„Dancing On The Edge“ is the first of my albums on Bandcamp which fall into category „Oldies but…“, some audio documents which became „homeless“, for one reason or another.
This solo recording was made in 1990. I am playing here the world tallest upright piano, designed and built by the German piano technician from Bonn called David Klavins. To promote this unique instrument, David organized many concerts in the Klavierhaus Klavins Bonn, the piano shop he ran together with his brother.
Additionally he founded a label, KM (Klavins Musik), solely dedicated to capturing the sound of his invention. A few dozens of recordings were made, featuring the giant piano in programs of classical, avant-garde, improvised and jazz music.
I was quite fascinated by it’s qualities, and, asked by David to contribute to the growing catalogue, agreed immediately. I wrote all eight pieces for that session; some of them display the unusual qualities of the instrument, for instance the bass register - after all, the longest strings measure slightly over 3 meters! This made David come up with a special solution: the distance between the hammers and the strings was not the same across the keyboard, gradually increasing from upper to lower register. This posed a somewhat daunting task for the performers, since the applied touch had to be adjusted constantly. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the challenge quite a bit.
1. Monk Me Up 08:52
2. Promenade 10:12
3. Blues Nonstop 12:01
4. Fifth's Dimension 05:27
5. Now And Zen 04:32
6. Volker's Folk Song 14:25
7. Octave Divider 07:08
8. Dancing On The Edge 13:48
Recorded March 11 1990 at the Klavierhaus Klavins Bonn
Sound Engineer: Fred Bürkl
Cover Art by Dominic Milano
Produced by David Klavins
KM 011
Digitally recorded with two B&K microphones (Type 4003) direct to
two track Nakamichi 1000 PRO DAT system
