Adam Olson ePortfolio

This is ocean music for the opening heart. David Darling is one of the great souls and so astonishingly creative it takes your breath. There is such tenderness here, and majesty, and strength. Reserve and passion. Mickey Houlihan, that genius of natural sound, and David have been working on this music for years, and it is simply a magnificent gift to civilization, one that will outlast us all.

Coleman Barks

I rarely get to hear a work with such depth. That's such an overused word, I hesitate to use it here, but it truly touches me on some pretty profound levels. Other words come to mind as well-it displays an artistic maturity in David that, from a performer's point of view, we all strive for. I've read the liner notes, but I sense a deeper, more profound purpose at work here, that creative imperative that is so difficult to attain. I'm guessing that upon completion, all involved just looked at each other and said "Yes, that's it."

Transcendent-it's an elusive descriptor that I save for a special few disks, when the music transcends the instrument's vocabulary, the performer's chops, the composer's craft, the producer's skill, finding a place that can only be called pure music. It's a special thing when music can be called transcendent — Prayer for Compassion is indeed in that category. You have much to be proud of.

Michael DeLalla - Falling Mountain Music

In “Prayer for Compassion”, a ten-year journey from the deep, passionate devotion of the greatly gifted and inspirational David Darling and Mickey Houlihan, David Darling, a creative genius using the universal language of music inherent in each of us and understood by all, expresses that which cannot be said in words ... the feelings from deep in the soul of love, caring, kindness and concern for all humanity, for the suffering, for this great planet... the wondrous beauty of life, humanity, nature and all her creatures ... this Heaven on Earth ... a life given and lovingly nurtured by our blessed mothers, a life guided by deep spirituality and love ... This music and the message in it is a precious, Blessed gift for all the world to hear and be inspired to an understanding of all peoples, to peace and harmony...very heartfelt thanks, gratitude and blessings to you both.

Jacqueline Bhuyan

David Darling is the Lord of Largo, the Maestro of Melancholy. Classically trained and jazz converted, he played cello with the Paul Winter Consort in the 1970s including the landmark Icarus album. Since then, He’s released several albums on the ECM, Narada, and the Hearts of Space labels and in the process, has become a leading exponent of ambient chamber music. His new album, Prayer for Compassion, continues his mastery of melancholy.

It’s a soulful, heartrending sound that Darling gets from his cello and it has attracted people like film director Wim Wenders...
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Sound quality is excellent—well-balanced, clear and crisp—ensuring that all sections of the band can be heard distinctly. Such sound quality is crucial to any big band recording, even more so when the instrumentalists in every section are so finely in tune with each other...
Read More at All About Jazz

“David Liebman has the ability to touch the soul eeking from the wayward horn an extraordinary depth of emotion and dramatic range. His cantabile style, as identifiable as a human voice in its emotional tone and dramatic role playing, may in a given solo, conjure up anguish, ecstasy, anger, fear, hilarity or haughtiness. Liebman’s music is storytelling of a very high order – content, accent, color and mood are all in place, on cue.”

Downbeat Magazine

Dave Liebman leads the brightest and most creative New York jazz musicians in dramatic large ensemble fashion as they burn through incredibly well-written arrangements of the jazz legend’s compositions.

Made up of the brightest and most creative New York jazz musicians, everyone is not only well-versed and experienced in the traditional big band performance practices, but each and every one of them are gifted soloists and renowned jazz musicians in their own right. What is not obvious until you hear the band is that collectively, the level of musicianship is so high that the band easily breaks the boundaries of the traditional big band. In addition to Liebman’s compositions and the writer’s creative arrangements, the unique sound of the DLBB is also due to how easily the group traverses the line between tonality and atonality; executes dramatic stylistic changes in the moment; and most importantly, can create collaborations of improvised music that are so well-aligned with the compositions that it is hard to tell what is or is not improvised. This, coupled with Liebman’s never ending pursuit of all possible avenues of expression in his soprano sax playing, offers the listener a new approach to the big band tradition.

‘…exhilarating…’

New York Times

Undoubtedly deserving of the title of modern day tenor titan, Dave Liebman has also made an important a contribution to the vocabulary of the soprano saxophone, the ‘straight horn’, whose popularity and more widespread adoption was furthered by John Coltrane in the 60s.

Generally speaking, it is a difficult instrument to master, apparently because the tuning and intonation present challenges for even the most skilled of practitioners. Despite having a smaller sound than a tenor or baritone, the soprano is capable of tremendous power as well as serenity – think of Coltrane’s turbulent whirlpools on the improvised sections and tranquil streams on the melody of My Favourite Things – and this finely crafted big band set by Liebman reinforces...
Read More at BBC

Dave Liebman is one of the world’s greatest contemporary saxophonists, a player who first came to prominence with Miles Davis’ 1970’s bands, appearing on albums such as “Get Up With It”, “On The Corner” and “Dark Magus”.

