'Najara' introduces Personal Belongings by Omer Klein

Warner Music are to release Personal Belongings by pianist Omer Klein in the autumn and first stirrings from the album are heard on 'Najara,' a beautiful piano solo piece that introduces a dreamy taste of what to expect. Described as ''an …

Published: 11 Jun 2021. Updated: 2 years.

Warner Music are to release Personal Belongings by pianist Omer Klein in the autumn and first stirrings from the album are heard on 'Najara,' a beautiful piano solo piece that introduces a dreamy taste of what to expect.

Described as ''an evocation of the Jewish liturgical poet Israel Najara, whose poetry of longing inspired Klein to compose one of his most haunting themes'' the piece was recorded in the German city of Osnabrück towards the end of last year. Israel ben Moses Najara (1555-1625) was from a rabbinical family originally from Nájera in northern Spain. Klein's earlier work includes Warner releases Radio Mediteran (2019) and Sleepwalkers (2017).

Look for Personal Belongings in September

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Track of the day: Old Friends by the Anthony Braxton Standards Quartet

Inevitably it's back to Anthony Braxton and another track from the Braxton/Hawkins/Charles/Dakiz Davis box set, Paul Simon's 'Old Friends' in this case. Inevitably because what we have heard so far keeps us drifting back and more tunes are now …

Published: 10 Jun 2021. Updated: 2 years.

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Inevitably it's back to Anthony Braxton and another track from the Braxton/Hawkins/Charles/Dakiz Davis box set, Paul Simon's 'Old Friends' in this case. Inevitably because what we have heard so far keeps us drifting back and more tunes are now streaming in all beauty. It's moving hearing 'Old Friends'. Let's leave it at that, the highest. Makes you want to just sit and think hearing the track. We'll go back to the source and listen to Simon and Garfunkel as well.

On this new version Hawkins is pointillist so when as here you can jump the species from music to painting which is always an aspiration and rare and be, without being fanciful, like Seurat if the piece were a painting maybe, then there is a certain magic to cling on to as a parallel imagining as Braxton inflates the tear to be Rahsaan almost against the harmony and journeying beyond. Quartet Standards (2020) a 13-CD epic is to be released next week by New Braxton House Records. Ring the date in your diary.

More: the Peggy track

Background: from 2019

Dakiz: on touring with AB

Anthony Braxton photo: Peter Gannushkin