Amparo - Dark Publications

Location: Home » music » General » Amparo

Similar Items:

•	Energy
•	Songs of Joy & Peace
•	Covers
•	Here and Gone
•	The Spice of Life

Editorial Reviews:

Album Description
AMPARO: Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin with special guest stars; Joshua Bell, Chris Botti, Renee Fleming and James Taylor. Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin are two legendary musicians primarily known for their work in jazz but also known by a broader musical community in classical crossover, film scores, instrumental and adult music. Recognized both as composers and players, they are artists with strong name recognition. AMPARO has them together again after eight years for a sequel to their Two Worlds album. Like Two Worlds; AMPARO brings music from different areas together. In AMPARO's case music from South America, classical, vocal and jazz. Ultimately, it continues to celebrate their love of music in all its forms. A romantic and rhythmic mix of timeless melodies from Classical and South American music.

Album Description
Amaparo is a romantic and rhythmic mix of timeless melodies from Classical and South American music. Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin are two legendary musicians primarily known for their work in Jazz but also known by a broader musical community in Classical crossover, film scores, instrumental and adult music. Guest stars that include Joshua Bell, Chris Botti, Renee Fleming and James Taylor. Recognized both as composers and players, they are artists with strong name recognition. Amparo has them together again after eight years for a sequel to their Two Worlds album. Amparo brings music from different areas together such as music from South America, Classical, Vocal and Jazz. Ultimately, it continues to celebrate their love of music in all its forms.

Customer Reviews: Read 90 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Amparo: Ritenour, Grusin, Guests: Fun, Witty, Relaxed, Art-Music Inspired August 27, 2008
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

In this album jazz players Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin are joined by various musical guests. These include singer James Taylor, jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, and a couple of friends from western classical art music, the violinist Joshua Bell, with Renee Fleming adding her own special touches.

At first uneasy glance, this disc looks like one of those cross-over repertoire efforts, geared up by the marketing department as much as by the musicians involved. But wait, do not dismiss the slightly odd mix out of hand.

Inspired by western classical art music, Ritenour-Grusin-and-company offer up their takes on famous melodies most listeners who go to classical concerts will probably recognize. Faure's Pavane gets turned into a floating melismatic vocalise - think Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasilieras maybe? - with Renee Fleming deftly avoiding the temptations to make it too operatic or too arch. You may or may not be all that vocally convinced by Ms. Fleming's oblique momentary slides into something closer to Ella Fitzgerald than to Renata Tebaldi. Then later Ms Fleming reappears, all gussied up in something way closer to a baroque duet with Chris Botti on trumpet. But hey, it is really all in good fun. The western classical composers in France were actually more musically interested in jazz than not. (You have already checked out Ravel, Gershwin, Copland?) So when a Satie Gymopedie pops up later in the disc, the listener is not going to be all surprised. And even from the earliest polyphonists, folk and popular musical influences were cross-fertilizing western art music, else why would Pierre de la Rue, Josquin Desprez, and Okeghem have all weaved L'homme arme into their masses?

The fusion of James Taylor's folk-country homespun directness at first note sounds outlandish, a stretch too far, but by the end of the cut, the superficial shock is gone, and all that lingers in the air is a surprising amount of suprisingly unhackneyed musical enjoyment. Yes, fun, plus. Renee Flemings jazzily set baroque duo has similar impact - at first outlandish, then all too quickly settled and transformed into music artfully less than solemn art.

Textures vary quite a bit, now leaning towards more elaborate larger ensemble settings with a halo of strings at least suggestive of western classical orchestral origins, now dropping back to something like a jazz quintet augmented or not in passing, with plenty of flexible open space for the guests to breathe a bit.

Is this disc an example of path-breaking jazz to turn the jazz planet all topsy-turvy? I think not. Yet many listeneres will still hear something way more than the simplest, blandest background musical soundtrack to a mellow evening, I am willing to bet.

Cuddle up with somebody you like, even if that is only yourself at the moment. Open a special bottle of this or that or the other thing. Sips, not gulps. You have been taking yourself or somebody else or some problem of life or work, way too seriously of late, no? This album may gently help you let go of all those silly attitudes, silly pressures, silly solemnities. Just ease out of being so strictly self-important.

