David Potter

“The Sirens” is acclaimed saxophonist Chris Potter’s ECM debut as a leader, an album of mood and melody inspired by The Odyssey – both its epic atmosphere and its timeless humanity. Potter – who has featured on many ECM albums by Dave Holland and Steve Swallow, as well as making a profound contribution to the contemporary classic “Lost in a Dream” with Paul Motian and Jason Moran – has composed a cycle of irresistible songs without words. These pieces are conveyed by a subtly virtuosic, strikingly textured band: with Potter on tenor and soprano saxophones and bass clarinet, plus Craig Taborn (piano), David Virelles (prepared piano, celeste, harmonium), Larry Grenadier (double bass) and Eric Harland (drums). Potter declaims lyrical lines over the dynamically inventive rhythm section, as colouristic keyboards shimmer like stars in the night sky.

"David Pohle created his Zwolf Liebesgesange in the early seventeenth century, crucially advancing the emerging genre of the German song. The settings of the 26-year-old Pohle are valuable testimonials to the development of this genre. The poems by Paul Fleming, on which these settings are based, bear autobiographical features, mirrored by David Pohle in his compositions by the use of two equal voices. In a varied manner, the music and text tell of love, loss and pain, of happiness, determination and abstinence. Audite presents this premiere recording with a top-class cast of soloists and instrumentalists.