TOM CHRISTENSEN    TIM SUND    TOMAS ULRICH

"Kailash"

Tom Christensen - tenor saxophone, english horn, oboe, bass clarinet

Tim Sund – piano

Tomas Ulrich - cello

1.  bela's door (Sund)
2.  Igorissimo (Sund)
3.  A Midsummernight's tango (Sund)
4.  Kailash (Sund)
5.  A Proud round cloud in a white high night (Sund)
6.  Passagio (Sund)
7.  Floating Paper (Sund/Ulrich)
8.  Dark Village (Christensen/Sund)
9.  Kiss Your HEAd Goodbye (Christensen/Ulrich)
10. Myriad Affairs (Christensen/Sund/Ulrich)
11. Gumshoe rondo (Christensen)

Recorded October 2006 by Katherine Miller at The Studio, NYC.
Assisted by Eji Takasugi.
Mixed and mastered June 2007 by Matthias Reusch.

Produced by Rainer Wiedensohler, Tim Sund and Tom Christensen for Nabel.

Photography by Mark Brown.
Cover Painting by Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) with kind permission of the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York.
Cover Design by Nabel.

Kailash is dedicated in memorian to Master Sri Swami Satchidananda and his pilgrimage to this holiest of all mountains.

Igorissimo is dedicated to David Noon.

Special Thanks to
- Matthias Reusch for giving his magic touch to the sound of this recording.
- Daniel Entin, Director of the Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York.
- the Fieldston School, New York.
- Ulf Drechsel and radio kultur, Berlin.
- Michael Kersting and Bernhard Suhm for their incredible contributions to bring this music on its way.
- Nancy and Erika for continously supporting our projects.
Tim Sund thanks
- Mark Brown for his friendship and good spirits in the studio.
- Sascha A. Giebel for his fine ears and judgement.
- Swami Ramananda, Swami Bhaktananda, Jayadeva and the whole IYI-Family.
- Sri Swami Satchidananda for his guidance and continual inspiration.

Introducing The Kailash Trio
This first album by Tim Sund’s Kailash Trio presents a fresh look at jazz and improvised music through a unique balance of composition and improvisation that erases the borders between classical music and jazz.

The trio derives its name from the Himalayan mountain Kailash regarded in Hinduism as the center of the world. It is located at the heart of six mountain ranges symbolizing a and in legend has four faces made of , , , and . The four rivers flowing from Kailash flow to the four quarters of the world and divide the world into four regions. It is also the home of , destroyer of evil and sorrow and regarded as a paradise, the ultimate destination of souls and the spiritual center of the world. This deeply spiritual place and the beautiful paintings of it by Nicholas Roerich are a source of inspiration to the group.

The Kailash Trio is interested in breaking away from standard forms and finding new possibilities beyond the traditional jazz model of melody-solo-melody. Although we are not the first and won´t be the last ones to explore this area, we have tried to forge a personal approach to it in our music. After considering all of the recent developments in both classical music and jazz our goal is not to search for radical contributions to music history but rather to use the tools we possess in an individual and meaningful way. The trio strives to be inclusive of all music, not closing our ears to anything we find inspiring.

The Kailash Trio uses a classical trio format of piano, cello and a woodwind instrument so there is already a strong tradition that is implied by the instrumentation. However, within the field of jazz and improvised music this orchestration is unusual and sets the group immediately in uncharted territory. After recording Americana, our first album together both we (Tom and Tim) felt that our musical future should focus on the development of the contemporary chamber music side of our playing. The first step in achieving this meant leaving the standard rhythm section of bass and drums still used on Americana behind. It didn´t take long to realize that the cello would be the right instrument to add as it contributes an authentic string quality to the group and can switch seamlessly between a bass function, middle range accompaniment and primary melody. Siting Mislav Rostropovich and Jimi Hendrix his main inspirations, Tomas Ulrich was the perfect choice for the cello chair. Now, with three equally creative and innovative players in the trio, composed parts are freely interpreted, improvisation is indistinguishable from composition and ultimately the old boundaries begin to vanish.

