This CD began as a series of experiments with rhythm and modal melodies. When I wanted to try an idea I would put it on my Korg O1W sequencer and play around with it. Over the period of two years I kept working on them and came up with 3 interesting pieces ('Armenia', 'Just Visiting', and 'Botswana Waltz') that I began to perform live (along with the sequence) with drummer and percussionist Tom Lee. I played bamboo flute or Soprano Saxophone and we did a number of small concerts in the South Florida area using the sequences as part of our repertoire. The response was so encouraging we decided to use parts of the sequences and record live percussion and woodwinds in the studio. During this time I also did a sequence for a modern dance piece choreographed by Damaris Ferrer which appears here as 'Ablution'. I recorded the Alto flute over that sequence.
Then we recorded a couple of live compositions without any sequences to round out the project. The first of these was a Flamenco inspired piece titled 'Segatanieras', using live Flamenco footwork and Palmas. The second piece is an Irish Gigue inspired tune called 'Bamboo' with Tom Lee on Clay Pot and Joe Zeytoonian on Shaker. Recording the live Flamenco footwork on 'Segatanieras' was quite a challenge as we had to build a wooden platform in the recording studio for the dancers to work on and it took several hours of experimentation with different microphones and microphone placement to get the best tone possible. We finally settled on Paizo contact mics (often used for live acoustic piano) under the floor. In comparison 'Bamboo' was very simple to put together. We recorded live with the percussionists and then I overdubbed three flute parts.
Read the complete review, and about the musicians and instrumentation, and the compositions of 'bamboo dynasty'.