Reviews & Press
"LOOK UP "
WholeNote Magazine
Eli Eisenberg
The back cover of Shelly Berger’s latest CD, “Look Up” shows his name modestly at the bottom of a list of thirteen colleagues that he employed on this, his first recording as a leader in over ten years. Berger keeps his hands full with bass, composition and production duties, and is assisted by an impressive list of veteran musicians including Hugh Marsh on violin, Ernie Tollar and Mike Murley on saxophones, and Ted Warren on drums. “Look Up” is many things, but one thing it’s not is clichéd. It’s without II-V-I progressions, walking bass lines, driving ride-cymbal patterns, or predictable arrangements. Shelly Berger’s compositions are lucid and complex with sophistication and originality that preclude any simple moniker or generic label.From the 9/8 intro of the first track, Mosque Morocco, to the pseudo-funk of Moses, to the dissonance of Diabetes, to the haunting Guardian Angel, Shelly Berger proves to be a composer of tremendous versatility and integrity. Melodic themes are repeated and developed, but not to the point where they resonate hours after the CD is finished. The strong, yet subtle global influence is accentuated by the percussion and occasional vocals of Waleed Abdulhamid, especially on A Prayer For Africa, the disc’s eighth track.Careful listening is definitely required throughout, and maybe a few follow-up sessions for good measure.
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THE TORONTO STAR
Geoff Chapman
Berger is a solid bassist with a serious knack for arranging and composing thoughtful pieces strong on melody. All these talents get a strong workout on this 11-tune session of original music (he wrote all but one) on which Berger's supported by 13 sidemen at various points. The mood ranges from complex contemporary jazz explorations, often cast in unusual time signatures, to global sounds, like the opening "Mosque Morocco." The playing's precise and stimulating, with saxophonist Mike Murley, guitarist Geoff Young and especially violinist Hugh Marsh prominent. Berger is big on textures and percussive pulse, often folding in European, Latin and African motifs, and the colourful sonic layers are rich even when the music gets somewhat heated ("Tofino," the 7/4 time "Letting Go"). He conjures melancholy dissonance for "Diabetes," has fun with "Ha Great Yeah," creates a memorable work in "Guardian Angel" and closes effectively with the impressionistic "At The End Of The Day." (The record will be officially released Wednesday at Hugh's Room.)
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Feedback From Radio Stations Around The World
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Radio Heerde
Jan Nederveen
Not a CD that you can find in a dozen. The music on it you have conquer it. Because it is not easy music. In each song there are unexpected moments. So you must pay attention all the time when you listen. In fact the songs are not so playable for radio, because you have to play them more then once to know the songs better. But it is possible, that when you play a song, somebody thinks " I want to hear more from this album". That's way I play something. In each number you can hear surprising moments of the bass from Shelly Berger. It is an album, that you will be satisfied, when you know the songs better. I play "Letting go" in my program.
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Artsound 92.7 FM
Absolutely superb.
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RADIO PLURIEL 91.5
Perrichon Jacques
Bonjour, thanks for your so great music I really enjoyed. I added it to my WJAZ broadcast play list on RADIO PLURIEL 91.5FM in France, plus worldwide INTERNET
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Radio ARA , Luxembourg
Pascal Dorban
What a pleasant surprise to discover this musician and his very interesting album. Compositions are nicely canvassed to form an homogeneous ensemble, the style is modern but never falls into some boring contemporary music. This is jazz after all... One tune will be featured in the month of October in one of my broadcasts.
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BRTO Radio
Alex Pijnen
Fantastic album Great stuff for our Radio Station.
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Triple H-FM
Michael Criddle
What a great sound you have, I have played several of your tracks to date and plan to schedule more in future programs. Keep up the good work and please keep me up to date with your progress Regards Michael Criddle OzRadio ozradio@ozisp.com.au
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3MBSFM 103.5
Larry Groves
Hi Shelly, Your Cd 'Look Up' would have to go down as my personal favourite for this years radio directx albums that i have chosen, several tracks from the Cd have been played on air on my program 'Colours of jazz' and have done the show proud, thanks for the great music. The one thing that I look for in the music i chose for the program is atmosphere, and there is plenty of it on this Cd, each track has been carefully and skilfully played using many different instruments for colours and texture, I look forward to much more in the future, keep the music coming, and my listeners have certainly enjoyed this one. Larry Groves, 3mbsfm 103.5 'Colours of jazz'Australia. www.3mbs.org.au
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Zeigest
Mr.H
Toronto born bass player Shelly Berger has been working the Los Angeles jazz circuit for a number of years now, including stints with the likes of Diana Krall, Kenny Burrell and Anita O'Day, amongst many others, but this CD sees him stepping out again as a composer and band leader is some style after a decade long break.
Largely jazz fusion based, this offering also sees him bringing in a few world music influences as well as a healthy helping of synthesiser flourishes to fine effect on a mainly self composed set. There are a few familiar faces helping out including the always exemplary saxophone work of Mike Murley. Highlights are a-plenty but standing out in particular are the refined and reflective 'Guardian Angel' and the vocal enhanced 'A Prayer For Africa'.
He has a way with some unusual time signatures and coaxes some excellent performances from the sympathetic collaborators, especially the outstanding violin contributions of Hugh Marsh on an always interesting, sometimes sparkling set.
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Radio Maldwyn UK.
Tony Wickham
There is great music on this CD: diverse styles reflected in the track titles within a comfortable matrix sound which defines the quality in the compositions and the arrangements.
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Radio X (Frankfurt), DJ Jazzmadass
Robert Lochmann
thanks for the great album and lots respect for your work.
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THE TORONTO STAR
Geoff Chapman
He plays the bass - but Shelly Berger is much more than the guy filling one of the spaces in a jazz rhythm section. He's an arranger, composer, bandleader, album producer, accompanist to heavy jazz hitters as well as artists like Loreena McKennitt and Chaka Khan and musical director for Anita O'Day. He's written and arranged TV themes like the TSN ode to the Blue Jays and the Expos and produced albums for unlikely companions such as Sesame Street, The Jimmy Cleveland Octet and Sharon, Lois and Bram. Berger, with his aged-oak tone, will be front and centre Monday at the Montreal Bistro, a CD release party for his self-titled release on the new Basil label. Backing his big, deep sound will be disc-mates Ernie Tollar on saxes and flutes, guitarist Ted Quinlan, drummer Barry Romberg, pianist Les Porteill and keyboardist Don Baird. (Actually, Nancy Walker was on keyboards for the recording.) The bassist wrote six of the eight tunes and co-wrote the other two, weaving classical, bop, new music and worldbeat influences into often-luxurious soundscapes, Tollar cast in a serene role floating over dense harmonies with interesting shifts on numbers like "Starfish" and "Pictures" while "Tree Song" benefits from driving keys in an odyssey from beayty to funk. "Questions" opens as an almost classical suite that then switches moods dramatically, "Petal" thrusts and "Circles In Silk" fascinates with its rich textures and repeated vamps.
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THE JAZZ REPORT
Shelly Berger's compositions flow like watercolors, saturating the disc with tonalities drawn from various global influences. Stylistically, the band captures the airiness of an ECM recording, using both acoustic and electric guitar, soprano saxophone, acoustic piano underlined with synth pads, bass and drums. Berger likes to use repition in setting the mood of a piece. Sometimes he writes lines that intersect, occasionally crossing for effect. Eclectic is the key word in describing the material. Each piece, though linked by a common sound, differ in structure and style. One moment the ensemble plays a simple folk motif, highlighted by pianist Les Portelli's excellent improvisations, at other times, the unit explores the sombre tenor of a brooding ballad. Berger is a skilled bassist and evolving writer whose vision, in time, will offer greater clarity.
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THE TORONTO STAR
Geoff Chapman
That was as close to a big band as CJRT is likely to muster for its winter series in the Science Centre - six players performing last night under the leadership of Shelly Berger. A splendid bass player who's been concentrating on composing and arranging for some time, though it's more than 15 years since he formed his first big outfit, Berger used the concert as a vehicle for his original material. Patrons expecting a hard-blowing session could be forgiven for feeling some surprise at the serpentine structures and textured orchestral work played, though trhe instrumentation chosen was a giveaway - piano AND synthesizer, electric guitar, soprano sax and drums. Berger's work emphasizes dreamy-rich soundscapes of subtle complexity, often with drummer Barry Romberg stating the bridging elements between each segment with semi-explosive blasts. The pieces of each song, as in "Pictures", "Theresa" (a haunting theme picked at with care by sax and drumstick) and "Circles In Silk" seemed almost totally separate from each other, and the trick was clearly to plumb an over-full emotional gamut without resorting to multi-phonic shrieks and fiery decibels. Berger recklessly called his "Water Color" a "slow, dark and depressing piece" but fortunately Tollar was able to extract from its depths plaintive sounds that upped the emotional level, which was increased again with the (tentatively-titled) "Pedal" when the strident and always interesting Romberg was allowed to soke fires by creating loose, high-energy rhythm alongside a buzzing bass and Nancy Walker's synths.
