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a r t i s t Teathered Moon
a l b u m Experiencing Tosca
l a b e l Winter & Winter
g e n r e Other
r i p d a t e Jul-21-2004
s t r e e t d a t e 000-00-0000
o r i g i n a l r e l 2004
s u p p l i e r freund
s o u r c e cd
b i t r a t e VBR
e n c o d e r lame 3.90.3
r e l e a s e n o t e s
Tethered Moon experiencing Tosca
Experiencing Tosca is the trio's sixth CD; they've been getting
together on an irregular basis since 1990. The core of their
discography is three tribute albums: ╗Play Kurt Weill½ from 1995,
╗Play Jimi Hendrix½ from 1997, and ╗Chansons d'Edith Piaf½, made in
1999 - highly concentrated, intimate recordings that were universally
praised. Experiencing Tosca marks a further development in the band,
involving free use of themes from Puccini's opera Tosca. Masabumi
Kikuchi, the trio's driving force, actually reckons that this is the
best Tethered-Moon CD so far.
The history behind the project is just as unusual as the result. ╗Al
Foster and Gil Evans had recommended me to Miles Davis½, Kikuchi
relates. ╗I visited him at home, and he had stuck copies of the piano
reduction of Tosca all over the walls, from the second floor right
down to the bottom; on the staircase, on the walls - everywhere there
was Tosca. I don't know how long it hung there. Miles was a really
crazy guy. Gil and he wanted to do Tosca, but somehow it never
happened. Later, when I was in the band, they kept talking about it,
but Miles was getting interested in pop. He didn't want to go back.
Then, many years later, I got hold of the music and started playing
it. Just to myself. And after a few more years, when I was to make a
new disc for Winter & Winter, Paul came over to my place and we
talked about what we could play. I played him one of the arias. And
he said straight away: let's do it.½
Experiencing Tosca is no opera arrangement, nor is it a concept
album. The opera and its plot have no significance for Kikuchi.
Actually, the Japanese New Yorker doesn't like opera, because, so he
says, the visual aspect undermines his imagination. ╗We simply met
and started playing. And called the first piece: Homage to Puccini.
It went well; we liked it. Then I said: let's play a blues: Blues for
Tosca.½
Giacomo Puccini's verismo three-acter, premiered in Rome in 1900, may
be one of the most famous and successful of all operas, but one
doesn't need to know the plot to understand this music. One can be
enchanted by the trio's ╗Homage to Puccini½ without having the
faintest idea where the famous tenor aria ╗E lucevan le stelle½ (╗And
the stars shone½) fits in the story of the opera: namely that the
painter Cavaradossi, awaiting his execution, is thinking back on the
time spent with his beloved Tosca. The same is true of ╗Part IV½,
based on Tosca's lament ╗Vissi d'Arte, vissi d'amore½ (╗My life was
devoted only to beauty½).
The remaining five pieces - plus an intro - are freely improvised.
Melody lines and fragments from Puccini's late-Romantic masterpiece
flare up time after time; for instance, the strikingly cheerful ╗E
sempre lava!½ provides the theme of ╗Part III½. But they simply give
an impetus to the trio's imagination and cooperation. ╗We start with
themes, but if I hear something else with my inner ear, then I turn
off somewhere else in my playing, and the other two are good enough
to follow me. Paul never rehearses with us. He said at the start: I
don't need rehearsals. And he was right. We never know what he's
going to play. And I don't even want to know. That's fantastic. -
Gary and I do work together. Sometimes he supports me, or I him,
sometimes we play off against one another. The music between Gary and
me is like a prism. If one changes the angle, the colour changes.
Sometimes, when it's not working, we have no light, and there's
nothing to see. But mainly it's fantastic. We let it flow completely
freely. It's an unbelievably direct way of expressing oneself.½
It's their attitude to music, to free yet sparse, concentrated
playing, that links these three old masters. This mixture of thematic
working and free improvisation gives rise to sonic areas of
enchanting beauty, and dense harmonic and rhythmic textures, tender
and fragile, meditative but also energetic, introverted yet
accessible to anyone, that open hearts and ears. In the three years
since recording the Edith Piaf album, Kikuchi, Peacock and Motion
hadn't played together. And whether these three loners will appear
live before making the next CD recording, heaven alone knows. All the
more reason to be grateful for Experiencing Tosca.
Masabumi Kikuchi, born 1939 in Tokyo, studied music at Tokyo
University from 1955 to 1958. In the 60s he toured Japan with Lionel
Hampton and Sonny Rollins, recorded with Charlie Mariano, and in 1968
gained a Down-Beat scholarship to Berklee College in Boston. Since
then he has swung to and from between the USA and Japan, residing in
New York since the mid-70s. He has worked with musicians like Elvin
Jones, Gary Peacock, Gil Evans, Terumasa Hino, McCoy Tyner and, time
after time, Sonny Rollins. In the 90s he also became involved in
DJ-music and avant-garde fusion. He seldom performs live.
Gary Peacock, born 1935, is one of the most significant bass players
in modern jazz. In the course of the 60s, playing in groups led by
Jimmy Giuffre, Roland Kirk, Bill Evans, Paul Bley, George Russell,
Albert Ayler or Roswell Rudd, he steadily liberated the bass from its
role as a harmonic foundation, making it an equally privileged melody
instrument. From 1969 to 1972 he lived in Japan, after which he
withdrew from the music scene for four years to study biology. Since
then he has recorded several discs under his own name, working with
musicians like Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner and Bill Frisell. Along
with Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, he is part of one of the most
successful trios in contemporary jazz.
The percussionist Paul Motion, born 1931 in Philadelphia, also ranks
among the greatest innovators on his instrument. Certainly, if
necessary, Motion will play with a swinging groove, but mainly he
detached himself from the traditional task of keeping the rhythm, and
acts within a group as a partner with equal rights to rhythmic,
melodic and timbral freedom. From 1959 to 1963 he, Scott LaFaro and
Bill Evans formed what is now regarded as the latter's most important
trio, and then he worked with (among others) Paul Bley, Charlie
Haden, Archie Shepp and Keith Jarrett. He was offered the position of
second drummer with John Coltrane, but refused it. Since his 1972
debut, he has recorded numerous albums under his own name, often in
trio combinations with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano. His Electric
Bebop Band, with the unusual line-up of two saxophones, two electric
guitars, bass and percussion, turned out to be an important foundry
for talents in the 90s: Kurt Rosenwinkel, Chris Potter, Chris Cheek
and Joshua Redman all emerged from it. Since 1988 he has recorded for
JMT Productions and Winter & Winter.
- Arnt Cobbers (Translated by Richard Toop)
...and remember: s t a y f u f f e n s f o r l i f e
t r a c k l i s t
Prologue 01:14
Part I 08:21
Part II 06:28
Part III 07:36
Homage to Puccini [Masabumi Kikuchi] 07:04
Ballad 08:20
Blues for Tosca [Masabumi Kikuchi] 05:25
Part IV 11:02
55:30
MB 78,5
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