The July 11, 2024 episode of Spain's Universos Paralelos radio show was entirely devoted to my 2024 album releases. You can listen to the show here.
The following is a transcript of the July 11 2024 broadcast.
"(Dimension Scope Radius)
Welcome to this final program of season 29 of Parallel Universes. You are listening to us on the Onda Verde dial, on 107.9 FM in Madrid, also on radiopra.blogspot.com.es, from Nava, Asturias, the cider region, and of course you always have us on our blog and in our podcast at www.universos-paralelos.com. You know that you have us both among the news of the Esferajazz.com macro-platform, and in our own Telegram channel, to which you can subscribe completely free of charge and receive each week in your Telegram mailbox, both the blog entry with exhaustive information on what is playing and listening links to the recommended albums, as well as the program itself in high-quality MP3 format so you can download and enjoy it on your favorite device.
Today we have decided to end the season with a flourish in style. We are going to certainly exceed the sixty minutes that we have stipulated, because we want to explore in some depth the latest recordings of this absolutely unique and personal musician called Kevin Kastning, an American musician whom we have been following for a few years, and who is tremendously prolific. In fact, that's the reason we haven't been able to keep up with him since the beginning of this year two thousand and twenty-four, in which he has released no more and no less than five albums. Being rigorous, there are four. The fifth is about to be released, and the final surprise of the program is going to be that our protagonist, in a tremendously affectionate gesture towards us, has allowed us to premiere what is going to be his next work with a musician who is going to surprise you because he is a consecrated jazz star.
An album that we will be able to listen to and share with all of you for the first time, quite a few days in advance of its publication, which is July 23, so that is the surprise that awaits us at the end of this closing edition of season 29 of Parallel Universes. We are going to listen to one or two pieces from each of the five works that Kevin Kastning has published in this year 2024, and we are going to do it in chronological order. The piece with which we opened the program is titled 'Dimension Scope Radius' and belongs to the second work that he performs as a duet with the Iranian clarinetist Soheil Peghambari. This album is titled The Second Realm, the first was called The First Realm, and it is a continuation, probably an extract of the same recording and improvisation sessions that formed the first work. The album was released on January 23 on their label, Greydisc Records, and, of course, you have it on their Bandcamp platform. I'll tell you about Soheil Peyghambari, for those of you who don't know him, he is a musician trained in clarinet and musical composition at the Tehran Conservatory, he has a solo album called 'Assumption', and then I can also tell you that he has a quartet which is more related to Avantgarde Jazz Rock, and who is going to publish a fourth album at the end of the year, probably around the fall, because they already have prublished three more albums.
The formation is called Quartet Diminished, and their new work is going to be published on the Moonjune Records label, Leonardo Pavkovic's own, and that is not the only news, but also that the quartet is going to be playing at the Moonjune festival, which will be held this year in the town of Guadamur, very close to Toledo, and Quartet Diminished will be opening the second night of the festival on Saturday, September 21 with Soheil Peyghambari, who is a new addition to the lines of work of Kevin Kastning. In this program we are going to continue discovering the evolution of our protagonist, both with companions who have been with him for years and with some new additions. The most recent ones are very, very interesting, as is the case of Soheil Peyghambari and this second project that was published on January 23, this The Second Realm, where Kevin Kastning is playing the thirty-six-string double contraguitar, the subcontraguitar of seventeen strings, the double subcontraguitar of twenty-four strings, the contralto guitar of thirty strings and the contraguitar of twelve strings, most of them or, practically all, instruments of his own invention with double or triple strings, which he groups as if they were elements , composition bricks, with their own independent tunings for each group of three strings, thus creating their own universe and their own sense of beauty.
For his part, Soheil Peyghambari is with his main instruments, which are the bass clarinet and the B flat clarinet, well, to be rigorous, say that of this 'Dimension Scope Radius', which is cut number three on the album, which was the one we used to open this edition of the program, we can tell you exactly what instruments sound. In this cut number three is the thirty-string alto guitar and the bass clarinet, an instrument whose sound I particularly love, fascinates me and of which Soheil Peyghambari is a true master, also his way of conversing with Kevin Kastning, whom those of you who follow the program know quite well, but I remind you that he studied at the Berklee School in Boston and also took private lessons with Pat Metheny, although later his line of work has diverged quite a bit from what is standard consonant music. We are always with one foot in free improvisation and with the other in contemporary classical music, with a very, very personal flavor, a musician who has recorded with people like Álex DeGrassi, with Michael Manring; unfortunately, a collaboration that has not continued over the years, despite the fact that his duet album is a true must-listen marvel, and also, we have heard him in his long-term collaborations, both with Mark Wingfield and with Carl Clements or with the Hungarian master Sándor Szabó.
