The Burton Greene Trio - Peace Beyond Conflict (2020)

Peace Beyond Conflict is the latest trio release from master pianist and improviser, Burton Greene with Adam Lane on bass and Dave Brandt on drums. The listener is brought into a performance at a loft studio in Brooklyn in 2003. Greene’s compositions and trio arrangements set forth boundless improvisations. “People must hear this.. we have to get it out!” exclaimed Greene upon hearing the recording over 15 years later. Now we can all hear this very special concert with a mystical atmosphere.

The Tunes: Sylosophy is inspired by Green’s long time collaboration with vocalist/composer Silke (Syl) Röllig. Over the years Greene and Röllig composed many works together on at least 7 labels with various ensembles. Greene recorded this piece as well as Peace Beyond Conflict in a duo with bassist Mark Dresser (CIMP Records). These trio versions of course are much different than the duo recordings. Sylosophy as you can hear is an intense free jazz romp!

Carnival of Mother Kali is a composition by the great sarod player and composer Ali Akbar Khan. It is in the classical Indian Rag Mala format—it uses all the notes (and the notes in between like quarter notes). Greene arranged it in particular for this concert. It is a very deep, mystical piece evoking the power of Mother Kali who according to the pantheon of Hindu goddesses is the destroyer of the demons and darkness in all of us - to prepare us for the light of a new age. As you can hear this piece throws us into the myriad facets and depths of darkness, only to emerge again at the end into the Light. Greene first heard Ali Akbar Khan at an all night concert in New York (about 1968) at the Ansonia Hotel and was spellbound. “We were up all night listening, yet emerged from that concert in the early morning, fresh as a daisy!”

Gnat Dance is all about the unpredictability of this insect in all of us. One never knows what comes next! It’s certainly playful but it’s also a satire on the political shenanigans and duplicity of our age. How far can you trust (most) politicians? As far as you can throw them!

Peace Beyond Conflict the title track of the CD is of course a ballad of hope for us all. It uses all the notes and yet is quite tonal. We all need some healing and that is what this piece peace is all about!

In this technocratic (Mother Kali) age where we’re all being manipulated to an extent by the super wealthy technocrats who seem to care much less about basic humanity and spiritual values than they care about their own increase in wealth and control power games, we need much great art, music, real aesthetic and spiritual insights to wake us all up in protest to what’s really going on in the darkness of this time!