Tim Sund on his music for the trio and compositional style:
I try to incorporate all of the influences that have made their way into my musical subconsciousness and make them my own. My general approach to composition is definetely more classical in the way I´m dealing with the musical material. By not thinking of structural boundaries, I let the material unfold and let it develop as far as it likes to. At this point structural thinking comes in for the first time and that´s when (in my opinion) real composing starts. It is about bringing ideas into perspective, discovering what comes next and what the material wants me to do with it. This is where larger structures come to life which do not follow a standardized model and hopefully break the rules creating original and exciting music.

Béla´s Door can be seen as immediate compositional response upon the idea of working with woodwinds and cello and was written in one sitting. It's a powerful piece using some compositional tools reminiscent of Bartók. At the same time there is a Spanish sounding phrygian flavor woven into the tune's fabric. In this rendition we use Béla's Door as a true opener introducing all three soloists by taking rounds before going into some collective powerplay.

Igorissimo is truly one of the central pieces of the album. It's by far the longest through designed composition and is developed not unlike a Sonata Allegro form with Exposition, Development, Recapitulation and Coda. My idea was to present the playful opening theme in all possible orchestral combinations. Throughout the piece all three instruments are switching back and forth between melody and accompaniment and build different pairs against one soloist. Simultaniously the continously played left hand figure of the piano creates the piece´s idiosyncratic momentum in the background and works itself through various harmonic regions. After a free piano cadenza and the following improvised piano/bass duet juxtaposing three different elements in changing order and length the piano solo starts with English horn and cello accompaniment that gradually builds up towards the solo´s climax. What follows is a new section that summarizes what happened before emotionally and leads us back to the recapitulation of the original material leading to a final peak, where the cello brings back a repetitive pattern from the piano solo section, but rhythmically displaced, which adds to the culminative feeling at this moment. The following coda takes the original theme and brings it down without further harmonic or rhythmic surprises and the piece comes to a close.

A Midsummernight's Tango was already written in 2000 and has been in my concert repertoire ever since although never recorded. Though not having been composed particularly for the trio it fits nicely to the instrumentation with its countermelodic basslines doubled by piano and cello. This piece is actually written pretty much in a classical AABA format but with an uncommon number of bars units: 12-12-8-14.
It has proven to be a great vehicle to loosen up on between some of the heavier pieces in our program.

My composition Kailash refers to the chrystal stillness which enters the Pilgrim‘s body, mind and soul on his way around Mount Kailash. The whole piece is based upon the opening two chords followed by a low perfect 5th in the piano. It´s like the leaves of a tree: they seem to be the same, but at a closer look each of them is different and unique. Here, one motive is always developed in a slightly different way and stretched further until it resolves into an anthem-like theme. It then calms down and returns to the original idea before rising up even more and leading into the piano solo. After the tenor solo the piece ends as it began, with the opening motive.

I recorded A Proud Round Cloud In A White High Night for my solo album As Dark As The Sun. This one-page-piece allows a lot of freedom for improvisation making each version quite different from the next. The improvised section is divided into two duets, cello/piano and tenor/piano.

I wrote Passagio while I was working as a guest teacher at Tom´s school in New York. One morning, when I had some free time, I went into a spare musicroom with a little upright piano and started composing accompanied by the noises of playing children in the schoolyard, a garbage truck and the sun shining through the classroom windows. I think the inspiring and serene scenery of this beautiful day in March 2004 is reflected quite well in this piece. The form of Passagio is AABB´CDDE, with the oboe soloing on parts A and B, followed by parts BBC as written leading right into the piano solo on part D. After the piano solo parts DDE come again as written and the piece ends. So basically we are just playing two times through the whole piece, the second time breaking up the structure with the solos.

The next four pieces are totally improvised miniatures, three duets and one trio. I use to carry around a little notebook in which I collect titles for new compositions. At the end of our recording session I opened this little book and chose a title. I read it to Tom and Tomas, then the tape was turned on and we started playing. What you hear are the immediate reactions to those titles.

The four free improvisations lead nicely into the final compostion by Tom Christensen entitled Gumshoe Rondo. This piece featuring the bass clarinet attempts to conjure up an image of an old fashioned gumshoe or private detective as portrayed by the great writers of this genre Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

Finally, the only further thing to say is, enjoy the music!

The Kailash Trio
August 2007