two-CD set, "The Complete Living Room Tapes" Art of Life AL1004-2.

Joachim Mencel, born in 1966, a graduate of Katowice Academy of Music - Jazz Department, is one of the most subtle, rich sounding and creative young pianists on the Polish Jazz scene. The winner of International Competitions: Jazz Improvisation-Katowice '86, Jazz Pianists-Kalisz '91, he was also among the Thelonious Monk Competition finalists in Washington, D.C. '89 and participated in many important Jazz festivals. He performed as soloist at the famous clubs in England, Hungary, Germany and Denmark and has collaborated with such Jazzmen as Zbigniew Namyslowski, Janusz Muniak, Jarek Smietana, Dave Friedman, Charlie Mariano and Deborah Brown. On this CD, both partners, though separated by an age-gap, reach a deep, mutual understanding through their excellent skills and sensitivity, telling a story about Spring. In addition to several standards, there are also two compositions by Joachim.

Andrzej Schmidt

Liner Notes {top}

At first, when Joachim suggested that I should perhaps write something about this project, I was pleased and then overwhelmed. I couldn't imagine expressing all my feelings and emotions: the events, new found friends and expanded families, a crazy trip to Paris for a new mouth-piece, a "good hang" with my friend Krzysztof Klima, listening to Giora Feidman, Philippe Cuper, Anthony Pay, Guy Deplus going back to my first trip to Poland four years ago, thanks to Isi Rudnick. All this and more leads up to this recording. Putting it down in fewer pages than "War and Peace" is almost as impossible as learning Polish! In Joachim, I have found a friend and musical soulmate. He believes that Jazz can be pretty; it doesn't have to hit you over the head. It can be soft and subtle. I don't have to play a lot of notes, hopefully just a few right ones. Joachim seems to always find the right thing at the right time. He certainly can, but doesn't need to, arpeggiate chords at lightning speed. This is not a technical tour de force; more what I'd like to think of as a musical massage. We did this in one day of recording. Thanks to Edward Sosulski, our engineer, I think the sound quality is wonderful and really fits the mood of this music. Except for a few false starts (mostly due to my forgetting what I was doing) these are nearly all "first takes". Everywhere I go, people ask me, "Why do you come to Poland?" I smile and point to Joachim.

Brad Terry

Brad diffuses the peace. When he plays, he gives his whole heart to the music, and he is so serene. Our playing is a great pleasure for me - I assimilate not only the songs he "came with" ("All Alone", "Goodbye"), but his joyful peace that I can share when we play together. He taught me a lot. Thanks Brad! The idea of making this project appeared during the Small Academy of Jazz organized by Bogus Dziekanski who should be thanked for what he does. This album is dedicated to my wife Beata. Together with her I thank God for Spring and a New Life.

Joachim Mencel