Free download of "Romanian Christmas Songs"

[musician5]

I am working on a new album of all music by the composer Bela Bartok arranged for stringband. I have a free track up of the "Romanian Christmas Songs" available for download for the holidays. With Matt Flinner on mandolin, Grant Gordy on guitar, Ryan Drickey on violin, Ian Hutchison on bass, and myself (Jake Schepps) on 5-string banjo.

Check it out and download it here: jakeschepps.bandcamp.com/

And a bit more info on the project is here:
http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/free...-jake-schepps/

Thanks for listening,
Jake

[Brent Hutto]

Jake,

It's a rather offbeat setting for Bartok but you guys have a great sound and it really works. There are a couple sections, though, where I'm left wanting a longer-form development of the particular tune.

But maybe that must makes it a good teaser for the whole album! Thanks for the Christmas download. Happy holidays to you.

[musician5]

Actually we are playing it as written by Bartók. We struggled with wanting to extrapolate some of these themes as they are beautiful and would be cool, but decided to keep it closer to the score on this one.

[Brent Hutto]

That's interesting. I had assumed you edited it down somwhat but the ellipses (apparently) were in fact Bartok's intention from the beginning. Learn something every day.

[Brent Hutto]

Just pre-ordered my CD of An Evening in the Village: The Music of Bela Bartok and am listening to the four "teaser" downloads as I type. What great timing as I've been dipping my mandolin toe (so to speak) into Bartok just these last few weeks. Gorgeous sounds.

[stevenmando]

Sounds great with the banjo and the mandolin ! love Bela Bartok will order the CD.

[Brent Hutto]

With mandolin playing by Matt Flinner and guitar by Ross Martin, the cuts with a full band (as opposed to just banjo, fiddle and maybe bass) sound awfully reminiscent of the Matt Flinner Trio's recent material. Or maybe I should say I realize now that there's something highly Bartok compatible about Flinner, Martin and Thorin's melodic and harmonic sensibility.

It's funny the way things work out. I posted on this thread back in December and at the time was digging the Christmas songs even though I had only passing familiarity with Bartok. Then in February I got to see the Matt Flinner Trio and have been listening heavily to their CD ever since. A couple months ago my mandolin teacher suggested I start working on a few of the Bartok duos, which I've just gotten started on.

Now this CD comes out with Bartok galore, including some of the duos, with input from Matt Flinner to boot. It's like the last year of my life has been converging toward the release of this CD. It's like karma or something!