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Without Dimensions

Júlia Karosi ft. Ben Monder

Without Dimensions

Price: € 14.95
Format: CD
Label: Double Moon Records
UPC: 0608917137828
Catnr: DMCHR 71378
Release date: 02 October 2020
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Label
Double Moon Records
UPC
0608917137828
Catalogue number
DMCHR 71378
Release date
02 October 2020

"... Every title and every sung or played note seems like a special form of coming home..."

Jazzthing 02 03 2021, 25-1-2021
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Artist(s)
Composer(s)
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About the album

You could almost say it was in her blood. But vocalist Júlia Karosi definitely doesn't want to make it that easy for herself and those listening to her. Adapting the music of the two great Hungarian composers of new classical music, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, to the context of modern jazz is a Herculean task. With the help of American star guitarist Ben Monder – also an ardent Bartók fan – and an exquisite selection of inspired and virtuoso compatriots, Karosi masters this in a grandiose way.

“I have always wondered whether music belongs to one of the dimensions that is theorized in the standard model of modern physics. I gave my subjective answer in the title of this album: There isn't any. I believe that the obvious lack of dimensions in music is related to the fact that it can lift us into a sphere in which time and space no longer play a role.” The philosophical approach of Júlia Karosi is also derived from the search for traces that the singer embarks on in her fourth album together with star guest Ben Monder as well as her band with pianist Áron Tálas, bassist Ádám Bögöthy and drummer Bendegúz Varga. “Without Dimensions” is by no means limited as a blueprint of American jazz standards, but instead goes deep into the Hungarian soul. Like only a few other composers, Bartók and Kodály represent the musical evolution of their homeland, ranging from the hot-blooded, melancholic Csárdás to the cool, structured modernity of the two classical masters, seething more beneath the surface. “Bartók’s music is the cradle of all Hungarian musicians, a timeless inspiration and also the way to our roots,” Karosi stated, who, like most piano students, was confronted with the music of the great composer, pianist and music ethnologist at a young age in Budapest.

Bartók's microcosm gradually opened up to Júlia Karosi when she studied a six-volume collection of 153 progressive piano pieces during her studies. Later in high school, she came into contact with the works of Hungarian composers in an exclusively female, classical a-cappella group. Such a thing has a lasting impact. Even when Júlia Karosi switched to jazz, Bartók but also Kodály in spirit, had long since been her touchstones in music. That's why the 38-year-old chose “Without Dimensions” to present a dynamic program of newly transcribed vocal interpretations and vital original compositions, such as the title track, which is given a distinctive stamp by Ben Monder's guitar playing, easily identifiable at all times. The medley of Zoltán Kodály's Epigrams Numbers. 7 and 8 goes over into a spoken prologue to Bartók 's expressionist opera “Bluebeardʼs Castle”. The singer provides a proven example of the high art of vocal improvisation in her homage to Bartók in “Only From The Purest Source” as well as in his “Romanian Folk Dances”.

With some programmatic titles, Júlia Karosi also reflects on dramatic moments in her life. “Rebirth” is about the birth of her son, “Words and Beyond” is about a conflict between verbal and nonverbal expressions, and “Madeleine Moment” is about the writer Marcel Proust. Every song, every sung or played tone seems like an intense, elaborate digging for the truth, like a special form of coming home. And for Júlia Karosi, they are simply something close to her heart. “I am often surprised that I have internalized this music so much. It keeps gushing out of me completely unexpectedly.” As if it were an organic part of her. That's not the only reason why a jazz homage to her two heroes was literally inevitable for her. “I hope they don't mind.”
Júlia Karosi:

"Ich habe mich immer gefragt, ob Musik zu einer der Dimensionen gehört, wie sie im "Standardmodell" der modernen Physik theoretisiert wird. Meine subjektive Antwort fasste ich als Titel dieses Albums zusammen. Ich glaube, dass der offensichtliche Mangel an Dimensionen der Musik mit ihrer einzigartigen Fähigkeit zusammenhängt, uns Menschen in eine Sphäre der Existenz zu erheben, in der wir uns von Zeit und Raum nicht mehr bewusst sind. Ich glaube auch, dass diese zeitlosen Erfahrungen gewöhnlich mit bestimmten Ereignissen in unserem Leben verbunden sind, die uns oft in Unkenntnis ihrer Bedeutung erwischen - genau die Momente, die unser Leben lebenswert machen. Mit den programmatischen Titeln in meinen Originalkompositionen in diesem Album habe ich einige unvergessliche Momente in meinem eigenen Leben betrachtet. Rebirth reflektiert über die Geburt meines Sohnes, gefolgt von Insomnia (offensichtlich), Words andBeyond ist ein Konflikt zwischen verbalen und nonverbalen Ausdrucksformen. Madeleine Moment ist ein musikalisches Zitat von Marcel Prousts poetischer Beschreibung der unfreiwilligen Erinnerung in seinem Werk Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit. In diesem Album möchte ich zwei der größten ungarischen Komponisten des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts, Béla Bartók und Zoltán Kodály, mit Arrangements und Jazz-Transkriptionen ihrer Werke eine "Jazz-Hommage" zollen. Ich hoffe, sie haben nichts dagegen!"

