Lavande is a 5 parts piece with improvisation, I wrote it in 1983, did various recordings of it, and decided to redo it properly for the quintet I had created in 2007.

Having decided I would as from now only play with professional musicians, I financed the whole project with my own money, the musicians were adequately paid, and we had 4 very busy days in my home. The photo here is blurred, but it´s the only I have and gives a good impression of the relaxed but busy atmosphere.

Unfortunately, Rüdiger was not available that week, so we recorded as a quartet without percussion. There are different live recordings of the Missing Link 2007 repertoire on Reverbnation if you´re interested (here a link to the first piece, let it play further...).

Unfortunately, the quality was not sufficient for an album release (stereo mix from the desk), but there are good moments. I had to put the project on hold because the money went short, and I found no interest in average thinking local audiences (and labels). Now I know that actually, it was all my fault...

Anyway, since 1983 every time I have the opportunity to play these music pieces in concert I hear the comment "this music comes 20 years too early". I´m a bit fed up with this comment, so I have decided NOW is the time!!!

Temo and Verena were very involved in the process, Giorgi the oboist had problems with improvisation, he could do very well, but needs more time and practice. Nevertheless, all these musicians show excellent musicianship.

What this music is concerned, it is the most advanced kind of writing I did, it was actually written on paper as I heard it, keeping in mind it is supposed to launch improvisation.

This music I would describe as "savante", it is inspired by Scriabin, Bartok, Messiaen, Ravel, Satie, George Russell and his "harmolodic concept", i.e. Lydian Chromatic Concept, exploring the famous "modes with limited transposition" and fiddling around entanglements of major and minor thirds, at least contradicting John Cage who "hated Jazz and its stapling of thirds".

As I said, tomorrow I´ll be uploading the whole album on the internet. 

Last, but not least, this week I managed to cut a video with one of the pieces, and it´s already on Vimeo, using another of these public domain archives from 1908.

This is a Waltz and I called it Czech because of the weird harmonies used. I do love Eastern European people, especially from Georgia!

And now you can enjoy