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent outing from two great musicians, plus... August 26, 2008
8 out of 11 found this review helpful

I already have many Lee Ritenour and Dave Grusin solo albums, so getting this was a no-brainer. I normally love music from these guys anyway, but this collaborative effort - including some other remarkable performers - is really wonderful. I'm listening to it again as I write this and am having trouble concentrating on writing - the music keeps drawing me in and I end up just sitting here enthralled. This is different than either the usual Ritenour or Grusin jazz album. It contains flavors of several types of music all held together by the familiar handiwork of these two legends. James Taylor does a surprising job singing a Renaissance inspired piece that's one of my favorites on the cd. The only piece I don't find that appealing is the opera-esque one sung by Renee Fleming. It's not that it's bad, or badly done. In fact, it's quite well-done - she's an amazing singer. However, the style simply doesn't fit as well with the rest of the album as the other pieces. Other than that one mis-step, which is the last piece on the cd, this is one of the best recordings I've heard in the last few years. I'd write a longer review, but I want to get back to listening. I'd recommend you buy this cd and do the same.

4 out of 5 stars

Fairly Good Ambiance Music for Work, Home, and/or Pleasure August 27, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

As more of a casual music lover than a die hard critic I prefer to rip CDs and play them in the background as a large play list rather than analyze them like a critic you'd see on the show Frasier. That said, I am nowhere near qualified to critique X octaves used in Y song akin to artist Z as opposed to artist A who did it back in the day. To me, music is meant to sooth the savage beast either during the hard day or after it; as a graduate student slowly progressing on my thesis, I like any easy listening that caresses the senses but not putting me to sleep.

I obtained this mix believing a nice jazz or classical ensemble might help me pour the midnight oil and increase productivity. After integrating this CD into my easy listening play list and working I am fairly satisfied with my acquisition of this mix.

The instrumental mixes such as track 1-3 and "English Folk Song Suite" (track 5) were especially nice relaxation pieces although they differ greatly in terms of style. 1-3 were more jazz and (dare I say) seemingly tango mixes that would be better suited for a jazz club or cocktail party rather than a concert hall. Nonetheless, they made it into my final mix. Meanwhile, "Pavane, Op. 50" (track 4) was an opera mix that seemed too... it reminded me of the opera scene from The Fifth Element in terms of pitch and musical accompaniment. It's not bad but the opera voice seemed too distracting to be adequate background noise.

James Taylor has a good voice but track 6 seemed to be the tolken vocal track (aside from the two opera tracks), creating an inconsistency in the flow of the CD. The opera singers are talented, but it didn't seem to fit well with the other 80% of the CD. Furthermore, track 12 seems to be missing from my copy so I cannot comment on that one.

All in all, this mix is a potpourri of different style from classical, opera, jazz and folk music. It's a novel idea, but the style contrast so differently to make it nearly impossible to classify the genre of the CD other than "instrumental" when there are two opera tracks and one vocal. This also makes it impossible to be a mix for one particular mood as you have to mix and match the songs to match each setting. While I backed up the entire CD, only a handful made it into my easy listening mix due to the sharp contrasts in style.

All in all, this is a worthy investment but it should be dissected into different play lists given the diverse nature of the mix.

3 out of 5 stars

Feels like shuffle play, could have been so much better. September 5, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful

While I was listening to this cd my husband was reading the paper. Suddenly he turned to me and said "Will you please take the cd player off shuffle play? It is driving me nuts".

That sums up this recording. The transitions are jarring and it feels overproduced. The music lurches from the sort of thing you hear when shopping at an upscale mall to full blown opera then to Renaissance fair music and the intensity changes too quickly. I kept feeling like I needed to adjust the volume on the player.

I must own a dozen CDs and DVDs by Renee Fleming and this music did not do her justice. If you hear her (and see her) for example in La Traviata you will notice her voice has a depth that is not captured on this album. Here she often sounds reedy and shrill.

I did enjoy Track 10 "Adagio in G Minor" with Chris Botti, although this would not be my favorite rendition of the piece.

Some of the pieces individually would make great background music for home produced videos (when you want something in the background to tie things together but not so stirring that it overshadows the video).

With the people they had to work with I expected more. Perhaps they simply tried to cover too many bases.

3 out of 5 stars

strictly for relaxation August 28, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

"Amparo" is an album full of slick, film-studio style orchestral arrangements of light classical pieces ( Handel, Faure, etc ) along with a few Latin-tinged original numbers, integrated with reverberant piano accompaniment (Dave Grusin) and minimalistic nylon-string guitar punctuations (Lee Ritenour).

Listening a few times to these not all together unpleasant lollipops, one gets the firm impression that this project ( a follow-up to "Two Worlds" ) was borne primarily of marketing considerations, with the ever-predictable roster of guest artists ( in this case: James Taylor, Renee Fleming, et al ) lending their names as well as their talents to the proceedings. As full disclosure I should mention my distaste for this kind of record; among other things, its selective focus on ( and isolation of ) particular musical moods is just not my cup of tea. However, "Amparo" was certainly never intended to make any big artistic statement; the musicians are good and the result will be satisfying to those who want to end a stressful work day with music that won't tax their system. It should also function well as a more elevated type of "shopping background" in certain retail locations.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic