Iiro Rantala & Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie - Playing Gershwin (CD)

Release Date: 01/30/20A magnificent piece of work by one of the leading contemporary jazz pianists in Europe. Jazz Views (GB)Pianist Rantala teams up with The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, one of the world's leading chamber orchestras. The album begins with 'Rhapsody in Blue'. This is a performance with a particular freshness about it, not least because Rantala takes the fully through-composed piece and allows himself a few freedoms with it. For example, he inserts an improvisation based on a Cuban montuno into the final cadenza. Equally thrilling are the 16 minutes in which Rantala and The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen conducted by Jonathan Bloxham take us through the story of Gerswin's 'Porgy and Bess'. The fascinating interplay of keyboard and stringed instrument has also shaped Oliver Groenewald's orchestral arrangement in which we hear Gershwin's fabulous tunes, from 'Summertime' to 'It Ain't Necessarily So'. And there's more. Strictly speaking, the album should be call