the circle is unbroken Larry Porter - piano Johannes Fink - bass Oliver Steidle - drums
The CD is composed of six Porter originals, one Thelonious Monk composition, and a piece out of the Stephen Foster songbook. Porter's The Circle Is Unbroken, Meditation On A Rainy Day, Quarter To Four, and Blue In Rose are part of a series of compositions influenced by the cyclical nature of North Indian classical music. As Larry explains, "In the typical Western song structure, the melody comes to an end shortly before the form ends. In these pieces the melody loops around, obscuring the sense of beginning and end. This creates a feeling of continuous flow."
SONGS Barbara Mayr - vocal Larry Porter - piano Thomas Stabenow - bass John Hollenbeck - drums
Larry has been writing songs with original lyrics for many years and recently recorded six of them with the gifted singer, Barbara Mayr. She did an amazing job tackling this very challenging vocal repertoire which also includes a special selection of five standards. They are supported by a sparkling rhythm group featuring the earthy bass of Thomas Stabenow and the colorful drums of John Hollenbeck from New York. Together they succeed in imparting a remarkably distinct character to each song making for an extremely enjoyable set of music.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem is perhaps the most eloquent description of artistic inspiration ever written.
Becalmed upon the sea of Thought,
Still unattained the land it sought,
My mind, with loosely-hanging sails,
Lies waiting the auspicious gales.
On either side, behind, before,
The ocean stretches like a floor,---
A level floor of amethyst,
Crowned by a golden dome of mist.
Blow, breath of inspiration, blow !
Shake and uplift this golden glow !
And flll the canvas of the mind
With wafts of thy celestial wind.
Blow, breath of song ! until I feel
The straining sail, the lifting keel,
The life of the awakening sea,
Its motion and its mystery !
I’ve always been interested in music from all over the world. I began learning piano at age six and grew up studying classical music and listening to rock & roll. When I was 13, I fell passionately in love with jazz and spent the next few years teaching it to myself mainly through rather fanatic listening. By the time I was 20, jazz piano had become my life and profession. From the moment I was exposed to music from non-Western traditions, it seemed perfectly natural to me to focus on its beauty rather than its foreignness. In those years, we rummaged through record bins to find LPs of African and Asian music, and the term World Music hadn’t been invented yet.
My curiousity drove me to journey overland from Europe to India spending a few months in each country. When I arrived in Afghanistan, I was so taken by the music, that I decided to learn an instrument. The rebab with its hypnotic yet percussive sound especially caught my ear. By some stroke of luck, I was lead to the greatest rebab master, Ustad Mohammad Omar, in Kabul’s old city. His teachings were a strong basis on which I could build for years to come. I was incredibly fortunate to have experienced Afghanistan’s Golden Age.
I was 25, when I got back from India. My musical world had been transformed, broadened, and enriched. I was able to work a lot playing the rebab as well as the sarod which I had also studied in Delhi. For a Western musician, especially a pianist, it is wonderfully satisfying to delve into music absent of harmony where every note is measured against the drone. It becomes addictive. The modes, rhythms, and resonance of the rebab can inspire trance, which I discovered as a new musical element. I found that this informed my approach to piano, which became more melodic and transparent.
Over the years, I have played and composed for both instruments in many different settings. I’ve tried to develop my Eastern and Western sides on separate tracks, so as not to lose sight of their essence. When the moment was right, however, I would let them fuse and in doing so strive to create something with its own integrity. Successful fusion comes about through knowledge and respect for both traditions. I’ve become more and more fascinated by this idea recently and hope to devote the next years to realizing a more perfect synthesis of East and West. Nowadays when World Music is more or less a synonym for pop music, it’s all the more challenging.
hi larry! long time no see... hope you're doing fine. christian will be in berlin within the first 2 weeks of dec., don't know yet if i can come for some days, cause i started working in a music school some months ago... hope we'll get the chance to play together again! do you ever perform here in my region? greets
Hi Larry, hat mir sehr viel Freude gemacht, unsere Bekanntschaft nach so langer Zeit zu intensivieren und zusammen zu spielen. Höre sehr gerne deine CD "The circle is unbroken". Viele Grüsse, Matthias
Hello Larry, great to hear from you after so long! We had some great music sessions and concert in Cali! You don't happen to have any recordings of us? Good to see my pic on your myspace, hope our paths cross again for more soulful music! Thanks Tameem
Larry, My first passage to hear from you,your lovely sound Thanks for the Lena's song and Mystery underg....tracks.The sound of the drums..... Good luck!!!! God bless you Nikki
hi larry, thanks for accepting the invitation into my artspace. i'm again enjoying the music on yourspace while i'm writing this. i see that my "wendl&lung" has an appearence in your beau- tiful slide show. have a creative and joyful week. see you wolf kaulsdorf sky
Yeah it was also a pleasure for me , Larry I hear the record and i was turned by the music in other spaces.....space is the place! Yeah, hope fully we met us some day for another session..... greetings from my dad, mom, charlie, wes, jaco, mal, eric, john, bobby......and, and, and Okay Ciao alla prossima;-)
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