Mark Feldman - What Exit

2022 European CD reissue.

String soloists in classical music can have such a big sound that it’s a shame so few of them play jazz with the right rhythmic feeling. The violinist Mark Feldman is one of the big exceptions. Best known as an improviser, he has classical music in his background, and in What Exit he establishes a midcareer high with a great band… Mixing classical technique with stretched-out, space-filled improvisation, he lets his compositions breathe deeply.
Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

Feldman’s What Exit is art music of the highest order. A violinist of astounding virtuosity, Feldman has rightly been called “the Heifetz of our generation”. … Feldman dives headlong into a new classical aesthetic on the stunning 23-minute “arcade”, a work of breathtaking beauty that travels from turbulent minimalism to mournful fragility. On that chamber-like opus and other pieces like the darkly introspective “Cadence,” the spacious “Elegy”, and tango-flavored “Maria Nuñez,” Feldman arrives at an organic integration of classical and modern jazz. An inveterate swinger, the violinist also reveals his sizzling jazz chops on the quirky, free-bop romp “Ink Pin” and the surging title track, which contains a swinging, walking bass section that Feldman wail