Michael Robinson will premiere and discuss his new album, Garlanded In Wistaria, together with four earlier tracks, Chinese Legend, From Hills of Snow, Adorned With Pearl and Trance In Bamboo.

From the Garlanded In Wistaria liner notes by Michael Robinson:
Garlanded in Wistaria is a nearly hour-long alap and ballad at once, my Indian classical music and jazz orientations coalescing into something different. Alap is the opening section of ragas, meaning “touch a color,” normally devoid of any steady beat, being tempo-less music. My use of an extremely slow pulse simultaneously relates to the remarkably slow tempos favored by Frank Sinatra and John Coltrane for their ballad interpretations. Intersections between Indian classical music and jazz manifest in unique ways, never designed, but rather flowing naturally from my personal assimilations of these titanic traditions transcending national borders and intellectual and spiritual boundaries.

Each of my composition’s four chords, and the melodic movement corresponding to them, qualify as belonging to Asavari thaat (Aeolian mode), if with four different tonal centers for sadja (tonic). This was only apparent after analyzing my melodic responses to the chords, noticing I had done so intuitively. 

Mostly moving in distilled, spare phrases, the historic Electra piano voicing the melodic voice also visits glissandi and tremolos at moments of greatest intensity. Garlanded in Wistaria ends suddenly, as if waking from a reverie.

My title, Garlanded in Wistaria, is from a poem by Ch-u Yuan (340-278 BC) translated by Ezra Pound (1885-1972), including his deliberate spelling of “wistaria.” While reading this poem, the words of my title rose-up off the page, suggesting in poetry the subtle flavor of my musical feeling.

I will get me to the wood

Where the gods walk garlanded in wistaria,

By the silver blue flood

move others with ivory cars.

For more info visit azuremilesrecords.com

TRACKLIST:

1. Garlanded In Wistaria (title track of album)

2. Chinese Legend (title track of album)

3. From Hills of Snow (from Chinese Legend)

4. Adorned With Pearl (title track of album)

5. Trance In Bamboo (from Adorned With Pearl)