Liebman subsequently led his own influential groups Lookout Farm and Quest, both powerful outfits with the accent on collective improvisation, the latter an all acoustic but often thoroughly uncompromising ensemble. Liebman has recorded prolifically in pretty much every context from solo to big band and in a variety of styles including fusion, Latin, free improv and more. He’s a superb technician on both tenor and soprano saxophones plus flute and was initially influenced, as were so many of his contemporaries, by the sound of John Coltrane. Not everything he has attempted has worked but when Liebman’s good he’s very good...
Read More at The Jazz Mann

While nothing can replace witnessing the power, excitement and precision generated by a really good big band first hand, The Dave Liebman Big Band “live” performances on “As Always” is as close as you can get to actually being there.
Read More at The Notes on Jazz Blog

Jenny Lin is one of those pianists who deserves a major career for the sheer intelligence and musicality of everything that she does. This collection of show tunes arranged by virtuoso pianists offers the perfect combination of the familiar (the melodies) and the new (the arrangements). The result is a tribute not just to Lin’s clever programming and impeccable pianism, but also to the many arrangers she has chosen...
Read More at Classics Today

“Remarkable technical command and a gift for melodic flow."
— The New York Times

About the meeting of the “popular” and the “serious” on Get Happy: Virtuoso Show Tunes for Piano, Jenny Lin says: “It depends on how one defines 'popular' and 'serious.' A lot of these pieces are extremely virtuosic. Perhaps the original tunes themselves are popular, but the materials used in the arrangements are serious. What sets these arrangements apart is that they are all by performing pianist...
Read More at Steinway.com

Chen's playing is brilliant, subtle, and spontaneous, and his mastery of the piano's tone colors makes the music highly effective, especially for those who want to hear the audible connections between Ravel and...
Read More at ArkivMusic

An American shooting star blessed with outstanding stage presence combined with an extraordinary technique and musicianship...
Read More at Steinway.com

“That Chen has performed music near and dear to his iconoclastic musical heart exudes through every moment of this impressive disc, a display of a superior digital talent guided by a penetrating artistic intellect.”
—Gary Lemco, Audiophile Audition
Read More at SeanChenPiano.com

In this amazing new release, The Del Sol String Quartet combines with didjeridu master Stephen Kent in Sculthorpe’s four string quartets that use this unusual but stunning combination. The results are very unique and attention-getting combining the raw, indigenous signature sound of the didjeridu with the very classical European sound of a string quartet. Part of Sculthorpe’s skill is to develop a sound that works amazingly well with such diverse combinations but also to create music that sounds at once traditional and “other worldly...
Read More at Audiophile Audition

This complete program is worthy of your attention and addition to your collection of adventurous classical music.
Read Review at axs

The music is exotic, sensual, tragic, and more. Sculthorpe really has the full measure of the medium, and his use of the didgeridoo works with the quartet surprisingly well. I can't say that this will be to all tastes, but those willing to listen will be rewarded. Stephen Kent – for a lack of a better word – rocks out on his instrument and makes it do wild things. And the Del Sol Quartet is equally willing to let loose; the results are magical.
Read More at Classical Net

From the first notes of the first bar of this excellent two-CD set, you know you’re in good hands and are going to hear some splendid music-making. The genre could run the risk of sameness or, perhaps worse, might invite spurious gimmicks by the performers to ‘liven it up’. Not a bit of that here: the soloists bring a persuasive blend of verve and technical brilliance mixed with unselfconscious insight to two hours of focused, intense, yet sanguine music from the mid-eighteenth...
Read More at MusicWeb International

For several years Greg Ewer, Oregon Symphony violinist AND driving force behind the chamber music group 45th Parallel, and Adam LaMotte of the Portland Baroque Orchestra have been working on a two-CD set of Jean-Marie LeClair’s Complete Sonatas for Two...
Read More at Oregon Arts Watch

Those who cherish these sonatas, those who admire Leclair, and those who simply love the violin—all should find these CDs and the accompanying Blu-ray highly attractive. The recorded sound’s fine, too, with no heavy breathing. Urgently recommended...
Read More at Arkiv Music

Hi Greg and Adam! Your new album has been out for a little more than a month now. It’s received some rave reviews including ones like this from Alto Riot: “Honestly it’s bit hard to believe there’s not really a whole string section playing somewhere in the back because violinists Greg Ewer and Adam LaMotte sound HUGE on their new album of music by Jean-Marie Leclair.” Is there anything about reading reviews by people who enjoy your music that brings out certain aspects of the project that...
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America is in the midst of the Depression, and the Kamp family is struggling to get by, especially after Mrs. Kamp's untimely death. Now little Ruthie, with her mother gone and her father ... See full summary

SP Resize is intended to be used in conjunction with Quicksilver to help you quickly resize windows in the Mac OS X.

If you have used applications like UltraMon on Windows and are use to quickly resizing windows at the press of a button or if you use dual monitors on a Mac then chances are you will find SP Resize a major time saver!

Where did my maximize screen button go? That little green button in windows known as the zoom button on a Mac often doesn't fill your window full screen. Using this utility you can quickly resize your windows to your monitor resolution as well as fill them to dual screen and reposition them with simple keystrokes! ...
See more at dawHelp.com

For a free complimentary copy of the application click the icon below.