Jad&Den Jazz Quintet perform ELP, Yes, Queen

I made the most interesting musical discovery today, thanks to YouTube. The Jad&Den Quintet is a French jazz ensemble that appears to have a penchant for progressive rock music—they have a full concert posted on YouTube, and among the tracks performed are Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy," Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart," and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Their arrangements are imaginative, their performace exciting, and the cinematography artistic. The overall effect is quite astonishing.

Barock Project Revisited

When I first started this blog I wrote a post about one of my favorite new discoveries: the Italian band Barock Project. They have released two studio albums and will (hopefully) soon be releasing a DVD of a live performance featuring the band plus a string quartet (the video I posted previously is taken from this DVD). Their website also states that they are working on a new album.

The Barock Project is led by Luca Zabbini, who is also pianist and composer in residence at the "O.Vecchi" musical institute in Modena. I recently found this rough video of a rehearsal of Zabbini's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. It's not a very good recording, but you can still get a nice sample of Zabbini's playing and composition skills.



One of Zabbini's major influences is Keith Emerson. Here is a clip from a live performance of Emerson's Piano Concerto, rearranged for band and string quartet.



And I'll wrap it up with a video the band just posted a month ago.