Twice, At Least

Looking back on my solo-playing, I realize that more and more I include material of different origin. Besides playing original compositions and free improvisations I embrace pieces by my favorite composers/musicians. It's fun to start freely, proceed with an original and finish with a Coltrane tune, all in one piece. Deconstruction / transformation / transition. How can I get from one piece to the other? Where is the transition, is there just one? What happens to a piece if it develops from a very different one? »Chant II« starts very easily with the middle C, like an invocation of all the good spirits of the piano. From there I go to »Kelvin« written for my son. I have been carrying that piece with me since 1989. »Touching« by Annette Peacock with its bittersweet mood is one of my favorite ballads played first by Paul Bley. He is always a great inspiration to me. Repetition plays an important part in my music. How often does a pattern want to be played, when is the time for a change? To figure this out I wrote »Enzym & Eros«, a piece that keeps producing new patterns whenever played. Playing inside the piano I often use the Mbira, a nice tool to trip up the well-tempered piano, as heard on »Magnetic Wood«, which floats into »Blues«, a beautiful modal composition by Steve Lacy. Carla Bley wrote significant pieces in the 1960s, inciting a little revolution back then. »King Korn« is one of them: abstract, yet one foot in the Blues. Monk, Monk, Monk, the master of transformation. I dedicate complete concerts to his music. The cunning »Brilliant Corners« is from one of these concerts. I combined it with my original »Twiyed Place« paraphrasing Monk's »Played Twice«. The last piece that night has been »Pannonica«, a wonderful vehicle to dig for musical gold. Uwe Oberg Freedom is an essential concept in Uwe Oberg's musical cosmos, so is improvisation. The pianist is anything but a restless seeker, he's a finder with great calmness: a finder of sounds, structures, melodic fragments, rhythmic and harmonic mutations. Finding all this doesn't happen by chance, for Oberg knows the history of Jazz all too well. His influences include Thelonious Monk, Paul Bley, Cecil Taylor, Don Pullen or even the early piano music of John Cage. His solo-performances in particular reveal his maturity in dealing with inspirations, taking them beyond any stereotype. A passionate soloist, he feeds in his long-standing experience of playing with ensembles like Lacy Pool, with Silke Eberhard, or his numerous improvising encounters. Now's the time to come out with a new musical solo-statement. All the music on this CD TWICE, AT LEAST has been recorded in concert, that's where his music literally lives and achieves a maximum of density and intensity. Claus Gnichwitz