Free+improvisation

ESP-Disk' has a little bit of history with Argentina – we issued Gato Barbieri's first international release, and our Steve Lacy album was recorded there – so we couldn't resist putting out this compilation of 2012-17 recordings (most previously unreleased) from the Buenos Aires scene. In his liner notes, compiler Jason Weiss writes, "In June 1966, just as General Juan Carlos Onganía was leading a military coup d’état, Steve Lacy’s quartet arrived in Buenos Aires: not exactly safe harbor for free jazz. Despite opposition the group gained a small following, appearing on television, at a museum, in private homes, but they couldn’t earn enough for their return flights. When the quartet—Lacy, Enrico Rava, Johnny Dyani, Louis Moholo, a supergroup in retrospect—played at the venerable Instituto di Tella, whose experimental music center was directed by the composer Alberto Ginastera, Lacy instructed the group to do two free improvised sets of twenty minutes each; it proved to be their only document of the whole adventure, released by ESP the following year as The Forest and the Zoo."

The pianist, two days in the studio, alone at the piano. A retreat in Zurich. Focus is on the now, the recording is running. Preparation time for the new compositions: about a year. Getting attuned to the music: a lifetime. Alexander von Schlippenbach, Slow Pieces For Aki, the emphasis being on the word “slow,” not on rediscovering slowness but discovering slowness anew - dedicated to his wife Aki Takase. with slow pieces, short pieces, compositions in which every single note demands the highest degree of attention, virtuosity shifts from the purely technical to the actual notes themselves, avoiding all irrel - evancies. Sounds that are able to glow in the dark and form themselves into star signs. it is not only Jazz and new Music that appear from far away, but also classical and romantic music, always reflected by the personality, the life and playing experience of Alexander von Schlippenbach. From my subjective point of view, dare i suggest, there is a certain serious lyricism. Slow, full of passion and filled with dedication to the music.

A monumental 85-minute organ improvisation for the music for the film-documentary "Congo Safari" by Marcel Isy-Schwart.