Borah Bergman

A New Frontier is a solo piano record by Borah Bergman, recorded in New York in January 1983 and mixed at Barigozzi Studio in Milan on April 14 and 15 of that year for Soul Note. It holds two long works of his own, each in two parts, and the sleeve states that no multitracking, overdubbing or tape speeding was used on any selection. The note has a reason. As Ken Waxman explained in Jazzword in 2013, after years of practice Bergman had developed his left hand until it moved as fast as the right, with each hand able to work independently of the other.

Waxman's account fills in the rest. Bergman, born in Brooklyn, made his first record in 1975 for Chiaroscuro, a relatively mainstream date; an introduction from the editor of Musica Jazz to the producer of Soul Note and Black Saint brought him to the Milan labels, and the solo discs he made for them in the early 1980s gave him his reputation. On ballads he crossed his hands, the right taking the bass and the left the treble, and he preferred "ambi-ideation" to the word ambidextrous, since it stressed the equality of the two hands. The first work here, Night Circus, is in two parts, By the Red Moon at about thirteen minutes and Trapeze at about nine. The second, Time for Intensity, joins Swift River and Webs & Whirlpools, each close to ten minutes. Giovanni Bonandrini produced the album, Giancarlo Barigozzi mixed it, Gennaro Carone mastered it at the Polygram plant in Tribiano, near Milan, and Arrigo Polillo wrote the liner notes, with a cover photograph by Hank O'Neal.

This is the Soul Note CD 121030-2, which Discogs lists as a reissue of the album first released on LP in 1983 as SN 1030.