Anyway, we opened with this The Second Realm, by Kevin Kastning and Soheil Peyghambari, and we are going to get into another of the cuts from this album to illustrate a little better what I was telling you about this second collaboration of these two great musicians, two timbres , two very interesting instrumental combinations. Throughout the program we are going to discuss the interactions of Kevin Kastning's instruments with a good number of different timbrals. For now, we are going to close the listening from 'The Second Realm' with what is his track number two. This piece is titled The Sphere of Further. Again, Kevin Kastning and Soheil Peyghambari here at Parallel Universes.
(The Sphere Of Further)
There was the chemistry that exists in these recordings, in this case, in this second recording of this group, this one-on-one between Kevin Kastning and the Iranian clarinetist Soheil Peyghambari in this 'The Second Realm', the second album that follows the first 'The First Realm'.
And here we find the sonorities of both Soheil Peyghambari's bass clarinet, and in this case, in this cut called The Sphere Of Further, we also find Kevin Kastning's twelve-string counterguitar. For those of you who are a little bit addicted to the guitar instrument, you should know that a good part of Kevin Kastning's instruments are made personally for him by the people at Emerald Guitars, and they are guitars made with carbon fiber, because with the enormous load The strings they carry withstand significant tension and probably the most suitable material, perhaps the only one that can withstand it, is the carbon fiber that Emerald Guitars works with, which provides a good part of that incredible and absolutely unique arsenal that it has. Kevin Kastning. The album is recorded between the protagonist's studio in Traumwald, his home studio, in Maine, where he resides, and the Sorb studio in Tehran, Iran, between April and May 2023. The recording is mixed and mastered by the Hungarian maestro Sándor Szabó in his Tandem studios in Vac, Hungary, with an excellent result, like practically all of Kevin Kastning's discography.
The cover art is by a Russian photographer named George Korunov, who stars on practically all of the most recent covers in Kevin Kastning's discography. With this we close this The Second Realm, which is the first album that he published on January 23 on his label, Greydisc Records. You have it on Kevin Kastning's Bandcamp platform at kevinkastning.bandcamp.com, where there is a good amount of repertoire and you have released all the cuts from practically his entire discography. It is worth a visit and a progressive exploration to be able to assimilate everything that is there.
We continue our journey through Kevin Kastning's recent discography, in this case, another oneon-one with one of his most veteran and faithful collaborators, his Hungarian friend Sándor Szabó, a tremendous master of practically anything that has strings, because he also has a very spacious instrumentarium. He has recorded more than 50 albums. He resides, as I said before, in Vac, Hungary, where he has his studio. Kastning and Szabó return to the acoustic spectrum after having starred in some more ambient recordings with more electric content, they return to their acoustic side with 'Unbending Sky', an album released on February 27 by the Greydisc Records label, and here we are a very special combination because, apart from Kevin Kastning's usual arsenal of the twenty-eight-string double contraguitar, the twenty-four-string double subguitar, the eighteen-string contraguitar, another seventeen-string subcontraguitar and a fifteen-string baritone guitar, the point of spicy comes from the timbral of the instruments that maestro Sándor Szabó uses in 'Unbending Sky', in this case instruments with a zither structure or a zither conformation, instruments that are played horizontally. It is a hybrid instrument between two traditional artifacts, which are the swarmandal and the tampura, which Sándor Szabó plays on this album in addition to the guzheng, a traditional instrument from China and which provides touches of oriental sound in some passages of this album.
Unbending Sky is a very interesting work, this return to the acoustic instruments of Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó. Let's immerse ourselves in this special work listening to track number six. This piece is titled The Beryl, which is what 'Unbending Sky' sounds like again. Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó, here at Parallel Universes.
