In this trying time of Covid and the serious curtail of gigs and record production opportunities, I’m glad to be in contact with Dark Companion Records and Max Marchini. Max seems to be the rare guy who puts the quality of contemporary music he produces much more to the fore than the financial considerations.. the investment in which is always tricky, and can hardly ever promise much in financial return.
On to the music herein: Just before the Covid came on last year I was fortunate to get a dream piano: a fairly recent model Yamaha grand, which has inspired me to make many recordings with it here on my houseboat in Amsterdam, in the relative isolation period of the past year.. solos, duos, and trios. These have been made with fine musicians I’ve been working with for years: percussionist Roberto Haliffi (Libya, Italy, Amsterdam), composer/flutist Tilo Baumheier (South Germany, Amsterdam), and composer/bassist Renato Ferreira (Sao Paolo Brazil, Amsterdam, Rome) on bass.
Burton Greene, May 2021
To me Dark Companion it’s the highway through which make musical dreams come true. When Greg Lake pushed me into this journey, I thought who were the musicians I admired the most, and simply asked them if they would be interested to be part of this adventure.
So I asked the likes of Lino Capra Vaccina, Keith Tippett, John Greaves, Jeanette Sollén, Annie Barbazza, Markus Stockhausen, Greg himself, Jemaur Tayle, Paul Roland, Ron Geesin, Michael Kressner and many more... and all - each in his own semanthic - not only generously agreed, but became part of what is now a real family, of which I am deeply proud. As a matter of choice we don’t look back to the glorious past, but we want to focus on the present: so it was natural for me to call jazz legend Burton Greene, and ask him if he would be interested in joining us. He was really enthusiastic of being part of this family. We spent nights on skype talking about music, moonlights, joy. Unfortunately we cannot anymore go further in our projects but this very first one. He was a immensely talented, humble, volanic musician and a wonderful person. I would like to dedicate this album
to our mutual friend Patty Waters, who played and recorded with Burton, whose voice is a blessing and an inspiration for us all, hoping she will be the next memeber of our growing family.
So long Burton.
Max Marchini, September 2022
The last album of avant-jazz legend Narada Burton Greene, recorded in total freedom of expression just before he passed away is now available on Dark Companion Records in a state-of-the -art sounding CD mastered by Alberto
Callagari at Elfo Studios. Crafted in a mini-album paper sleeve with a rich libretto with exhaustive liner notes written by Burton himself and unseen photos, in a first limited run of 250 audiophile premium quality CD.
