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In 1994 I was judge for the Leverkusener Jazztage in Leverkusen, Germany.
There were five bands to judge for the final. The groups were from Poland,
Norway, Holland, France and Germany. I found myself in the opposite
position as when I was myself a student in 1969 at the Notre Dame CJF.
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I
thought that all of the groups were good as well as different in approach. The Dutch group, "Five-up-High" was the winner in 1994. In the same year I recorded for the WDR Radio under the auspices of Dr. Uhlrich Kurth, then head of the jazz dept. I recorded 17 compositions for the radio that year as well as toured extensively with the trio. I was still concentrating on the trio through 1995. One tour had Onaje Allen Gumbs on piano and synthesizer and Ronnie Burrage on drums. It was at the end of 1995 that I decided to do now a quartet consisting of myself with another bassist, drums and percussion. Before that could materialize, I wrote a composition for contrabass entitled "Les Alpes aux Carpates". The instrumentation is solo contrabass with two pan flutes, string orchestra, female choir, synthesizer, drums and two other percussionist. This composition last 32 minutes. This was followed by another 11 compositions for the quartet of solo bass, accompanying bass, drums and percussion. The tour took place in January 1997. The band was myself and Buster Williams-basses, Miquel "Anga" Diaz - percussion and Ronnie Burrage on the drums. |
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We toured in France, Belgium, Holland where we recorded for the NPS Radio and in Germany where we recorded for the WDR Radio.
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