The O'Gallagher/Ovsepian duo "Nocturnal Prophecy" is a sonic adventure all about how one listens and responds to (not only) âwhatâ one hears, but also âhowâ (and from where) what one hears insinuates its own particular immediacy.

18 MP3 Songs in this album (57:36) !
Related styles: Jazz: Modern Free Jazz, Avant Garde: Free Improvisation, Type: Improvisational

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Nocturnal Prophecy-OâGallagher/Ovsepian

It seems unlikely that a Yerevan (Armenia), Spokane (Washington), Farmington (Maine) axis would figure prominently in the creation of Nocturnal Prophecy, the magnificent new Red Piano Records Release, featuring duets between the virtuoso Armenian born pianist Vardan Ovsepian, and a son of the American northwest, alto-saxophonist John OâGallagher... But it was, indeed, precisely that connection that led up to the meeting of these two remarkable musicians.
Farmington, ME is the long time home of the Maine Jazz Camp, a 2-3 week summer jazz institute for middle school and high school student musicians that emphasizes small group dynamics with a special concentration on improvisation studies.
Mr. Ovsepian and Mr. OâGallagher, both long-tenured teachers and ensemble directors at MJC, are two of an impressive cadre of innovative young jazz players who have spent numerous summer sessions over the past 34 years at the camp, including, among many others, Tony Malaby, Ethan Iverson, Ben Street, Jeff Coffin, Greg Tardy, Mike Sarin, Mike Formanek, George Garzone, Pete McCann, and Bill McHenry to name just few, a very few.
And so it was in this fertile musical environment (in the summer of 2004) that Mr. OâGallagher and Mr. Ovsepian first met and recognized their affinities and shared philosophical approaches to the improvisers art... and shortly thereafter asked camp director, Christine Correa, if they could reserve the campâs 2:00 p.m. slot, the jazz-literacy hour, to perform a concert of improvisations, their maiden voyage, so to speak, for the assembled campers and staff.
Ms. Correa agreed enthusiastically and the results were for all in attendance that July afternoon, thrilling, and set off a series of events that, 8 years later (at long last), have resulted in this amazing recording.
The CD whose overall title, and individual song titles are taken from the poem of the same name by the highly regarded Armenian poet Hamlet Ayvazian, is, among other aural delights, an exercise in generosity, with both musicians subordinating their individual brilliance to fulfill the duoâs uncannily prescient and precise give and take.
It is, ultimately, this sonic adventure, all about how one listens and responds to (not only) âwhatâ one hears, but also âhowâ (and from where) what one hears insinuates its own particular immediacy.
There is a kind of athleticism occurring between these two young masters that is both indisputably beautiful, as evidenced by its harmonic flexibility, purity and resilience of pitch and timbre, intellectual probity and emotional fearlessness, and bi-compositionally transcendent, as in how the interweaving ebb and flow of these two musicâs enhance and invigorate their respective release and realization,
Mr. Ayvazianâs words and emotional content are well served here, as Messrs. Ovsepian and OâGallagher flit and delve around and through the moods and meanings that inhabit Mr. Ayvazianâs poem.
Once again kudos to Red Piano Records, their corresponding generosity, for presenting these two great artists (in a most demanding (and most rewarding format)) to new audiences, new ears.