Uri Caine

Uri caine (2008)

Uri Caine (born June 8, 1956 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania) is an American musician ( piano , keyboard ) and composer who is at home in both jazz and classical music .

Life

Uri Caine comes from an intellectual Jewish family and went to schools with Hebrew as the language of instruction. This linguistic environment was also maintained by his parents, who made it a point to speak to him and his siblings in Hebrew. His father, Burton Caine, was a lawyer and then switched to teaching at Temple Law School (Philadelphia). His mother, Shulamith Wechter Caine, is a poet and teaches at the Drexel Institute (also Philadelphia).

Uri Caine began playing the piano at the age of seven, and when he was twelve he became a student of the French pianist Bernard Peiffer , who was in Philadelphia at the time, for four years . He then studied composition under George Rochberg and George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania , during which time he played in local jazz clubs. After graduating from high school, he traveled to Israel to see if he could imagine living there, but in the end he decided to go to the city because of the opportunities he had hoped for on the New York jazz scene and then played there with musicians such as Barry Altschul , Don Byron , Dave Douglas , Sam Rivers together.

Uri Caine has been married to the sculptor Jan Galperin since 1999, whom he has known since his student days.

Works

1985 Caine was on the album One Minute of Love the Rochester / Veasley band (u. A. With John Zorn and James Blood Ulmer ) made its debut in the recording studio. As a leader he recorded albums for JMT from 1993 and, after its closure, for the quasi-successor Winter & Winter . The recordings on the latter label, true to the label concept, show an extremely broad stylistic range. The following can still be clearly assigned:

Classic		Wagner e Venezia
jazz		Blue Wail , Solitaire , Live at the Village Vanguard
Tin Pan Alley		The Sidewalks of New York
Fusion / funk		Bedrock , shelf life
Latin		Rio

The most prominent works from Uri Caine's discography, however, are likely to be his deconstructions of important works by Johann Sebastian Bach ( Goldberg Variations ) and Gustav Mahler .

Work arrangements dedicated to Gustav Mahler and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Caines Mahler projects are a deconstruction of his compositions ( Urlicht / Primal Light and Gustav Mahler in Toblach ) or an approach to his work with his own compositions ( Dark Flame ).

Uri Caine Ensemble plays Mozart builds on this concept, well-known works by Mozart are "jazzed up" and underlaid with scratches . In addition to a number of other winter & winter musicians, Nguyên Lê is also represented on this album .

Johann Sebastian Bach - Goldberg Variations

On the “Goldberg Variations” project, only a small part comes from the original, while most of the titles are new compositions, mostly also called “Variations”, which stylistically wander between classical, jazz, klezmer , blues , Latin and electronica . 40 musicians and the Kettwig Bach Ensemble were involved in this work.

A disc jockey is represented in all of the projects dedicated to the aforementioned composers, DJ Olive .

Schumann, Beethoven, Wagner

• On Love Fugue , Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe cycle is adapted for the English singing of Mark Ledford (longtime singer of the Pat Metheny Group) and the spoken chant by David Moss . Poems by Uri Caine's mother, Julie Patton and Naoko Takahashi (the latter in Japanese ) will also be performed. Another part of the album includes the “Piano Quartet in E flat major, op. 47” recorded by the La Gaia Scienza chamber music ensemble and also by Schumann, the four parts of which are not arranged one behind the other, but are interspersed between the other titles. Since this composition takes up about 40% of the season, the album is managed as a joint effort by Caine and La Gaia Scienza .
• The Diabelli Variations adhere more closely to the template ( Ludwig van Beethoven's Diabelli Variations ) than the aforementioned crossover projects, but due to the jazz influence, there is still a conceptual similarity to these.
• Wagner e Venezia is Caine's work, which is true to the work; it adapts Richard Wagner's most famous works for an instrumentation the size of a coffee house orchestra. Here the crossover concept penetrates more in the details, for example in the line-up of the first violin by Mark Feldman , who like Uri Caine has a classical education, but can be found in the range from avant-garde to pop .

Due to the large number of his publications on JMT and Winter & Winter and the response they have found, Caine is one of the most famous musicians on his label. His JMT releases have since been re-released in the JMT edition of Winter & Winter remastered.

Important companions

Since the debut on JMT there has been a circle of musicians who have worked on several of Caine's projects:

Ralph Alessi ( trumpet ), Jim Black ( drums ), Don Byron ( clarinet ), Dave Douglas (trumpet, Strange Liberation , 2003), DJ Olive ( turntables ), Mark Feldman ( violin ), James Genus ( bass ), Drew Gress ( Bass ), David Gilmore ( electric guitar ), Chris Speed (clarinet)

With Tim Lefebvre (bass) and Zach Danziger (drums) he forms the trio "Bedrock".

Performances

• The Goldberg Variations by the Pennsylvania Ballet, choreographed by Val Caniparoli (2002)
• The Othello Syndrome at the Biennale di Venezia (October 2003)
• The Diabelli Variations with the Cleveland Orchestra (February 2004)

Awards and management positions

• International record award "Dobbiaco composing house" 1997 of the Gustav Mahler Music Weeks Toblach, special award (for the album Urlicht / Primal Light )
• Music director of the Venice Biennale 2003
• Echo Klassik-ohne-Grenzen-Preis 2007 for the album Uri Caine Ensemble plays Mozart
• ECHO Jazz in the category Instrumentalist of the Year for Plastic Temptations

Discography

At JMT	year	Remarks
Sphere Music	1993	Republished at Winter & Winter
Toys	1995	Republished at Winter & Winter
In winter & winter	year	Remarks
Urlicht / Primal Light	1997
Wagner e Venezia	1997	Live recording
Blue Wail	1998
Gustav Mahler in Toblach	1999	Live recording
The Sidewalks of New York - Tin Pan Alley	1999	Categorized under the title, not under "Uri Caine"
Robert Schumann / Love Fugue	2000	together with La Gaia Scienza
The Goldberg Variations	2000	Coproduction with the WDR
Rio	2001
Solitaire	2001
Bedrock	2001	As "Bedrock" with Tim Lefebvre and Zach Danziger
The Diabelli Variations	2002	Coproduction with the WDR
Dark Flame	2003
Live At The Village Vanguard	2004
Shelf life	2005	As "Bedrock" with Tim Lefebvre and Zach Danziger
Uri Caine Ensemble plays Mozart	2006
The Classical Variations	2007	Sampler with two unreleased titles
Othello Syndrome	2008	As "Uri Caine Ensemble"
Plastic temptation	2009	As "Bedrock" with Tim Lefebvre and Zach Danziger
Twelve caprices	2010	together with Arditti Quartet
Siren	2011	As "Uri Caine Trio" with John Hebert and Ben Perowsky
At Tzadik	year	Remarks
Moloch: Book of Angels Vol. 6	2007

Web links

• official website (English)
• Very detailed interviews on allaboutjazz.com, conducted in 2000 and 2006 (English)