(The Beryl)
A truly magical sound, the textures achieved by the combinations of those carbon fiber acoustic guitars and counter-guitars by Kevin Kastning, played by the percussion method, with that combination of swarmandal and tanpura in addition to the Chinese guzhen, of which he has tremendous mastery. Hungarian master Sándo Szabó, a truly special album that leads us to introversion and magical thinking, to escape. It's a real joy. We premiered it with this cut number six titled The Beryl, and we are going to give another spin to this work published on February 27, 2024 by the Greydisc Records label, Kevin Kastning's label, which is also in full at kevinkastning.bandcamp.com . Let's give another spin to this album that was recorded in December 2023 between the Traumwald studios in York County, Maine, Kevin Kastning's studio, and Sándor Szabó's studio in Vac, in Hungary, which is called Tandem Studios.
The cover of this album is also by photographer George Korunov. We are going to take a second bite of this juicy work, this very special combination of timbrals that Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó provide us, and we are going to keep the piece that opens it, this number one cut, which is titled Hemispherical Edge. With this piece we close our exploration of Unbending Sky, again Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó in this special at the end of season 29, here, in Parallel Universes.
(Hemispherical Edge)
This combination of instruments is presented to us in this enigmatically beautiful and dark piece called Hemispherical Edge, which is the number one cut, the piece that opens Unbending Sky, the new work by Kevin Kastning and Sándor Szabó, which was published on the 27th. February 2024 on the Greydisc label. The two musicians have been collaborating for decades and their rapport and communication is more than evident in the sound of this piece. Within their freedom and their tonality they left us the common thread of some rhythmic patterns and on them they mounted those textures that achieve both the acoustic arsenal of Kevin Kastning and that hybrid instrument of the swarmandal and the tanpura of Sándor Szabó, in addition to the Chinese guzheng, which It has an absolutely unique and recognizable sound.
A very special work that follows that series called 'Ethereal', which started a few years ago, more ambient-oriented music and with some albums with electric sound, working with digital effects, especially in the part that refers to Sándor Szabó, a very interesting series.
We continue our journey through Kevin Kastning's recent discography, and we are going to move on to our next station, which is another collaboration with another musician with whom our protagonist has been working for a long time, who is none other than Mark Wingfield, splendid British guitarist who They also have their own absolutely recognizable voice, they star in this 'Rubicon II', a continuation of 'Rubicon I' that was published in 2021. In this case they continue to cross their voices with the incorporation in recent years of the piano, played by Kevin Kastning. His playing on this instrument also shines, in addition to the 15-string extended range classical guitar. This is the arsenal that Kevin Kastning has for this 'Rubicon II', and Mark Winfield has his electric guitar and live electronics.
The album was recorded live, in the studio, without overdubs, that is, without re-recordings, without additional tracks at the Traumwald studio in Massachusetts, Kevin Kastning's studio in the United States on August 17 and 18, 2018. The mix and the master are made in Mark Wingfield's Heron Island studio in Cambridgeshire, in the United Kingdom, and the cover photo again is by Russian George Korunov. In this case we find an album with some tendencies towards minimalism with also a lot of use of silence, one more element that they use in their communications and in their interpretations, and from this album we are going to keep only one piece, a fairly long piece, which caught my attention due to the aggressive treatment of the guitar sound, which is a little out of what is usual for Mark Wingfield and also has the incentive of listening to Kevin Kastning playing the piano. The combination of the majestic sound of the acoustic piano with the extremely distorted and twisted electric guitar of the maestro Mark Wingfield is very special. A very interesting combination that I wanted to share especially with you within this album 'Rubicon II'. It will be the only piece that will play its length, almost twelve minutes, but it is worth every second. We premiere 'Rubicon II' with this cut number 2 called Observation Light Constant. This is what Kevin Kastning and Mark Wingfield sound like, again here, in Parallel Universes.
(Observation Light Constant)
Impressive display of resources carried out in this improvisation by teachers Kevin Kastning and Mark Wingfield. This piece called Observation Light Constant is magnificent, which undoubtedly stands out as one of the pillars of this work by Kevin Kastning and Mark Wingfield, who star in 'Rubicon II', their tenth album together. A brilliant work, where we find some instrumental conversations that are closer to previous works, and this piece, which is one of the ones that caught my attention the most due to the disruptive sound of the guitar and the combination with that majestic sound of Kevin Kastning on the piano, which also served as a very special example of a very long friendship. There were Kevin Kastning on piano and fifteen-string extended range classical guitar, and Mark Wingfield on electric guitar, live electronics and software processing. The entire album, as I told you, is recorded in the studio without rerecordings in Traumwald, in Massachusetts, Kevin Kastning's private studio, on August 17 and 18, 2018. The mixing and mastering were done in Mark Wingfield's studio on Heron Island, in Cambridgeshire, in the United Kingdom.
