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| New CD JUNITY Enters Top 15 of Jazz Charts Hendrik Meurkens & Misha Tsiganov's CD JUNITY, an album very different from Hendrik Meurkens' previous Brazilian-tinged releases, has been out for a couple of months and received great reviews and very strong airplay. The album features two settings - duo (harmonica/piano) and quartet (plus bass & drums, played by Oleg Osenkov and Willard Dyson). Arranged by Misha, the repertoire includes two Beatles songs, a Monk tune, some originals, a Jobim tune, an Etude by Scriabin, and more. The music is best described as Modern Chamber Music, and here the lyrical side of the harmonica comes to full shine. But it also features some up-tempo tunes, most notably Misha's arrangement of Pent-up House. Meurkens has nothing left to prove about his chops and abilities so he did the only thing a virtuoso harmonica player can do in that situation, he channeled his inner Toots Thielemans and let fly with a killer set of duo and quartet tracks...Utterly gorgeous playing that starts in jazz and proceeds to let the sky be the limit..Meurkens has really raised the bar here... - Chris Spector - Midwestrecord The majority of the duo material is extremely lyrical, projecting a sense of longing...Regardless of the mood, Junity does what it sets out do: it shines a light on the beautifully collaborative nature of the Meurkens -Tsiganov partnership. It's a match made in heaven. - Dan Bilawsky - AllAboutJazz.com Why is it that all the great jazz harmonica players - and I do mean all - have always been European? The greatest, of course, was the sublime Belgian Toots Thielmans. Not far behind, though, (is) the German-born Dutch musician Hendrik Meurkens...No American really comes anywhere close to them. This latest from Meurkens is one of his better discs...Their seven duo tracks are delicious. - Jeff Simon - Buffalonews.com Mr. Meurkens is a master of revelation. He has such superior breath control that he is capable of filling notes with such perfect pitch and absolutely precise timbre almost as if he designed the notes themselves. There are those who believe that Mr. Meurkens plays like a horn player. But he is actually one better than that. He plays as if he is singing an aria in an opera...Mr. Tsiganov fills his music with delightful motifs and surrounds these with brilliant melismas...This is a masterpiece of an album. - Raul da Gama - jazzdagama.com If you're a harmonica fan look no further than Junity from harmonica virtuoso Hendrik Meurkens and brilliant pianist Misha Tsiganov, who almost steals the show...There's a soiree atmosphere on all 13 tracks ...One can hear the respect they have for each other and for the music itself. The quartet livens things up on "Pent Up House" and "West Coast Blues" all in all, a little gem. - artlink.co.za write your comments about the article :: © 2014 Jazz News :: home page |