A Clear Midnight: Kurt Weill and America

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Release Date: 9th Mar 2015
Catalogue No: 4709276
Label: ECM
Length: 67 minutes

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Weill, K: Moritat von Mackie Messer (from The Threepenny Opera)

Work length4:28

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: Alabama Song (from Mahagonny)

Work length4:02

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: Your Technique

Work length4:48

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: September Song

Work length6:46

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: This is new

Work length5:27

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: River Chanty

Work length4:44

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Julia Hülsmann: A Clear Midnight

Work length5:45

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Heinrich Köbberling (drums), Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Julia Hülsmann: A Noisless Patient Spider

Work length7:00

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Julia Hülsmann: Beat! Beat! Drums!

Work length4:15

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: Little Tin God

Work length6:34

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: Speak low

Work length8:46

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Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

Weill, K: Great Big Sky

Work length4:46

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Julia Hülsmann Quartet, Theo Bleckmann, Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)
Recorded: 2014-06-16
Recording Venue: Rainbow Studio, Oslo

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Pianist Julia Hülsmann and singer Theo Bleckmann, in a first - and long-awaited - collaborative recording, celebrate the "unsung Weill" alongside the master's best-loved works including Mack The Knife, Speak Low and September Song.

Bleckmann's intimate delivery, Hülsmann's sense for the bare-boned ballad, and the discreet arrangements put a well-deserved focus on the lyrics, including the very fine song texts of Langston Hughes, Ogden Nash, Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin and Ann Ronnell - as well as Marc Blitzstein's brilliantly-vivid adaptation of Brecht, which gave Mack The Knife immortality. "The emphasis on slow tempos was made almost intuitively," says Hülsmann. "These wonderful lyrics seem to me to demand that you give them space - and give the listener time to really follow the words".

The project, which also adds Julia's settings of Walt Whitman, with whom Kurt Weill felt an affinity, came together at the instigation of the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau in 2013. Since then it has gained new life on the road and been fine-tuned in this studio recording made in Oslo in June 2014 with Manfred Eicher as producer. It marks a musical advance for the Hülsmann group at a number of levels, and these recastings of Weill open up new imaginative possibilities for the players.

English trumpeter and flugelhornist Tom Arthurs, who made his debut with Hülsmann on 'In Full View' is fully integrated on 'A Clear Midnight'. Often his trumpet doubles or underpins Bleckmann's singing, giving a new colour to the vocals. As for Theo Bleckmann, this is the sensitive vocalist's first ECM appearance as jazz singer, although he has recorded twice for the label as a member of the Meredith Monk ensemble on 'Mercy' and 'Impermanence'.

Personnel: Theo Bleckmann (vocals), Julia Hülsmann (piano), Tom Arthurs (trumpet, flugelhorn), Marc Muellbauer (double bass), Heinrich Köbberling (drums)

A Clear Midnight: Kurt Weill and America

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