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Pierre Bensusan, Encore, CD Dadgad Music 2013 - 3CD DM 1013
A triple live album is a
symbolic event in the career of an artist. It’s necessary to
have plenty of available live material to choose from. The life of
Pierre is just devoted to touring since 40 years. As explained by
Pierre the introduction video to Encore, the live music is different
from the music in studio in terms of ambiance, context, risk taking,
urgency... Before Encore, his live albums are only a live CD with
Didier Malherbe in 1997 and a solo concert on DVD in 1995. Despite many
people ask him live records at the end of concerts, he thought that
live music belongs to the instant and after done to the past. Only
maybe 100 of his about 3000 concerts were recorded and he never
listened to them. Jacques Panis (Quart de Lune) suggested him to
publish a live album to celebrate his 40 years of career. To increase
the choice for Encore, he asked Peter Jones of WTJU radio
(Charlottesville, Virginia) about the live recordings made in that town
where he used to perform each time twice (one concert in French only
and one concert in English): after six months, Pierre received a pile
of CDs for 15 shows. It took some months to create Encore and in the
process, the number of CDs moves from 1 to 3. The challenge was to
harmonize all these moods, all these sounds, all these acoustics. Rich
Green and Dave Bevan have succeed to produce a great overall rendition.
Listening to the album proves to be pleasant and surprising. The Lowden
guitar sound (Pierre is using Lowden guitars since 1978) is enhanced in
some situations, for example in Intuite (CD3), recorded November 10,
2009 in Graz (Austria) . This new work contains a lot of surprises: - 5
tracks from the first ever live concert Pierre recorded at Epalinges in
Switzerland in 1975 with Bill Keith’s bluegrass band (CD2
tracks 1-5): Tracks 1 and 5: Pierre plays the mandolin with Bill
Keith’s band. Tracks 2 to 4: solo tracks with Pierre on
guitar. This was recorded before his first album Pres de Paris. - The
two duet compositions played with the keyboardist Jordan Rudess (
"Welsh Arrow Suite" on CD2 and " Anthem for the Ocean " on CD1 )
recorded November 7, 1998 in St Martin de Boulogne (France). Pierre was
committed to play at Tendances Festival with a huge choir of children
from 8 to 16 years old and invited Jordan Rudess. That concert was
divided in three parts (solo, duet with Jordan (2 tracks) and finally
both of them with the choir). The album is produced by Pierre and
Doatea Bensusan for DADGAD Music. Jacques Panis (Quart de Lune) is the
executive producer. Mixing and mastering were done by Rich Breen at
Dogmatic Studio in Burbank (California). Additional mixing was
performed by Dave Bevan at Alive Network Studios in Newcastle under
Lyme (UK). Allen Greenall designed the cover.
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