Vaz says “The making of this album reflects such a cycle for me. Closing a chapter and the start of something new, while being thankful for what has been and at the same time opening up for the unknown.

The pieces selected for this album connect to this process. I found great joy in the beauty of these compositions. The recordings of Frank Sinatra were another inspiration for picking these songs. He inspires me to approach the music in a way a singer would do, to play the trumpet in a more vocal manner and to connect with and portray the essence of the song.”

Each recording starts and ends with the main artist alone in the hall, the only interplay being the acoustics of the hall and his mind. No audience is present except the ghosts from the past. The music must create an Arch, going from the single-instrument performance to the more complex band performance and back to the last solo performance.

The same principle goes for the engineering; each recording starts out with only one Josephson C700S 3-channel stereo microphone. As the music gains in complexity more microphones may be deployed, the only limit being the imagination and technical skills of the recording engineer. The producer and engineer must aim to make the album have a unifying sound, despite the different recording techniques employed.

Gidon Nunes Vaz Quartet
Gidon Nunes Vaz – Trumpet & Flugelhorn
Timothy Banchet – Piano
Cas Jiskoot – Double Bass
Yoràn Vroom – Drums