You have this work, with the rest of his discography at kevinkastning.bandcamp.com, and we are going to continue forward on our journey in this special finale of season 29 of Universos Paralelos, which we dedicate to the figure of Kevin Kastning and all the works which he published in 2024, a production that we have not been able to absorb at a normal pace, so we feel that we owe him this special so that you can discover his latest recordings.
We are going to head into the final stretch of the program and we are going to do it with two of his most interesting and most recent works. The first of them is this duet that was published not even a month ago, because it dates back to June 18, 2024, where it incorporates both a new instrument and an instrumentalist that for us is a discovery, at least for me, which is the double bassist of Swedish origin residing in the United States, Bruno Raberg, in this album titled 'Silent Dimensions', another very particular, very personal work, with a musician who has surprised me with the softness, delicacy and technique he hoards This gentleman has a beautiful sound on the double bass and is quite well known internationally, emigrating from his birthplace in Sweden in 1981 to the United States, where he has recorded 12 albums as a leader and around 30 as a sideman. He has played with a lot of people, he is a professor at both the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, directed by Danilo Pérez, and the Berklee College of Music in Boston. We can find in his discography interpretations of Chris Davis, Bruce Barth, who has also accompanied him on some of his albums, Jim Black, Chris Cheek, Adam Cruz, George Garzone, Mick Goodrick, Donnie McCaslin, Ben Monder, Terry Lyne Carrington, Bob Moses, Kenny Werner... the list of his collaborators is tremendous.
The combination of their personalities is very, very interesting and, as I say, the velvety sound of his double bass is a perfect complement to the acoustic arsenal of Kevin Kastning, who on this album uses the double contraguitar of thirty-six strings, the subcontraguitar of sixteen strings, the subcontraguitar of twenty-four and the contraguitar of twenty-eight strings. We are going to take a first bite of this first collaboration in its entire history by Kevin Kastning with double bassist Bruno Raberg, and we are going to keep this track titled Transfigure Varnish I, which is track number four of 'Silent Dimensions'. Kevin Kastning and Bruno Raberg here at Parallel Universes.
(Transfigure Vanish I)
What a magnificent combination of personalities, excellent communication, tremendous ability to listen and react, as befits a jazz player, such as Bruno Raberg. Here we heard him making some fantastic percussions that gave a spicy touch to this Transfigure Vanish I, as an example of what 'Silent Dimensions' is, this brand new work, the first that the Swedish double bassist, based in the United States, Bruno, has signed together. Raberg, and our protagonist, Kevin Kastning. We can confirm that this project is going to have a continuation and that, in fact, there is another session recorded for publication in the future in trio format that includes Kevin Kastning and Bruno Raberg. I won't say more, it's privileged information. It is worth discovering the figure of Bruno Raberg, leaving the jazz register and entering the particular universe of Kevin Kastning, with a fantastic, spectacular and very personal response, as usual. There were playing Kevin Kastning's entire arsenal of carbon fiber acoustic guitars and the double bass with that magnificent sound that double bassist Bruno Raberg has in his fingers. The album was released on June 18, 2024, and the mixing and master of the recording correspond to maestro Sándor Szabó, they were made in Vac, Hungary, in Sándor Szabó's Tandem studio, with the excellent results that you have been able to hear. Let's take another bite out of this project for our joy. We are going to do it with that cut number 7, which is titled Light Still And Moving. Again, Kevin Kastning and Bruno Raberg, here, in Parallel Universes.
