There are few artists as plugged-in to music's future as Mark de Clive-Lowe. So it's also exciting when this forward-thinking jazz pianist gets the opportunity to investigate an ancient myth from his ancestral past.
By the look of all of this pianist's gadgets and gizmos, sequencers and loopers, and live-electronic sound manipulators, you might think he is only concerned with music from the present or future. But this is not the case for this unique, classically-trained jazz pianist, who is also fanatically into the sounds of Sun Ra and Ahmad Jamal. In this video, the LA-based artist explores a old tale from his Japanese heritage.
"Ryūgū-jō,” which means “The Dragon Palace,” is inspired by the folk story or Urashima Taro, in which a man saves a turtle and is rewarded by being taken to the undersea Dragon Palace, a place of amazing beauty and decadence. He spends three days there after which he returns to land - only, each day in the Dragon Palace is 100 years on land, so he comes back to his home 300 years later to find all his friends and loved ones gone. This composition is an imagining of this magical place where time stands still.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF_aEMqcRao
Mark de Clive-Lowe composer, piano, keys, live electronics
Kaoru Watanabe - shinobue flute, taiko
Yumi Kurosawa - koto
Shing02 - faderboard
Tylana Enomoto - violin
Brandon Eugene Owens - bass
Tommaso Cappellato - drums
Carlos Niño - percussion
Recorded at Grand Performances in Los Angeles.