Seven Japanese Tales is a suite of compositions inspired by the deeply lyrical and moving short stories of the great Japanese writer, Junichiro Tanizaki. The album explores bassist and composer Joe Downard’s interest in Japanese literature and features seven compositions, each named after one of the stories, bringing to life the narratives, characters, moods and dynamics through interweaving melodies, improvised passages, and lush soundscapes. The album features an augmented sextet lineup, including electronic elements and field recordings from Downard’s travels in Japan.

Horizontal is the latest in a decade long collaboration between Jim Kweskin and Samoa Wilson. The range of offerings, from tender ballads and raunchy blues to swinging jazz standards, reflects the restless and discerning nature of their musical explorations. Kweskin has been celebrated in his storied career for his love of a good tune as well as for bending and exploding accepted genres. He mentored Wilson throughout her early years. Together they played and sang the songs of the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, Bessie Smith, Mildred Bailey, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred Astaire, Grandpa Jones, and dozens more including many drawn from The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk music and other sources of traditional folk music, blues and early jazz.

ADOLF BARJANSKY was born in Odessa into a wealthy Russian-Jewish family, and received his musical education in Vienna, Paris and Leipzig, studying piano with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Judassohn. Barjansky composed relatively few works, but his highly attractive and original piano music reveals the influence of Schubert, Beethoven and Brahms with a wealth of Russian colour, as heard in the Fantasy Pieces. The 6 Piano Pieces are impressionistic and radiant, while the large-scale Piano Sonata No. 1 uses spatial sound as a principal means of expression, blending it with a highly modern simplicity and transparency of structure that anticipates 20th-century minimalism.