专辑简介

Linernotes: I first met Matt Renzi in Spring 1995 working with Nicholas Walker's band at La Linea in the East Village of New York City. After that we played together frequently in Matt's apartment in Brooklyn. We mostly played in a trio setting with different bass players according to their availability. I met Ben Monder at around the same time. We were working together at a steady Sunday brunch gig at a cafe in Greenwich Village. We played standards, (very very quietly so as not to disturb the diners.) The following summer Matt and I started organising private sessions with Ben. We worked on original compositions by Matt. From time to time we got some little gigs in the city. So there I was playing with two of the most amazing musicians I ever heard. By now I had been struggling to make a living as a musician in New York City for almost three years. I realised that I had come to New York to play with musicians like Ben and Matt, and that now was the time to make a recording with them. Half a year after my revelation, I finally had enough confidence (and some money saved up) to book some time in a recording studio. We had been fortunate to play with some great bass players (thanks to Matt Penman, Chris Lightcap, Reid Anderson and Doug Weiss), but of course great bass players work a lot and are not always available. So when it came time to make a decision about who to use for the recording, I was not sure what to do. It was always one of my dreams to play once in my life with one of the greatest bass players ever, Marc Johnson. So why not call him for my first self produced recording session? I finally did, and he was very supportive. His participation brought the music to another level. I had spent many hours imagining what it would be like to play with him. The experience was even better than the fantasy. On March 9th, 1997 we went to RPM Recording Studio and spent one whole day to get all this music on tape. Mike Krowiak, the sound engineer, did an amazing job recording and mixing at the same time. We recorded everything live to two track DAT. Heinrich Köbberling