© 2024 WBGO
Discover Jazz...Anywhere, Anytime, on Any Device.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Watch Jazz Futurist Mark de Clive-Lowe Perform Music Honoring His Ancient Past

Mark de Clive-Lowe

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.

For more than 15 years, Simon Rentner has worked as a host, producer, broadcaster, web journalist, and music presenter in New York City. His career gives him the opportunity to cover a wide spectrum of topics including, history, culture, and, most importantly, his true passion of music from faraway places such as Europe, South America, and Africa.