Lao Dan is one of artistic mainstays at our friends Old Heaven in Shenzhen, and one of the current key players in the improvised music, experimental music and jazz scenes in China. One day we really hope we can host Lao Dan in the venue, but in the meantime we're delighted to share this 4-part new solo offering, seeing Lao Dan explore the lyrical possibilities of the saxophone in a variety of different settings.
On 'Don't Be Angry' Lao leans his tentative melodic phrasing against a flow of overlapping conversation, as if peeping his saxophone into a busy bar. Solos 1 & 2 are recorded alone in a quiet room, allowing him the space for his playing to cry, spiral and soar toward unfiltered emotive terrain. On the final piece, 'Song of Longevity' he branches out his playing, letting it wind its way around and sprawl through a bed of rolling fourth world electronica.
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Lao Dan - saxophones
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Cover & mastering by Oliver Barrett
A classically trained Chinese flutist at Shenyang Conservatory of Music (SYCM), Lao Dan sticks to his own vision of and approach to the bamboo flute and its sounds. His playing continues to push the limits of artistic expression on this instrument, exploring the possibilities of free, energetic, and nonconformist ways of sound-making confined by neither Jazz nor traditional Chinese musical conventions. His improvisation often brings to the audience an overwhelming sonic experience in which the East and the West, the ancient and the modern clash dramatically on each other.