Artist(s)

Ben Monder (guitar)

A musician in the New York area for 30 years, Ben Monder has performed with a wide variety of artists, including Jack McDuff, Marc Johnson, Lee Konitz, George Garzone, Paul Motian, Guillermo Klein, and Maria Schneider. He has conducted clinics and workshops around the world, and served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory from 2002-2005. He was also the recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award in 2014. Ben continues to perform original music internationally with his own quartet, trio, and in an ongoing duo project with vocalist Theo Bleckmann. He has appeared on over 130 CDs as a sideman, and has released 5 as a leader: Hydra (Sunnyside, 2013), Oceana (Sunnyside, 2005), Excavation (Arabesque, 2000), Dust (Arabesque,...
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A musician in the New York area for 30 years, Ben Monder has performed with a wide variety of artists, including Jack McDuff, Marc Johnson, Lee Konitz, George Garzone, Paul Motian, Guillermo Klein, and Maria Schneider. He has conducted clinics and workshops around the world, and served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory from 2002-2005. He was also the recipient of a Doris Duke Artist Award in 2014. Ben continues to perform original music internationally with his own quartet, trio, and in an ongoing duo project with vocalist Theo Bleckmann. He has appeared on over 130 CDs as a sideman, and has released 5 as a leader: Hydra (Sunnyside, 2013), Oceana (Sunnyside, 2005), Excavation (Arabesque, 2000), Dust (Arabesque, 1997), and Flux (Songlines,1995).

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Áron Tálas (piano)

Ádám Bögöthy (double bass)

Composer(s)

Béla Bartók

Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created...
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Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created his own musical idiom from folk music. Because of this, his composition style was flexible to other musical trends, without having to violate his own view points. For example, his two Violin sonates come close to Schoenberg's free expressionism, and after 1926 his music started to show neoclassicistic tendencies, comparable to Stravinsky's music. Bartók was not just interested in Hungarian folk music, but could appreciate musical folklore from all of the Balkan, Turkey and North-Africa as well.
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Press

... Every title and every sung or played note seems like a special form of coming home...
Jazzthing 02 03 2021, 25-1-2021

... Together with her Hungarian band and US guitarist Ben Monder as star guest, the charismatic singer creates a whole range of sounds and moods with her lyricless singing...
Bauer Medienhaus, 6 Newspaper area NRW, 17-11-2020

Júlia Karosi's "Without Dimensions" bridges classical and jazz and seeks to transcend the physical dimensions with the musical in time and space.
Jazzhalo, 09-11-2020

... Likewise in the piece "Mikrokosmos IV, No. 113", which Karosi sings in a rousing manner and to which Monder adds the icing on the cake with a solo full of dramatic climaxes... She does this splendidly and thus shows how fruitful the integration of Bartok's music into jazz can be.
Jazzpodium 3 4 2021

Play album Play album
01.
Without Dimensions
06:42
(Júlia Karosi) Bendegúz Varga, Ádám Bögöthy, Áron Tálas, Júlia Karosi, Ben Monder
02.
Rebirth
04:26
(Júlia Karosi) Bendegúz Varga, Ádám Bögöthy, Áron Tálas, Júlia Karosi, Ben Monder
03.
Epigrams No. 7, 8
07:10
(Zoltán Kodály) Áron Tálas, Júlia Karosi, Ben Monder, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
04.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle Prologue
02:14
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
05.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Mikrokosmos III, No. 92
04:10
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
06.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Romanian Folk Dances No. 3
01:15
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
07.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Outro For Romanian Folk Dances No. 3
02:18
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
08.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Sorrow
01:41
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
09.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Mikrokosmos IV, No. 115
01:23
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
10.
“Only from the purest source” Hommage á Béla Bartók: Mikrokosmos IV, No. 113
05:12
(Béla Bartók) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
11.
Insomnia
07:10
(Júlia Karosi) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
12.
Words and Beyond Part 1
03:40
(Júlia Karosi) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
13.
Words and Beyond Part 2
02:31
(Júlia Karosi) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
14.
Words and Beyond Part 3
03:05
(Júlia Karosi) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
15.
Madeleine Moment
05:31
(Júlia Karosi) Ben Monder, Júlia Karosi, Áron Tálas, Ádám Bögöthy, Bendegúz Varga
show all tracks

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