Format Details: Triple CD Jewel Case
Release Date: 26 March 2001
Label: Vanguard
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 3
Barcode: 090204994885
Genres: R&B Avant-garde
Description
Without a ship Columbus could not have traversed the Atlantic, without a telescope Galileo could not have charted the solar system, and what the MOOG SYNTHESISER opens up for the future of music is beyond dreams. This euphoric proclamation was originally published on the back cover of Moog Indigo by Jean Jacques Perrey (released on Vanguard in 1970). Our story begins however in Bochum, Germany in 1923 - with the birth of a young musical prodigy Gershon Kingsley. After promising early musical experiments, Gershon was forced to flee Germany as a refugee from Nazi persecution. Emigrating first to Israel and then, following World War II, to America where he studied music at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. After graduation Kingsley moved to New York in the mid-50s, where he conducted pit orchestras for Broadway shows. This drew the attention of legendary producer David Merrick who engaged Kingsley's services as musical director for his 1958 show, The Entertainer, (which starred Laurence Olivier). While working in musical theatre Kingsley performed concerts with avant-garde composer John Cage and was among the earliest musicians to investigate the Moog synthesiser. Accepting a position as staff arranger at Vanguard Records, (working on albums of Greek and Israeli folk music), he first encountered a French keyboard prodigy names Jean Jacques Perrey in 1964... Born to music loving parents in northern France in 1929, Jean Jacques Perrey had played accordion since the age of four, an interest that he would later describe as [becoming] possessed by a 'little demon of music.' Perrey aspired to become a physician, but abandoned his initial career path in order to pursue musical opportunities. Critical to this decision was his encounter with Georges Jenny in 1952 while Perrey was still studying medicine. Jenny was the inventor of a rudimentary form of synthesiser known as the Ondioline, a vacuum tube instrument that he first developed in 1938. It was controlled by an eight-octave keyboard much like that of an organ or piano, and was capable of simulating conventional instrument sounds (such as violin or flute) which could be further nuanced with vibrato by horizontal movement of the player's fingers on the keyboard. In 1958 the Ondioline was played atop the Atomium building during the Brussels World Fair. Jean Jacques Perrey quickly made the Ondioline his instrument of choice. He perfected a two-handed performance style where the young Frenchman would block the chords of a piece with his left hand on the piano while sketching an ethereal melody with the Ondioline (or Pianoline as it was known) with his right hand. Perrey's devotion to Georges Jenny's brainchild didn't escape the Inventor's notice-.-Jenny hired Perrey as a salesman and Ondionline demonstrator. Perrey's good-humoured electronic recitals also caught the ear of other notables in the French entertainment world including Charles Trenet, Jean Cocteau and Edith Piaf - who financed and prod
Tracklisting
Various
The Greenbriar Boys
The Country Gentlemen
Skip James
Skip James
Sandy Bull
Ruby Braff/Ellis Larkins
Ruby Braff
Perrey/Kingsley
Jean Jacques Perrey
Mnemonists
Bob Drake
Matthew Shipp & William Parker Duo
Keith Jarrett
Jeff Herr; Maxime Bender; Pol Belardi
Steve Lacy
