Member Since: 7/5/2007
Band Website: http://www.peterprimamore.com
Influences: Todd Rundgren, Becker and Fagen, Yes, Miles Davis, Chopin, Debussy, Peter Gabriel, Lyle Mays, Paintings of Turner & Giorgione, Italy and it's vast creative arc, England and it's massive impact on the world,Television (The medium,not the band-although they were ok),Jerry Lee Lewis,The Allman Brothers, Margaret Hill and Erin Flowers, Millamore and the peace of the countryside, History, My Family, Wonderful Food...repeatum ad absurdum
Sounds Like: Here are some perceptions of my music....................."it's hard to compare Peter's music to any one else's that I know, although you may hear some analogies. It's deep, but it rocks. As a composer, Peter is a master of tension and release, and when he decides to write a climax, he really writes a climax. It's great stuff."....Larry Chernicoff....."I enjoyed the excellent use of the Surround Sound field on the album. It really pulls you in to the music and highlights the musical themes of Peter Primamore's compositions. I'd also agree with those who have referred to Grancia's 5.1 Surround Sound mix as being "cinematic". It is indeed."......Brian Moura-High Fidelity Review.........."It is not going to be easy to describe this album in a single sentence. Grancia is a classically-influenced work of original material that somehow combines a singular gift for melody along with jazz sensibilities...a song like “Chatham,†named after the upstate New York town, could easily become an Academy Award winner for best musical score if this were part of a film score. It features Primamore, Chieli Minucci playing guitar with the grace of Oscar Castro-Neves and Tony Levin on bass. On other selections, the soaring work of Antoine Silverman on violin; Charles Pillow on any number of reed instruments (oboe, English horn, flute, clarinet) and the multi-reed work of Tim Moran (alto flute, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet) add immeasurably to the respective compositions."...........Michael Gladstone - All About Jazz............Grancia leans liberally on his jazz, Western, Brazilian and rock influences, but at its heart this is a jazzy chamber recording with viola, cello, harp and woodwinds.........Brian Soergel -Jazz Times..........."Rather like a tango band—piano, string quartet, percussion, but turning near-Celtic ..An extremely accomplished example of light music, sometimes ambitious in conception".......Robert Calder - Pop Matters............Primamore has done something that you wouldn't necessarily think was possible -- he's created an album of sweetly melodic, classically-inflected instrumental pop music that remains effortlessly accessible throughout ...........Rick Anderson - All Music Guide............Peter Primamore’s Grancia is a majestic union of orchestra instruments such as the violin, cello, harp as well as woodwinds, that encompass a beguiling album that will evoke any sensation a listener chooses to awaken..........Sari Kent -Celebritycafe.com............Sometimes the simplest things can be the hardest to achieve and in this Primamore achieves a stunning success. Dispensing with the aural window-dressing and letting the music talk for itself is especially true of “Lullaby / Elegyâ€, a striking and touching duet between the composer on piano and Tony Levin...my dictionary defines charm as “the power of delighting, attracting or fascinating†and Grancia manages to do all three.........Sid Smith - Postcards from the Yellow Room/DGMLIVE.com...........This is a most enjoyable chamber-jazz-oriented selection of a dozen compositions, which are mixed to make the most compelling use of the five-channel surround option of SACD...the overall feeling of most tracks reminded me of a 21st-century, more world music-oriented, version of some of the chamber music jazz I enjoyed so much in the 1950s.............John Sunier - Audiophile Audition..........Fluidly floating through distinctive moods, the ensemble players all acquit themselves admirably, yet this is really a showcase for Peter as both composer and pianist. Drawing inspiration from sources that are sometimes startlingly varied - the Allman Brothers, English literature, Brazilian music, matters mystical and earthy - Peter presents a rich tapestry of musical sounds all of which are played (and recorded) impeccably. His accompanists here are too numerous to mention but all play with skill and understanding....Bruce Crowther - Swingtobop.com..........It's an album you have to hear. You are virtually surrounded by the musicans. Close your eyes and you'll swear you're in the studio. The artist says the album was conceived as a surround recording right from the start. I believe it. If you have a properly balanced system and can playback SACD's in surround, expect great things. You won't be disappointed..........CDBaby.........There's a kind of classical feel owing to the instrumentation - piano, strings, oboe, clarinet, flute, some harp - but it's also spiced up with some Spanish/classical guitar and exquisitely tasteful bass and percussion. All the textures are used to paint all kinds of vivid pictures and moods: from sunny fields to winter snow to European cityscapes and more, it's a buffet for the ears. It seems like things should be structured fairly rigidly when balancing thirteen musicians in various combinations, but apparently everything was sketched out with room for each member to improvise and contribute freely in the finest jazz tradition. The result is a vividly colorful mix with a little of everything and then some. It also sounds great. I don't even have a SACD system to bring out the full depth of the recording, but the regular CD layer alone makes it sound as if Tony Levin is standing right in the living room and the flutes are fluttering just outside the window. Basically, Grancia is like twelve mini-movie scores without the video; sometimes thoughtful, sometimes sunny, sometimes sad, but always beautiful. Listen and your imagination can fill in the rest..........spiralmind-Amazon Review
Record Label: Blue Apples
Type of Label: Indie