Gabriel’s Message

Suite de Noël pour piano

2006

TCD19093

Matt Herskowitz

In nomination with the ADISQ2006 in the category Jazz interpretation

Classy, poetic and sometimes surreal, Gabriel's Message resurrects ten of the best known and most overplayed themes in western music, elsewhere flogged and left for dead by the usual Yuletide mercenaries. With this release, Matt Herskowitz has put the Easter back into Christmas.

When you first listen to it, it's like when people and things familiar from conscious life suddenly appear in the night, strangely reconstituted by the logic of dreams. It's a welcome reminder that the better part of your brain is in a constant state of improvisation. Gabriel's Message is the temporal equivalent of a moebius strip, where the single surface is both past and present. But if the music sometimes seems as old as it is new, whenever you're exploring one its darker, long-ago stretches, there's always a light up ahead so you can find your way back.

Contemporary and polished, Gabriel's Message is your best defence against the encroaching season. Enjoy it as much as I have.

D.L.