(Light Still And Moving)
So interesting is the contribution of the Swedish double bassist Bruno Raberg, resident in the United States and professor at the Berklee School in Boston. I think it is a real triumph for Kevin Kastning to add to his already long discography this new line of work with Bruno Raberg, with a truly exquisite sound and a fantastic capacity for interaction. The album is very, very interesting from start to finish and, of course, you have it on their Bandcamp platform, at kevinkastning.bandcamp.com. The album is titled 'Silent Dimensions', as we had said before, and the piece we were listening to was this track number seven called Light Still and Moving, where the double bassist deploys a large amount of resources, textures and sounds that come from his double bass and also of hisarco. The album was released on June 18 and was recorded at the Traumwald studio, in York County, Maine, by Kevin Kastning himself in his studio with Bruno Raberg. The recording is mixed and mastered by Sándor Szabó at Tandem studios in Vac, Hungary, and, again, the album cover is by Russian artist George Korunov. This is what his discography is all about so far and we have reached the end of this special edition of Universos Paralelos. It has been a pleasure to share this almost hour and a half of radio with all of you and we put the finishing touch to this 29th season of Parallel Universes. We will be back from September 15, that is, Thursday the 19th, I think it could be the first edition of season 30 of Parallel Universes. In the meantime, we will take a well-deserved rest, but we don't want to say goodbye to you without the final fireworks, the highlight of this special. As I told you at the beginning, we have the permission and blessing of Kevin Kastning who, in an enormously affectionate detail for us, is going to allow us to release what is his brand new work before its official release date, no more no less than with trumpeter Phil Grenadier. The album is titled 'Invisible Ascent', and it is a real joy as it brings the jazzy sound of Phil Grenadier to the core of Kevin Kastning's musical concept, achieving an incredibly elegant result with a dark beauty, truly moving. It is a privilege to be able to share it with everyone. I think this is the first program that has the pleasure of putting this new recording in contact with the public, which is released on July 24. On this Phil Granadier duet album, Kevin Kastning is playing the thirty-six-string double contraguitar and, evidently, Phil Grenadier is playing the trumpet. It seems that it is a collaboration that will have a future in the future, and I will not say more for the moment. The cover is by Chris Friel, and it is also a beautiful composition and the two pieces that make up this 'Invisible Ascent' are quite long.
The first is titled A Location Marked By Stars, and lasts 30 minutes and 44 seconds, and the piece we are going to listen to is cut number 2, which is called The Wind Said Especially Now, which has a duration of 15 and a half. Kevin Kastning himself did not have excessive hopes that it would be broadcast on radio stations, podcasts or radio programs due to the length of the pieces, but he did not want to fragment it into smaller cuts because he believes that they are truly special and rare like canvases compositional, in his own words. We wanted to violate Kevin Kastning's prediction and, despite the length, we have decided to extend the end-of-season special as long as necessary to be able to share with you this very special work, which is also, for the moment, unpublished. ', given that its release date is still a few days away. July 24 is when this 'Invisible Ascent', the first album, the first hand-in-hand collaboration of Kevin Kastning and Phil Grenadier, which is quite a surprise.
For those of you who don't know him, Phil Grenadier is an exceptional jazz trumpeter who grew up in San Francisco with his musical family, with his brothers, Larry, who eventually took up double bass, and Steve Grenadier, who dedicated himself to to the guitar. His father instilled in them a passion for music, and he dedicated himself to the trumpet. At the young age of sixteen, he was already working regularly as a sideman, playing with people like Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé, George Shearing, Tony Bennett, Carlos Santana, James Brown, Sammy Davis Jr., Dionne Warwick, etc.. A real outrage. He has also played with Steve Smith's band Vital Information and is a tremendously renowned musician who we have heard on numerous occasions here in Spain. He has, in short, a very, very prestigious career and also a very long one, so it is another success to add to Kevin Kastning's discography to have been able to bring to his musical concept the contribution of Phil Granadier, which you are going to see. which truly makes the hair stand on end, so we are not going to prolong this agony any longer. It has been a pleasure to share this 29th season with all of you here at Parallel Universes. We will be back on the Onda Verde dial, on 107.9FM in Madrid, also on radiopra.blogspot.com.es, from Nava, Asturias, the cider region and, of course, always on our blog and in our podcast at www.universos-paralelos.com. You will continue to find us on the Esferajazz.com platform and, of course, on our own Telegram channel, to which you can continue to subscribe completely free of charge and receive each week both the blog entry with the information and the listening links of the featured albums - also in the case of this Kevin Kastning special - and, of course, the program itself in high-quality MP3 format, so you can download and enjoy it on the device of your choice.
While the time comes to start the 30th season of Parallel Universes, we are going to say goodbye to the 29th season with this authentic bombshell and I am going to leave you with this one-onone of the trumpeter Phil Grenadier with the great protagonist of today's special, who is our dear friend, maestro Kevin Kastning, an exceptional guitarist with a unique and personal concept who has created his own universe in which we love to swim and dive whenever we can. We say goodbye with this fantastic work titled 'Invisible Ascent', and we leave you with the second cut from it, this piece titled The Wind Said Especially Now. Kevin Kastning and Phil Grenadier put the finishing touch on season 29 of Parallel Universes. See you in September. (The Wind Said Especially Now)