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"SOLANA"
Bellaphon CDLR 45029 (Baltic)
Shelly Berger (bass, piano, synth), Albert Von Segern (flute, soprano sax), Brian Katz (guitar), George Koller (bass, cello, sitar, percussion), Bob Becker (percussion, synth) and guest John Goldsmith (piano on 1, 3, 6): A Dance in Green/You Too/Windwaves/Caribbean Slipstream/In The Woods Kids/Why/Durga/Na-Roh-Pah/Music From My Home Planet/A Flicker of Hope. Recorded April/90, Toronto, Canada
The World Music - it is a fad or a sign of a radical evolution. No one person can correctly answer this question. If this estheto-cultural melting-pot has often ended in half-failures, the Canadian ensemble Solana has proven the contrary. The music is well balanced, neither stripped bare, nor over-embellished; it refuses to become background music (as is often the case with these types of productions), which enables it to develop a coherent melodic discussion. We could, nevertheless, classify them similarly to the ethereal mood of the label ECM. Served by five poly-instrumentalists (with traditional instruments such as the sitar and tablas), they mix jazz elements, folk music, Indian, and classical. The instrumental combinations amongst them are varied so well that each of the ten short pieces present a different formula. One admires the passages where Von Seggern makes his soprano sax sing, the sitar of Koller, or the colourful percussions of Becker. Making refgerence to their universality, Solana is very well suited for those looking for an introduction to World Music. But it can also very well delight convinced afficianados.
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"GOT TO !"
GLOBE AND MAIL
Mark Miller
Berger's big band burns the midnight oil. Not only is the music improvised but often so is the band itself
Even at the best of times, putting together a big band can be a daunting proposition, but not too daunting, it seems, for Shelly Berger. For the past few weeks, this energetic Toronto bassist, looking younger in a Michael J. Pollardish way than his 23 years, has been leading the 20-man strong Best of Toronto Big Band - not his choice for a name, he'd like it known - at the Cafe Soho. And he definitely doesn't have the best of times: Sunday night, beginning at 11 and running into early Monday morning. "It was the only time I could get the club," he explains, revealing that he arranged the gig before he had the band. "But it is a problem since everybody has to get up Monday morning to go to work." He seems especially concerned about his audience. "Are you going to stay if we take a break?" he asked around 1 a.m. one recent Sunday, "Because we sure like to play for people," Berger sees the adventure as a learning experience. "It is a chance to get my writing together, to hear what things sound like, and to see what I can come up with." For that privilege he has all sorts of trials to face. Last Sunday, for example, he had to contend with the absence of a sound system (as if a big band needs amplification) and, more significantly, of several of his regular musicians. One fifth of the band was reading his charts on sight for the first time, accounting for a sometimes muddy sound, particularly during Berger's arrangement of Wayne Shorter's "Nefertitti" which, when properly executed, was almost Mike Westbrookish in its collective march-like shout ups. Berger, his own harshest critic, retitled the tune "Scuffle City" after he had heard what the band had done to it. He has that enjoyable sort of gentle self-deprecating humor, the kind of attitude which moves him to begin the count off to his complicated arrangement of John Coltrane's "Moments Notice" with a "good luck saxophones!" Equally appealing is the fact that the musicians are not the familiar faces who populate the ranks of Toronto big bands. Apart from a couple of recognizable fellows - saxophonist Don Englert (CHINA, Cueball) and trombonist Terry Lukiwski (Nimmons 'n' Nine Plus Six) - and one near legend, saxophonist Bobby Brough, they're youngish and eager players. Some are from Humber College; some, like Berger who studied for two years with Ted Moses, have been developing quietly on their own. That makes for a lot of surprises, most of them pleasant. A remarkable guitarist, Lorne Lofsky, for one, is given extensive solo room, and everything he touched Sunday night turned out superbly. Two of the subs, tenor saxophonist Jeff Goodspeed (who just happened to be in the club when Brough was late arriving) and drummer Neil Sharma, played as though the book was in their back pockets, with not even a nod to the winds of caution. Alex Dean blew thick-textured impassioned soprano sax through Berger's "Binks Soup" to an ovation at the end of the first set. Berger's writing is always interesting in its shadings and dynamics, though it deserves a better reading than it sometimes gets. Such precision comes with experience and, of course, that's what this band as about. After all, Monday mornings were never good for much anyway.