Julian Gerstin
Afrobeat, jazz, maracatu, brass, cha cha cha, polyphonic bells, multiple percussion: this is a CD of exploration that weaves between nations and history and politics, happiness and grief and love. - Julian Gerstin
Julian Gerstin
Littoral Zone
All my life I've been fascinated by the intertidal areas: beaches, wave-washed rocks, mangrove forests. I crouch by tidepools, with their densely packed life: crabs, urchins, seaweed, anemones, and, especially, mollusks. "Littoral Zone" is seventeen percussion pieces for my favorite snails, scallops, and squid — and for you, dear listener.
This is my first solo recording. I play over 50 percussion instruments — a variety of drums, bells, shakers, scrapers, berimbau, bottles, whistles, found objects. With seventeen songs there's a lot of variety: grooves and non-grooves, slow and fast, calm and edgy, compositions and improvisations, and, of course, a full range of gastropods, bivalves and cephalopods.*
The Old City
This CD celebrates the world’s crossroads cities, where immigrants and long-time residents mingle their musical traditions and new sounds emerge. Cumbia from Cali, danzón from Havana, mambo from New York, tsamikos from Athens, cocek from Skopje, salsa-merengue hybrids from the streets of San Francisco, are all expressed through the lens of contemporary jazz. In these times, we need to remember the importance of people of different cultures sharing their lives. Speaking of sharing, I continue to feel wonder at how collaborative music is. As we prepared this recording, each band member made critical contributions. It takes the combined efforts, the lifetime of experience, the imagination and the specific musical skills of an entire group to make a song come alive. I thank each of them whole-heartedly.
